"Oh, at once, at once!" exclaimed Henriette, hastening toward the door. "We will do what we can to help."
Gilberte also displayed much enthusiasm for her new occupation as nurse; she barely took the time to throw a lace scarf over her head, and the three women went downstairs. When they reached the bottom and stood in the spacious vestibule, looking out through the main entrance, of which the leaves had been thrown wide back, they beheld a crowd collected in the street before the house. A low-hung carriage was advancing slowly along the roadway, a sort of carriole, drawn by a single horse, which a lieutenant of zouaves was leading by the bridle. They took it to be a wounded man that they were bringing to them, the first of their patients.
"Yes, yes! This is the place; this way!"
But they were quickly undeceived. The sufferer recumbent in the carriole was Marshal MacMahon, severely wounded in the hip, who, his hurt having been provisionally cared for in the cottage of a gardener, was now being taken to the Sous-Prefecture. He was bareheaded and partially divested of his clothing, and the gold embroidery on his uniform was tarnished with dust and blood. He spoke no word, but had raised his head from the pillow where it lay and was looking about him with a sorrowful expression, and perceiving the three women where they stood, wide eyed with horror, their joined hands resting on their bosom, in presence of that great calamity, the whole army stricken in the person of its chief at the very beginning of the conflict, he slightly bowed his head, with a faint, paternal smile. A few of those about him removed their hats; others, who had no time for such idle ceremony, were circulating the report of General Ducrot's appointment to the command of the army. It was half-past seven o'clock.
"And what of the Emperor?" Henriette inquired of a bookseller, who was standing at his door.
"He left the city near an hour ago," replied the neighbor. "I was standing by and saw him pass out at the Balan gate. There is a rumor that his head was taken off by a cannon ball."
But this made the grocer across the street furious. "Hold your tongue," he shouted, "it is an infernal lie! None but the brave will leave their bones there to-day!"
When near the Place du College the marshal's carriole was lost to sight in the gathering crowd, among whose numbers the most strange and contradictory reports from the field of battle were now beginning to circulate. The fog was clearing; the streets were bright with sunshine.
A hail, in no gentle terms, was heard proceeding from the courtyard: "Now then, ladies, here is where you are wanted, not outside!"
They all three hastened inside and found themselves in presence of Major Bouroche, who had thrown his uniform coat upon the floor, in a corner of the room, and donned a great white apron. Above the broad expanse of, as yet, unspotted white, his blazing, leonine eyes and enormous head, with shock of harsh, bristling hair, seemed to exhale energy and determination. So terrible did he appear to them that the women were his most humble servants from the very start, obedient to his every sign, treading on one another to anticipate his wishes.
"There is nothing here that is needed. Get me some linen; try and see if you can't find some more mattresses; show my men where the pump is-"
And they ran as if their life was at stake to do his bidding; were so active that they seemed to be ubiquitous.
The factory was admirably adapted for a hospital. The drying-room was a particularly noticeable feature, a vast apartment with numerous and lofty windows for light and ventilation, where they could put in a hundred beds and yet have room to spare, and at one side was a shed that seemed to have been built there especially for the convenience of the operators: three long tables had been brought in, the pump was close at hand, and a small grass-plot adjacent might serve as ante-chamber for the patients while awaiting their turn. And the handsome old elms, with their deliciously cool shade, roofed the spot in most agreeably.
Bouroche had considered it would be best to establish himself in Sedan at the commencement, foreseeing the dreadful slaughter and the inevitable panic that would sooner or later drive the troops to the shelter of the ramparts. All that he had deemed it necessary to leave with the regiment was two flying ambulances and some "first aids," that were to send him in the casualties as rapidly as possible after applying the primary dressings. The details of litter-bearers were all out there, whose duty it was to pick up the wounded under fire, and with them were the ambulance wagons and fourgons of the medical train. The two assistant-surgeons and three hospital stewards whom he had retained, leaving two assistants on the field, would doubtless be sufficient to perform what operations were necessary. He had also a corps of dressers under him. But he was not gentle in manner and language, for all he did was done impulsively, zealously, with all his heart and soul.
"Tonnerre de Dieu! how do you suppose we are going to distinguish the cases from one another when they begin to come in presently? Take a piece of charcoal and number each bed with a big figure on the wall overhead, and place those mattresses closer together, do you hear? We can strew some straw on the floor in that corner if it becomes necessary."
The guns were barking, preparing his work for him; he knew that at any moment now the first carriage might drive up and discharge its load of maimed and bleeding flesh, and he hastened to get all in readiness in the great, bare room. Outside in the shed the preparations were of another nature: the chests were opened and their contents arranged in order on a table, packages of lint, bandages, compresses, rollers, splints for fractured limbs, while on another table, alongside a great jar of cerate and a bottle of chloroform, were the surgical cases with their blood-curdling array of glittering instruments, probes, forceps, bistouries, scalpels, scissors, saws, an arsenal of implements of every imaginable shape adapted to pierce, cut, slice, rend, crush. But there was a deficient supply of basins.
"You must have pails, pots, jars about the house-something that will hold water. We can't work besmeared with blood all day, that's certain. And sponges, try to get me some sponges."
Madame Delaherche hurried away and returned, followed by three women bearing a supply of the desired vessels. Gilberte, standing by the table where the instruments were laid out, summoned Henriette to her side by a look and pointed to them with a little shudder. They grasped each other's hand and stood for a moment without speaking, but their mute clasp was eloquent of the solemn feeling of terror and pity that filled both their souls. And yet there was a difference, for one retained, even in her distress, the involuntary smile of her bright youth, while in the eyes of the other, pale as death, was the grave earnestness of the heart which, one love lost, can never love again.
"How terrible it must be, dear, to have an arm or leg cut off!"
"Poor fellows!"
Bouroche had just finished placing a mattress on each of the three tables, covering them carefully with oil-cloth, when the sound of horses' hoofs was heard outside and the first ambulance wagon rolled into the court. There were ten men in it, seated on the lateral benches, only slightly wounded; two or three of them carrying their arm in a sling, but the majority hurt about the head. They alighted with but little assistance, and the inspection of their cases commenced forthwith.
One of them, scarcely more than a boy, had been shot through the shoulder, and as Henriette was tenderly assisting him to draw off his greatcoat, an operation that elicited cries of pain, she took notice of the number of his regiment.
"Why, you belong to the 106th! Are you in Captain Beaudoin's company?"