Maurice’s attention was attracted to the sick-bearers, whose movements he watched with interest as they searched for wounded men among the depressions of the ground.  At the end of a sunken road, and protected by a low ridge not far from their position, a flying ambulance of first aid had been established, and its emissaries had begun to explore the plateau.  A tent was quickly erected, while from the hospital van the attendants extracted the necessary supplies; compresses, bandages, linen, and the few indispensable instruments required for the hasty dressings they gave before dispatching the patients to Sedan, which they did as rapidly as they could secure wagons, the supply of which was limited.  There was an assistant surgeon in charge, with two subordinates of inferior rank under him.  In all the army none showed more gallantry and received less acknowledgment than the litter-bearers.  They could be seen all over the field in their gray uniform, with the distinctive red badge on their cap and on their arm, courageously risking their lives and unhurriedly pushing forward through the thickest of the fire to the spots where men had been seen to fall.  At times they would creep on hands and knees:  would always take advantage of a hedge or ditch, or any shelter that was afforded by the conformation of the ground, never exposing themselves unnecessarily out of bravado.  When at last they reached the fallen men their painful task commenced, which was made more difficult and protracted by the fact that many of the subjects had fainted, and it was hard to tell whether they were alive or dead.  Some lay face downward with their mouths in a pool of blood, in danger of suffocating, others had bitten the ground until their throats were choked with dry earth, others, where a shell had fallen among a group, were a confused, intertwined heap of mangled limbs and crushed trunks.  With infinite care and patience the bearers would go through the tangled mass, separating the living from the dead, arranging their limbs and raising the head to give them air, cleansing the face as well as they could with the means at their command.  Each of them carried a bucket of cool water, which he had to use very savingly.  And Maurice could see them thus engaged, often for minutes at a time, kneeling by some man whom they were trying to resuscitate, waiting for him to show some sign of life.

He watched one of them, some fifty yards away to the left, working over the wound of a little soldier from the sleeve of whose tunic a thin stream of blood was trickling, drop by drop.  The man of the red cross discovered the source of the hemorrhage and finally checked it by compressing the artery.  In urgent cases, like that of the little soldier, they rendered these partial attentions, locating fractures, bandaging and immobilizing the limbs so as to reduce the danger of transportation.  And the transportation, even, was an affair that called for a great deal of judgment