Elmore County Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1910-1915, 1914-12-26
CALMLY FACE DEATH
Wounded, Torn With Pain, Suf-
fer Without a Groan.
corpselke Silence Of the Still living
Paralyzes One With the Icy
Horror of Hdeous
Nightmare.
BY J. H. PHILLIPS.
Chicago Evening Post.)

| Ihe unedflnly silence OF the wounded
which appalls one!
The ambulance trains-strings of
rough box cars-pull In from the front
And there on the floor, amid the straw,
| lie the bandaged men, voieeless and
motionless.
If only the nondescript Jumps of hu-
man flesh writhed about and moaned,
the CHASTITY spectacle could not be so
| hideous as is this corpselke silence of
still living men! 1t paralyzes one with
the icy horror Of nightmare. Charnel
trains, not hospital trains. those con-
yoys might be called.
Two cars stand sidetracked at the
station of Montereau, where there is
situated hospital base organized by
Dr. l.. Haden Guest, the famous Eng
fish surgeon, and his wife, In coop
Grafton with the French Red Cross
In one of the cars several nurses
spend every night; in the other, two
doctors, For they must be promptly
on hand when the hospital trains come
in | stayed with the doctors one
night.
About two in the morning--it was
black outside and bitterly cold--we
heard a commotion on the adjacent
track-Whistles and the creaking of
brakes And before the incoming train
of wounded had jerked itself painfully
%o cta
hurrying up the rails, pickering Ian.
tern in hand.
How many?" he called In French to
the guard.
about two hundred, monsieur"
came the reply from dim silhouette,
fumbling at the door of car. THE
worst cases are in here, monsieur.
Some of ems dead, guess, by now"
The doctor clambered into the car
and picked his way among the men
with his lantern. The nurses and
number of bearers with stretchers had
already gathered about the door.
The worst cases were taken out to
an ill-smelling freight shed across the
tracks-the emergency hospital, where
the nurses, kneeling on the ground,
dressed the wounds. hundred 9th
ers were sent uptown to the main
Montereau hospital china factory,
donated to the Red Cross by the pro.
prietors. The half-dozen new dead
we're laid in grimly contorted positions
on the station platform to be disposed
of later, and then the train, still laden
with scores of sufferers so racked with
pain as to be utterly exhausted and
Indifferent to the torture of this end.
less trip, moved onward again, its des-
tination the great hospitals at Fon.
tainebleau.
This is a scene of almost every
night. 1t is scene which is being en-
acted not only here at Montereau but
at scores of other hospitals.
Mrs Guest, wife of the doctor in
charge, told me of one French soldier
who lay in bed with both legs and one
arm amputated.
'He had the face of saint" she
said And the only words we ever
heard from the poor boy were apollo
gies for all the trouble he was giving
us! IF | only had another arm might
play cards with that fellow next me-
he would say That would take his
mind off his sufferings.
1--WE would have had to amputate
the boys other arm also, but death
forestalled u.s." said Mrs. Guest.
Imagine a human head with the en-
tire face gone save for portion of the
covering of the jaW
"That is what you would see under
that great bloody bandage," whis-
pered Doctor Guest to me, pointing
to a motionless figure. "The vocal
cords were visible when we took off
the field dressings"
And in the next cot a cheerful Teu-
ton was sitting up joking with an at
tendant about the eats" He insisted
that he had been served no meal for
half an hour and was famished.
THAT mans case is simply marvel
GUS" said Doctor Guest "He had half
a dozen bullets in his head, yet after
a terrible operation he has been gain
ing strength so fast we can hardly
keep him in bed.
Last night we had an eerie expert
ence. We we're suddenly awakened by
a deep bass voice calling piteously:
Mother mother!' An English Tommy
shot in the head, had become insane
and was literally an infant crying in
the night He died in the course of an
hour. His mother will never know
how her brave son called upon her for
help at the last His was just an or
binary death. We have had as many
as seven such deaths out of twenty
five beds in one night"
Ceriouc 0fenee