Hospital

Fever, and crowds--and light that cuts your eyes-- Men waiting in a long slow-shuffling line with silent private faces, white and bleak. Long rows of lumpy stretchers on the floor. My helmet drops--a head jerks up and cries wide-eyed and settles in a quivering whine. The air is rank with touching human reek. A troop of Germans clatters through the door. They cross our line and something in me dies. Sullen, detached, obtuse--men into swine-- and hurt unhappy things that walk apart. Their rancid bodies trail a languid streak so curious that hate breaks down before the dull and cruel laughter in my heart.