The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-02-25
LIKE A BIG CHESS BOARD.

/ ing. and occasionally firing as they make
! their way upward.
LIKE A BIG CHESS BOARD.
! The great general view is of an ar
rangcment as methodical as chessboard.
There are several battalions fat on their
faces in two or three long lines. Over
I here is battery in perfect order, with
its Timber of horses at rest near by.
Al k,her battery, equally well arranged,
| as if 10 have its photograph taken. is to
be seen in the middle field; a third is on
the farther side. The cavalry is sweep
ing across the veldt in perfect rank and
alignment. There is no confusion any
where-nothing is helter-skelter. l re-
, member only two momentary distur-
bances Of the discipline of which l speak.
One was in the afternoon during the
Modder River fight when a large band
of mounted Beers made a flank move
| ment on our extreme right and fired Il
yolley at our immense mass of transport
and ambulance wagons. water carts and
ammunition wagons. The drivers We're
taken by surprise and fell to lashing their
mule teams and horses, the ma jority to
the accompaniment of high-keyed Kaftir
yells. The rout only lasted five min
utes or less and was funny beyond de-
| scription, because the leading mules
climbed over the "wheelers," and the fas-
ter the bullets fell the louder the Kaf-
! frs yelled, and the more they piled their
enormous whips.
The bravery Of our stretcher bearers
is as much beyond question as it is be-
yond praise. When all of us lesser and
immediate historians of the moment have
told of the valor of all the Geerals Col
onels. Majors, CAPITA ms and 'Tommies"
of the army, we shall still have, in COM
mon justice to describe how the chap
4 lains, doctors and stretcher bearers go
in and out Of the most helliSh fire, not
once or twice, but all through every bat
tie.
WHERE WARS HORRORS ARE.
! 1t is just without the range of fire that
YOU see and realize the horrors of war.
! 1t is there that the wounded crawl and
| stagger by you; it us there that they
spend their final output of energy and
fall down to lie until assistance comes;
it is there that you see the stretchers.
laden with their mangled freight, and
the sound ones bearing the wounded on
their backs and in their arms. Better,
yet-if SO cheerful a phrase is permis-
sible in such a case-to know the bru-
taiity and wee of war, happen upon a
kopje that has just been stormed, or a
trench that has been carried. Go TO
such place today, 20 centuries after
Christ came with His message of peace
on earth and good will to men, and be-
hold what YOU shall see.
(, Here" said l to a photographer in
such place-I think it Was BELMONT
snap this scene. Look at the wound
cd all over the ground. Quick! Out
with your camera
''Oh. | can't" said he Its too hon
ribler'
"As you please said, but it's what
the public wants."
You read, in the writings of those who
/ know nothing of war, about the writh-
I ing of the wounded and the groaning
on the battle field. There is no with
ing, and the groans are few and faint.
There was one man who was simply
chewed up by she'll at Magersfontein
and his sufferings must have been awful
He kept crying, Doctor, can't you do
anything?" Another begged to be killed
and the first wounded man l saw in
this war kept saying, in so low a voice:
''Oh, dear. dear, dear! Oh, DEAR dear,
dear." But there is much less groan-
ing than you would imagine-very little,
in fact. Two things are so common
with the wounded as TO be almost like
rules of behavior.
HOW IT FEELS TO BE WOUNDED
First, they all beg for water lit used
to be cigarettes that they asked for on
the Turkish side in the last war in Eu-
rope,) and next they seem always to be
made gentle by their wounds Men of
the roughest speech, profane by second
nature, cease to offend when stricken
down.
"Wel mate" says ONE, whose leg is
shattered, 8 you never know when your
turn will come, do you?'
And another simply cries "Oh, DEAR"
Now and them you hear, For Gods
sake, get me taken to an ambulance
but no profanity is intended there.
I have had Il half a dozen men de-
scribe how it feel to be wounded. All
who lad bones shattered by expanding
bullets used nearly the same language
to describe the sensation.
'You feel" they said, exactly as if
YOU had received a powerful shock from
an electric battery, and then comes u
blow as if your foot Cor arm, or what
ever part it may bel was crushed by Il
is much the same in a lesser degree if
bone is struck by a Mauser bullet; but
if the smooth, slender, clean, little shot
merely pierces the flesh "a burning or
stinging sensation is the instantaneous
result.
''Yying six hours in the broiling sun
WAS pretty bad,' said one whose arm
bone was smashed; ''but the really awful
experience was the jolting over the rocks
when | was carried off in the ambu-
lance"
Another mar. an officer, whose foot
was smlshed by an explosive bullet,
said. Look ut my pipe. That's what
/ did to keep from saying anything.
He had bitten off an inch Of the harden-
ed rubber mouthpiece. That was before
his wound was dressed. The relief that
is given by the dressing of q wound
must be gigantic. for you hear next to
DO groans or moans after a doctor has
gwen his first attention.