It was a lesson in congealed manners.
As we were leaving the room a nun serving as a nurse hailed the German
and told him one of her charges was threatening to die, not because of
his wound, but because he had lost heart and believed himself to be
dying.
"Where is he?" asked the German.
"Yonder," she said, indicating a bundled-up figure on a pallet near the
door. A drawn, hopeless face of a half-grown boy showed from the huddle
of blankets. The surgeon-general cast a quick look at the swathed form
and then spoke in an undertone to a French regimental surgeon on duty in
the room. Together the two approached the lad.
"My son," said the German to him in French, "I am told you do not feel
so well to-day."
The boy-soldier whispered an answer and waggled his head despondently.
The German put his hand on the youth's forehead.
"My son," he said, "listen to me. You are not going to die--I promise
you that you shall not die. My colleague here"--he indicated the French
doctor--"stands ready to make you the same promise.
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