Gilpin observer., 1915-11-25
SEES WAR HORRORS
Stretcher Bearer Gives Impres.
sions of Life at Front.
10 Nearly Overcome by Sight Of First
Operation Till Given Slap by Sur
oeon-Dare Not Tell Men
Truth.

Villers-C s-Cotterets.-We had Just left
the hospital and had reached the sta
tion. We were exchanging glances of
Joy and shaking hands, saying Paris!
We are going to see Paris again" The
train was waiting on siding. We
climbed into it; the hospital atten-
dants placed us in our seats.
There | heard a conversation that
struck me more than has any other
since the beginning of the war. One
of the soldiers in our carriage, doubt
less in confidential mood that day,
began tc relate the impressions of his
life as a military hospital attendant.
1T was in the early days of the war
had received a commission as
stretcher bearer in hospital at Nice.
The first wounded arrived long trains
were filled with them; they had lain
on the straw of the cars throughout
the interminable journey across
France in slow military trains, which
were constantly delayed. Many died
on the way; others were landed here
and there in heaps. How feverishly
we had to work; there was not a min
ute to be lost
Il remember the terrible slap the
head surgeon gave me the first day he
entered the operating room, when l
was ordered to hold a wounded sol
dier whose leg was being amputated.
The odor the cruel sight of the opera
ton, caused me to turn as white as
death, and / was about to faint. That
blow brought me quickly to my
senses. / have seen worse sights
since!
I'VE spent some terrible moments
of anguish there. We had no anti
tetanus serum; we had written and
telegraphed everywhere for it, but the
hospitals which had it kept it jeal-
ously and it was impossible to obtain
any.
81 recall one of the finest men
have ever known. a charming COM
rade, who was wounded in the foot.
His wound was not serious; at the
end of two weeks it had healed. Then
one night he felt a stiffness in his
neck his mind began to wander, his
muscles to contract. He was done
for. All we could do was to relieve
his suffering.
Whenever a patient had an attack
Of this nature we dared not tell him
what it was. He was sent to spe-
cial hospital; it wasn't a hospital, it
was a morgue. He went there to die
Finally, one day we heard that
serum could be procured at fantas-
! tic price in Italy. The doctor immedi-
ately requisitio~led the swiftest auto
mobiles he could find in Nice. The
next day we had serum and tetanus
disappeared.
THE recollection of this period is
not more terrible than that of the
| days 1 spent in Arras as stretcher
bearer during the fierce combats of
| Notre Dame de Lorette. l was there
a month gathering the dead and
wounded; witnessing the most terri
BILE mutilations; my ears filled with
the groans of men. The work was
hard; we had to carry the men away
on our backs, for the approaches were
too narrow to permit of the use of
stretchers. More than one died on
my back.
81 am old; I'm forty-six. was taken
from the trenches. and l am now one
of the conductors of this train of
wounded.
Day before yesterday we had a
wounded soldier whose head was a
mass of bandages, with a little hole
in the place of his mouth. Another
hospital attendant and l were curious
enough to raise his bandage. His tag
indicated that his nose and the lower
part of his face had been torn away
by the splinter of shell. By luck
he had not lost his sight. His wounds
had been cleaned and disinfected; a
piece of skin had been removed from
his back and applied to his face in
this a round hole was made through
which he was fed. and another
through which he breathed Liquid
food was given him by means of a
rubber tube.
and those poor uhfortunates whose
limbs have been amputated. | saw
one whose two arms and a leg had
been cut off. He had received more
than 200 shell splinters; the greater
part were small, like pinheads."
AS we listened to this man. sad and
serious, fine tall Moroccan, who was
wounded, got up from his seat. His
eyes were filled with tears and he
started to talk with fierce energy:
why French take care boche
wounded? After war they go home
have many children; begin war again
with children, and war no good
French stupid. Boches. kill all. all
bad men. When no more boches, no
more war. That good"