“Ach, man,” says one of the two unfortunates, “better your feet than your brain-box. There’s no telling what you’ll get if you go back out there again. They can do with me just as they please, so long as I get back home. Better to have a club foot than be dead.”
The other, a young fellow like ourselves, won’t have it done. One morning the old man has the two hauled up and lectures and jaws at them so long, that in the end they consent. What else could they do?—They are mere privates, and he is a big bug. They are brought back chloroformed and plastered.
★★
It is going badly with Albert. They have taken him and amputated his leg. The whole leg has been taken off from the thigh. Now he hardly speaks any more. Once he says he will shoot himself the first time he can get hold of his revolver again.
A new convoy arrives. Our room gets two blind men. One of them is a very youthful musician. The sisters never have a knife with them when they feed him; he has already snatched one from a sister. But in spite of this caution there is an incident. In the evening, while he is being fed, the sister is called away, and leaves the plate with the fork on his table.
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