36 AMBROISE PARfi 



fifteen or sixteen, and wounded many. Our men made 

 sorties against the enemy, wherein many were killed and 

 wounded on both sides, with gunshot or with fighting hand 

 to hand; and our men often sallied out before their trenches 

 were made; so that I had my work cut out for me, and 

 had no rest either day or night for dressing the wounded. 

 And here I would note that we had put many of them 

 in a great tower, laying them on a little straw: and their 

 pillows were stones, their coverlets were cloaks, those who 

 had any. When the attack was made, so often as the 

 enemy's cannons were fired, our wounded said they felt pain 

 in their wounds, as if you had struck them with a stick: 

 one was crying out on his head, the other on his arm, and 

 so with the other parts of the body: and many had their 

 wounds bleed again, even more profusely than at the time 

 they were wounded, and then I had to run to staunch them. 

 Mon petit waist re, if you had been there, you would have 

 been much hindered with your hot irons; you would have 

 wanted a lot of charcoal to heat them red, and sure you 

 would have been killed like a calf for your cruelty. Many 

 died of the diabolical storm of the echo of these engines 

 of artillery, and the vehement agitation and severe shock 

 of the air acting on their wounds; others because they 

 got no rest for the shouting and crying that were made day 

 and night, and for want of good food, and other things 

 needful for their treatment. Mon petit maistrc, if you had 

 been there, no doubt you could have given them jelly, 

 restoratives, gravies, pressed meats, broth, barley-water, 

 almond-milk, blanc-mange, prunes, plums, and other food 

 proper for the sick; but your diet would have been only on 

 paper, and in fact they had nothing but beef of old shrunk 

 cows, seized round Hesdin for our provision, salted and 

 half-cooked, so that he who would eat it must drag at it with 

 his teeth, as birds of prey tear their food. Nor must I forget 

 the linen for dressing their wounds, which was only washed 

 daily and dried at the fire, till it was as hard as parchment: 

 I leave you to think how their wounds could do well. There 

 were four big fat rascally women who had charge to whiten 

 the linen, and were kept at it with the stick; and yet they 

 had not water enough to do it, much less soap. That is 





