The Shadow Of The Mole

Chapter 4

Chapter Four

In Denis’s ears, the war-sounds outside the field hospital were a mixture of screeching, beseeching, wailing, and hailing.

The war-victims presented a dizzying array of bloody limbs and faces: some of the eyes without a trace of hope, others clenched tight, tears here and there painting grimy patterns on twitching jowls.

The stretcher bearers didn’t supply the hospital with men. They came and dumped ‘wounds’: a lot of lungs, a fair amount of heads, a sickening number of underbellies and now and then, thank God, a leg, a foot, an arm: trios of lucky bastards.

Denis had been considered a lucky bastard, when they’d brought him in a few weeks ago.

In the tumult and the frenzy of the field hospital, the young doctor felt as good as useless. He couldn’t operate anymore and diagnoses in war time took only a glance. You just scanned for blood and missing parts. He walked through the rows of wounded who followed him with eyes full of silent prayers. They wanted a miracle. There were not enough bunks; many men lay on the ground in between. A disarray of bodies and faces, all coated with the sheen of misery.

Denis stood there, in this putrefied chaos, lost in thought. He was a tall, young-looking man of twenty-nine, a southern type with jet black hair, something almost Indian in the slant of his indigo eyes. His cheeks were covered with dark stubble.

He was handsome in a full-blooded way.

Even without his right arm.

Which was being touched now.

Marie Estrange, daughter of a wealthy wine merchant, war-nurse out of moral compulsion, had touched the air where Denis’s arm had been.

He had felt it.

She looked at him. Her big eyes were attentive, the broad curve of her full-lipped mouth was tight with concentration, and there was a haze of sorrow around her – which in Denis’s opinion was far more exhausting than mere compassion.

“How do you feel, Michel?”

He looked away, evading an honest answer. “Like an old man waiting for the end with the impatience of a young man.” Now, wasn’t that a bit melodramatic? He often didn’t find the right tone when Marie was near.

She took his left arm. “You can help me distribute water, old man with two forenames.”

His name – Michel Denis – had become a formal joke between them. His normal, sarcastic answer was, “Having two forenames means you don’t have family.”

Now he only nodded.

As Denis squatted on the ground, holding a cup of water to a feverish soldier on a make-do bed of straw, he felt a tingling in his neck. He looked over his shoulder. The eyes of The Mole were on him. Denis observed intently the silent message of that stare, and noticed the jaundiced whites of The Mole’s eyes. Liver problems? It contributed to the man’s eerie appearance – like a sleep-walker, neither awake nor asleep. A catatonic state due to shell shock?

“Enfants de Malheur,” The Mole said. “Children of ill-luck.”

Denis stood slowly. Since his amputation, he had the impression that his balance was different, less secure than before.

“Our suffering isn’t bad luck or an accident. We are the source of our own misery.” With these unctuous words, he hoped to make contact with the man. His words bounced back to him, like pebbles against a rock. The Mole let his yellowish eyes drift through the lazaretto. In a puzzled tone, he said, “Why do they hold on to life?” His eyes fixed on Denis. “Do you know why you want to live?”

The doctor’s irritation grew. This was not the time for petty philosophies. “It’s an instinct.”

“You live because you’re made and then you have to sit through your punishment.” The patient seemed to have difficulties with his vocal chords. He swallowed some syllables and his voice sounded querulous.

“We will pursue this conversation later,” Denis said, realizing how odd his formal behaviour was in these surroundings. The young doctor turned to give water to a soldier with a ghastly wounded face, his mouth a gurgling mound of blood.

“It’s not an instinct,” the half-strangled voice behind him said. “The desire to live is a disease.”