The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1898-04-04
A Pathetic War Picture,

(From G. ". Stevens's with the Con-
Quering Turk IN the late War with
Greece'O
You wondered whether you would be
sick when you came across the dead, and
you were not even sorry. They were so
still and restfui-neither hot nor cold,
nor hungry, nor thirsty. nor tired. nor
furnishing for sleep any more; II was not
possible TO be very sorry for them Even
when death had caught them unawares,
twisting them awry and gnarling arms
and legs, they only looked Ike strange
shapes turned out OF a mould, and you
can not weep for shape out Of mould.
When shell had ripped all the features
OF face 1t was not pleasant 70 look
at: but there was nothing human left
about II 10 stir compassion. Put II in a
Greek trench and cover 1t up; hang up
its fez on a peg at its head The poor
crumpled fez that used to get Sc carefully
blocked and ironed every morning in Elias
sonia-it was so much more pathetic than
the body. Somebody will cry for the body,
but not US There are plenty of bayo-
nets left in its battalion; roll up your
overcoats, and sling on your water-cans,
and march, and leave It behind.
THE wounded were worse. but even
with them tragedy soon lost its poignancy.
In any other army the treatment of them
would have been an atrocity. AS soon
as the war was general and the wound
ed were plenty. the ambulance service
broke down utterly. A man was hit az
six in the morning. One of the rear sur
geons, or else comrade. tied up the place
with handkerchief, and left water, If
there was any, at his side. There he
lay, in the sun, until nightfall. When II
was dark and the Greeks had begun re-
treating. his comrades came back with
a pony and a pack-saddle The wound
ed man was hoisted on-clinging with his
hands to the pommel if he could; if not,
spread-eagled on his belly and tied with
ropes. SO he stumbled on all night ten
or twenty. or thirty miles to the hospi-
tai Arrived there-unless he had the luck
to get into the Ottoman Bank Hospital
with expert Swiss and French and Turk
ism surgeons-the army doctor prodded
at him with probe BY the time the
limb was a bundle of bleeding ribbons it
was nearly an even chance that the bull
let would be worried out.
yet IL is suspension of everything
which has validity in time of peace, that
makes the devilish cruelty of war. If ma
ture in the absence Of Gilman and St.
Jacob, can not keep you from rheumatic
fever, why then, as like as not, you have
to die. You never did any harm to the
Greek gunners over there, but their shells
won't turn aside from you for that. You
get rid OF arrangements when you don
want them but then they won't come and
help you when you do.
SIT &c m frxyi %
to go on by the side of war. 1t is an
intoxicating privilege to be able to ride
straight across a field of young vines in
wartime, but, after all. the vines were
planted for purposes of peace. You cut
green corn for your horses-you have to
but you can't help thinking of the man
who ploughed and sowed and will never
reap. During the first battle of Veles-
tino 1 saw a hen go, business-like, into
a barn, and after little while come out.
her cackle shrilling triumphantly over
the grinding musketry and banging guns.
By evening the barn was burned and the
egg with it; the hen was plucked and
on the fire.
"Saddest Of all were the foals. The new
dropped foals whose mothers had been
taken straight away TO carry cartridges,
went trotting up and down the line of
march calling for them. You knew the
slightly querulous. expectant expression
of a foars hairy little face. The baby
was getting very hungry and tired. He
was quite confident of finding his mother
she was there only an hour ago. But
where could she have got to meanwhile.
and why didn't she come to comfort him
when he cried? They all starved. and I
trying to struggle up a slope of the Furka
with a, forefoot Topped off at the pastern
Some devil must have done it to prevent
her from following her dam. She tumbled
over and whinnied, jumped up and hob
bled a foot or two. tumbled over again
and moaned Yet the soldier was only
a devil i'll that he should have shot her
through the heart instead of cutting off
her foot. For the chestnut FLY had to
die, anyhow. She was part of what We
call the inevitable wastage of war"