"Tabernac!" he hissed. The blade had a red edge when he pulled it free. Blood started running down his calf into his shoe. It was warm on what had been cold skin. "Ah, mauvais tabernac."

The axe had sliced into meat, not bone. That was the only good thing he could say about the wound. He started to throw the axe aside so he could hobble to the farmhouse, but held onto the tool instead. That leg didn't want to bear much weight, and the axe handle made a stick to take it instead.

Marie let out a small shriek when he made it inside. "It is not so bad," he said, hoping it was not so bad. "Put a bandage on it, and then I will go out and finish what I have to do."

"You will go nowhere today," she said, grabbing for a rag. "You should be ashamed, bleeding on my clean floor."

"Believe me, I regret the necessity more than you do," he said.

She got off his shoe and sock and pulled up his trouser leg. "This is not good," she said, examining the wound. He did not want to look at it himself while she worked. He had not a qualm about slaughtering livestock, but his own blood made him queasy. "It is bleeding right through the bandage," she told him. "A cloth will not be enough for this, Lucien. It wants stitching, or heaven knows when it will close."

"That is nonsense," he said. Even as he spoke, though, the two raw edges of the wound slipped against each other. His stomach lurched. He felt dizzy, a little lightheaded.

Firmly, Marie said, "J'ai raison, Lucien. I have sewn up a cut hand once or twice, but I do not think I should sew this. It is too long and too deep. I think you should go to the American hospital, and let them do a proper job of putting you back together."

The mere idea of going to the hospital was enough to restore her husband to himself. "No," he said. "No and no and no. It was bad enough that the Americans took my land, took land in this family since before the battle on the Plains of Abraham, took my patrimony for their own purposes. To use this hospital, to acknowledge it is there: this is a humiliation that cannot be borne. Sew it yourself."

"If you do not acknowledge the hospital, why does Nicole work there?" Marie asked. "If you do not acknowledge the hospital, why have you drunk applejack with Dr. O'Doull three times in the past month? Why have you probably got one of his cigars in your pocket even now?"

Galtier opened his mouth to give her the simple, logical explanation to the paradoxes she propounded. Nothing came out. His wits, he thought, were discommoded because of the wound. He told her that instead.

She set her hands on her hips. "Then, foolish man, it is time to get the wound seen to, n'est-ce pas? You will come with me."

Go with her he did, still using the axe as a stick and with his other arm around her shoulder. Even with such help, he had to stop and rest three or four times before they got to the hospital. When they did, one of the workmen there tried to turn them away: "This place is for Americans, not you damn Canucks."

"Hold on, Bill," a nurse said. "That's Nicole's father. We'll take care of him. What happened to you?" The last was to Galtier.

"Axe-cutting wood." Remembering English was hard.

"Come on in," the nurse said. "I'll get Dr. O'Doull. He'll do a proper job of patching you up." She pointed to the door, maybe seeing that Marie had no English.

At the door, Lucien ordered his wife home. "They will help me the rest of the way," he told her, pointing to the nurse and the workman. When she protested, he said, "Some of what is here, you should not see." He knew what war looked like. She didn't, not really. He wanted to keep it that way.

In English and in horrible French, the people from the hospital told her the same thing. She was still protesting when an ambulance skidded to a stop in front of the hospital. The driver and an attendant carried in a man on a stretcher. A bloody blanket lay over the lower part of his body; it was obvious he'd lost a leg. Marie abruptly turned and walked back toward the farmhouse.

The first thing Lucien noticed inside the hospital was how warm it was. The Americans did not have to stint on coal. The second thing he noticed was the smell. Part of it was sharp and medicinal: the top layer, so to speak. Under it lay faint odors he knew from the barnyard-blood and dung and, almost but not quite undetectable, a miasma of bad meat.

"You wait here," the nurse told him, pointing to a bench. "I'll get the doctor to see you."

"Merci," he said, his injured leg stretched out straight in front of him. A couple of soldiers, young men hardly older than Charles, his older son, sat there, too. The wounded man who'd been brought in on the stretcher wasn't in sight. They were probably working on him already.

One of the soldiers asked, "You speak English, pal?" At Lucien's nod, the youngster asked, "You get that from a shell?" He pointed to the wound.

"No, from to chop the wood." Lucien gestured to eke out his words. The American nodded in turn. Seeing him polite, Lucien asked, "And you-what have you?"

"Flunked my shortarm inspection," the young soldier answered, flushing. That didn't mean anything to Lucien. The Yank noticed. "This hoor up in Riviere-du-Loup, she gave me the clap," he explained. Lucien had heard that phrase in his own Army days. Inside, he laughed. He had a more honorable wound than the American.

"Well, well, what have we here?" That was good French, from the mouth of Dr. Leonard O'Doull. He wore a white coat with a few reddish stains on it. Looking severely at Lucien, he said, "Monsieur Galtier, if you want to visit me here, it is not necessary to do yourself an injury first."

"I shall bear that in mind, thank you," Lucien said dryly. "It was, you must believe me, not the reason for which I hurt myself."

"Of that I have no doubt," O'Doull replied. He undid just enough of the bandage to see how big the wound was, and whistled softly when he did. "Yes, you were wise to come."

"It was my wife's idea," Galtier said.

"Then you were wise to listen to her. As long as one in the family is wise, things go well. I shall have to show you how neatly I can sew." He turned and spoke to a nurse in English too rapid for Lucien to follow. She nodded and hurried off.

"I am glad you are the one to help me," the farmer said.

"I speak French," O'Doull answered, "and you are the father of my friend." Did he hesitate a little before that last word? Lucien couldn't tell. O'Doull went on, "This is a duty and an honor both, then." The nurse came back with a tray full of medical paraphernalia. The doctor went on, "It is an honor that will be painful for you, though, monsieur. I am going to give you an injection to keep you from getting lockjaw. This will not hurt much now, but may make you sore and sick later. We must roll up your sleeve-"

Next to the fire in Galtier's leg, the injection was a fleabite. Then O'Doull said, "And now we must disinfect the wound. You understand? We must keep it from rotting, if we can." Lucien nodded. He'd seen hurts go bad.

O'Doull poured something that smelled almost like applejack into the wound. Galtier gasped and bit his lip and crossed himself. If the wound was a fire, O'Doull had just poured gasoline on it. "'Osti," the farmer said weakly. Tears blurred his vision.

"I do regret it very much, but it is a necessity," O'Doull said. Lucien managed to nod. "Now to sew it up," the doctor told him.

Before O'Doull could get to work with needle and thread, another nurse came in. That was how Galtier thought of her till she exclaimed, "Papa!"

"Oh, bonjour, Nicole," he said. He'd seen her in the white-and-gray nurse's uniform with the Red Cross on the right breast before, of course, but here he'd looked at the uniform instead of the person inside it. Embarrassed, he muttered, "The foolish axe slipped."