Those newly struck seemed stunned into silence; those who had had time to recover from the first shock of being struck appeared buoyed and sustained by a stoic quality which lifted them, mute and calm, above the call of tortured nerves and torn flesh.
Those who were delirious might call out; those who were conscious locked their lips and were steadfast.

In all our experience I came upon just two men in their senses who gave way at all.

One was a boy of nineteen or twenty, in a field hospital near Rheims, whose kneecap had been smashed.

He sat up on his bed, rocking his body and whimpering fretfully like an infant.

He had been doing that for days, a nurse told us, but whether he whimpered because of his suffering or at the thought of going through life with a stiffened leg she did not know.