One of Ours
Book V: "Bidding the Eagles of the West Fly On"
Chapter III
The next morning when Claude arrived at the hospital to see Fanning, he found
every one too busy to take account of him. The courtyard was full of ambulances,
and a long line of camions waited outside the gate. A train-load of wounded
Americans had come in, sent back from evacuation hospitals to await
transportation home.
As the men were carried past him, he thought they looked as if they had been
sick a long while—looked, indeed, as if they could never get well. The boys who
died on board the Anchises had never seemed as sick as these did. Their skin was
yellow or purple, their eyes were sunken, their lips sore. Everything that
belonged to health had left them, every attribute of youth was gone. One poor
fellow, whose face and trunk were wrapped in cotton, never stopped moaning, and
as he was carried up the corridor he smelled horribly. The Texas orderly
remarked to Claude, "In the beginning that one only had a finger blown off;
would you believe it?"
These were the first wounded men Claude had seen. To shed bright blood, to
wear the red badge of courage,—that was one thing; but to be reduced to this
was quite another,. Surely, the sooner these boys died, the better.
The Texan, passing with his next load, asked Claude why he didn't go into the
office and wait until the rush was over. Looking in through the glass door,
Claude noticed a young man writing at a desk enclosed by a railing. Something
about his figure, about the way he held his head, was familiar. When he lifted
his left arm to prop open the page of his ledger, it was a stump below the
elbow. Yes, there could be no doubt about it; the pale, sharp face, the beak
nose, the frowning, uneasy brow. Presently, as if he felt a curious eye upon
him, the young man paused in his rapid writing, wriggled his shoulders, put an
iron paperweight on the page of his book, took a case from his pocket and shook
a cigarette out on the table. Going up to the railing, Claude offered him a
cigar. "No, thank you. I don't use them any more. They seem too heavy for me."
He struck a match, moved his shoulders again as if they were cramped, and sat
down on the edge of his desk.
"Where do these wounded men come from?" Claude asked. "I just got in on the
Anchises yesterday."
"They come from various evacuation hospitals. I believe most of them are the
Belleau Wood lot."
"Where did you lose your arm?"
"Cantigny. I was in the First Division. I'd been over since last September,
waiting for something to happen, and then got fixed in my first engagement."
"Can't you go home?"
"Yes, I could. But I don't want to. I've got used to things over here. I was
attached to Headquarters in Paris for awhile."
Claude leaned across the rail. "We read about Cantigny at home, of course. We
were a good deal excited; I suppose you were?"
"Yes, we were nervous. We hadn't been under fire, and we'd been fed up on all
that stuff about it's taking fifty years to build a fighting machine. The Hun
had a strong position; we looked up that long hill and wondered how we were
going to behave." As he talked the boy's eyes seemed to be moving all the time,
probably because he could not move his head at all. After blowing out deep
clouds of smoke until his cigarette was gone, he sat down to his ledger and
frowned at the page in a way which said he was too busy to talk.
Claude saw Dr. Trueman standing in the doorway, waiting for him. They made
their morning call on Fanning, and left the hospital together. The Doctor turned
to him as if he had something on his mind.
"I saw you talking to that wry-necked boy. How did he seem, all right?"
"Not exactly. That is, he seems very nervous. Do you know anything about
him?"
"Oh, yes! He's a star patient here, a psychopathic case. I had just been
talking to one of the doctors about him, when I came out and saw you with him.
He was shot in the neck at Cantigny, where he lost his arm. The wound healed,
but his memory is affected; some nerve cut, I suppose, that connects with that
part of his brain. This psychopath, Phillips, takes a great interest in him and
keeps him here to observe him. He's writing a book about him. He says the fellow
has forgotten almost everything about his life before he came to France. The
queer thing is, it's his recollection of women that is most affected. He can
remember his father, but not his mother; doesn't know if he has sisters or
not,—can remember seeing girls about the house, but thinks they may have been
cousins. His photographs and belongings were lost when he was hurt, all except a
bunch of letters he had in his pocket. They are from a girl he's engaged to, and
he declares he can't remember her at all; doesn't know what she looks like or
anything about her, and can't remember getting engaged. The doctor has the
letters. They seem to be from a nice girl in his own town who is very ambitious
for him to make the most of himself. He deserted soon after he was sent to this
hospital, ran away. He was found on a farm out in the country here, where the
sons had been killed and the people had sort of adopted him. He'd quit his
uniform and was wearing the clothes of one of the dead sons. He'd probably have
got away with it, if he hadn't had that wry neck. Some one saw him in the fields
and recognized him and reported him. I guess nobody cared much but this
psychopathic doctor; he wanted to get his pet patient back. They call him 'the
lost American' here."
"He seems to be doing some sort of clerical work," Claude observed
discreetly.
"Yes, they say he's very well educated. He remembers the books he has read
better than his own life. He can't recall what his home town looks like, or his
home. And the women are clear wiped out, even the girl he was going to marry."
Claude smiled. "Maybe he's fortunate in that."
The Doctor turned to him affectionately, "Now Claude, don't begin to talk
like that the minute you land in this country."
Claude walked on past the church of St. Jacques. Last night already seemed
like a dream, but it haunted him. He wished he could do something to help that
boy; help him get away from the doctor who was writing a book about him, and the
girl who wanted him to make the most of himself; get away and be lost altogether
in what he had been lucky enough to find. All day, as Claude came and went, he
looked among the crowds for that young face, so compassionate and tender.