The shells were therefore roaring above the road, which was now deserted by our troops; only a canteen's cart escorted by a few National Guards could be seen there. The Prussians found it jovial to kill these good people. They sent a single shell on the road, but so well aimed (their battery was less than 2,000 meters away) that they slashed the horse and disembowelled two of the national guards of the escort. I could only note their death; they were killed instantly.
I made them drop by the side of the road.
This spectacle was not made to calm Pierre's emotions; his nose turned pale and hollowed out real trenches.
- Sir, let's go, these brigands are going to kill the little horse.
- Well! and our ambulance flags that are on the cars!
- They don't care about flags! Let's go, sir, let's go.
He carried his fear so brazenly that I didn't insist too much on getting him to walk forward. I was afraid to see him slip away on Paris and plant us there shamelessly.
- Since you lack courage today, take shelter, with the cars, at the bottom of the embankment of the road; put down the stretcher and the instruments, and we will go on foot to look for the wounded.
Pierre did not have to be told twice, and he threw himself down the embankment with such gusto that he engaged the ambulance flag of the car in the branches of trees; he snapped off. I thought I was stinging him of honor, but he watched us impassively as we set off on foot with the stretcher bearers. He seemed to be saying: I have collected enough glory for myself at the siege of Rome; let's leave some for others.
We arrived at Neuilly-sur-Marne, but that was not where the affair ended; it was always necessary to go on foot to Ville-Évrard and to make the wounded slip by one by one to the cars; it was absolutely impractical. I begged one of the stretcher bearers to fetch Pierre and bring him back, anyhow, with the crews. Pierre did not dare to refuse; his emotion was calmed; but, on the way, he noticed that he no longer had a protective flag. I don't need to say that the little horse made the journey belly to the ground.
From Neuilly to Ville-Évrard, it was a new litany. Every house one met on the road excited his admiration.
- Ah! sir, the charming house!
- My faith! I find it quite ugly.
- Ah! sir, that we would be good here.
- To spend his days there?
- Oh! no, to take shelter from the shells.
I must, moreover, do justice to Pierre: it was his last day of weakness; when the carriages went a little too far, his nose paled slightly, a few wrinkles hollowed out, but his observations on the little horse's chances of longevity were simply melancholy, he never allowed himself the slightest opposition to my wishes [1] . The Ville-Évrard affair had left him remorseful.
[1] Alas! under the Commune, Pierre was to tarnish his laurels. One fine day he and his comrade planted me there, with invincible resolution, they turned their backs on glory without turning back.
But let's move on to the study of my second car.
The second car was a large van from the Chevet house, which everyone has met in Paris, and in which one can transport wounded lying down. The horse was vigorous but lacking in initiative; he followed suit, and on all occasions manifested a deep contempt for the coasts. When forced to choose between a ditch or a hill, he never hesitated for a moment, he always put the car in the ditch and turned his rump towards the uphill side.
He shamelessly committed this incongruity to Avron, despite the stern looks of the audience, and without being touched by the example of his little comrade who vigorously removed the other car on the platform.
M. Chevet's coachman was a sturdy fellow, quite philosophically placid, never complaining, neither of his horse, nor of the cold, nor of the Prussians, and quietly going where I was leading him without deigning to make an observation.
My staff was supplemented by one or two stretcher bearers. For them, I had only the choice, they were traders, friends, customers who registered with me with great eagerness [2] . It is certain that curiosity played a big part in their eagerness. But I must say that not a single one shied away from the task he had accepted and which I always took care to explain well at the start.
[2] MM. Hébert, Martin, merchants living in my house, Plowman, pharmacist, and his son, Mr. Gauthier etc., under my direction did the painful service of stretcher bearers.
Stretcher bearers are often essential; especially when the rain has soaked the land, it is then impossible to go through the fields to the wounded. Cars couldn't get away. We will therefore collect, with the stretcher bearers, the fallen men; we dress them up and bring them back to the cars.
The creation of companies of stretcher bearers organized into regular bodies was an excellent idea. For us, she had the advantage of not forcing us to take any; we were thus allowed to keep more places in our cars for the wounded; on the battlefield, it had the immense advantage of reducing the duration of this period of anguish which separates for the soldier the moment when he falls and when he receives first aid.
Unfortunately, the stretcher bearers were organized towards the end of the siege, and when they were organized, they could not be used properly.
It is obvious that any troop going to the fire had to be accompanied by its stretcher bearers. I did not see anything similar where I found myself, which is not a reason why we did not do it elsewhere, because I only want to talk about what I have seen through my eyes, and in military affairs the field of observation is much narrower than one might think. You never know what is going on a kilometer from the point you are occupying.
However, I can say that, on the day of the Montretout affair, I returned to Paris around two o'clock, naturally with my cars full; we had been fighting since the morning and the road from Rueil to Courbevoie was still dotted with long lines of stretcher bearers marching towards the battle. It was a bit late. I had not had to ascertain their presence near the enemy, and my wounded, who had come from the attack on Malmaison, were brought to me by the cacolets.
Among the men and things which, that day, were not in their place, I will cite a certain tall bearded chaplain mounted on a pretty horse, and who sheltered himself carefully behind a wall while I dressed my clothes. wounded. He had the altered look of a very uncomfortable man.
I wondered what service could be rendered in such circumstances by a chaplain on horseback who shelters himself so carefully behind a wall. I could not, however, send my wounded to him to confess; I did, however, have one who had a bad bullet in his stomach, and they could have talked about it together.
I know that a large number of chaplains have done their duty; but I believe that praise should not be over-generalized. At the Hay affair, there were three of them chatting among themselves, without worrying too much about the rest; and yet the wounded were hardly lacking. I had one especially hit with a bullet in the chest, one of those wounds which give a few drops of blood, but which largely allow death to pass. I did not dare to bandage him; he had to be undressed and I was afraid to see him exhale in my hands. Poor boy! he was there, dying, stretched out on a bad straw mattress that the Prussians had lent us. The stretchers were missing, and the Prussians told me that they did not want me to carry the mattress.
"Treat me, doctor," he said to me in a faint voice.
It seemed to him that there was salvation.
I looked towards the chaplains; they were still chatting, and yet it was a good time for them to say a few things to this poor devil, before he left for a world where there is no fighting.
When the stretchers arrived, the soldier was dead. The chaplains were still chatting.
