There was a vista bounded by a stretch of one of those unutterably bleak backways of a small and shabby French town.

The rutted street twisted along between small gray plaster houses, with ugly, unnecessary gable-ends, which faced the road at wrong angles.

Small groups of towns-people stood against the walls to watch.
There was also a handful of idling soldiers who watched from the gateway of the house where they were billeted.
Seven times the bearers entered the hospital door, and each time as they reappeared, bringing one of the narrow, gaudy, yellow boxes, the officers lined up at the door would salute and the soldiers in double lines at the opposite side of the road would present arms, and then, as the box was lifted upon the wagon waiting to receive it, would smash their guns down on the bouldered road with a crash.

When the job of bringing forth the dead was done the wagon stood loaded pretty nearly to capacity.

Four of the boxes rested crosswise upon the flat wagon-bed and the other three were racked lengthwise on top of them.