"They'll stick a red label on my greatcoat, you'll see, and take me
to the rear. I shall be bossed this time by a very polite sort of
chap, who'll say to me, 'That's one side, now turn the other
way--so, my poor fellow.' Then the ambulance, and then the
sick-train, with the pretty little ways of the Red Cross ladies all
the way along, like they did to Crapelet Jules, then the base
hospital. Beds with white sheets, a stove that snores in the middle
of us all, people with the special job of looking after you, and
that you watch doing it, regulation slippers--sloppy and
comfortable--and a chamber-cupboard. Furniture! And it's in those
big hospitals that you're all right for grub! I shall have good
feeds, and baths. I shall take all I can get hold of. And there'll
be presents--that you can enjoy without having to fight the others
for them and get yourself into a bloody mess. I shall have my two
hands on the counterpane, and they'll do damn well nothing, like
things to look at--like toys, what? And under the sheets my legs'll
be white-hot all the way through, and my trotters'll be expanding
like bunches of violets."
Volpatte pauses, fumbles about, and pulls out of his pocket, along
with his famous pair of Soissons scissors, something that he shows
to me: "Tiens, have you seen this?"
It is a photograph of his wife and two children. He has already
shown it to me many a time. I look at it and express appreciation.
"I shall go on sick-leave," says Volpatte, "and while my ears are
sticking themselves on again, the wife and the little ones will look
at me, and I shall look at them.
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