| Description | Letter from Amelia Nyasa Laws, Chambéry, France, to her relatives, regarding attendance at service, criticism of M. Boyer's sermon; warm weather and grapes ripening; the hospital has been acquiring stores of medical supplies and potatoes; inspection of the hospital; Laude, one of the patients, is a sacristan and fancies himself a singer, though he is not; Commeras has been teasing him over his supposed cold; Laude is an inveterate liar but the men always find lies out; there is some debate over whether or not his regiment was allowed a particular honour; the inspector is tactless as regards readying the men for return to the front, and the men feel he should go there himself; the French army could be greater than it is if its officers understood its men; departure of Patoulet who had suffered from a practical joke; departure of Rivière, Charrel and Girardin; the last had been hit in the shoulder; description of the problems with such wounds, which heal quickly on the outside but leave terrible damage inside; the Abbé is doing well; interesting new patient, Bondeau, who had shell splinters in his calf and after much treatment had a twisted foot; case of brutal surgical treatment at the Sacré Coeur, where a man with an arm that would not straighten was hung by it until it snapped, then had it set, and after four nights screaming with the pain had the plaster removed only for the arm to bend again immediately. [Letter breaks off without signature] |