The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-05-14
AN AMERICAN GIRL WITH THE RED CROSS TELLS 0F FIRST CASE
Picked Up Wounded Belgian Under Fire of Germans. Had Trouble With the
 Stretcher Bearers

Londons April -tCorrespondence of the Associated Press.)-An American girl who recently volunteered for service with a Red Cross ambulance in Belgium, sends the following account of her first case:
 The eoniinandant doctor with whom I was assigned to work had taken me far up toward the front, where a Belgian battery was stationed. While he attended to some trifling injuries there came the sound of cannonading. and news that the Germans were attacking the very section V here we were working
 'Suddenly. at what seemed the last min ute of safety. two Belgian stretcher bearers, without a stretcher rushed up to me They said there was a man badly wounded somewhere up the road l found a stretcher and went off with them to look for him.
 We went on and on. It proba bly, wasn't more than 300 yards, but it seemed like a very long ways it seemed impos- sjble to find the house. Then some wom- en came running and pointed out the place. The stretcher bearers hurried off with their stretcher. I followed.
 The man, horribly hurt, with wound like a red pit below his shoulder blades, was brought and laid on the stretcher. He lay there quietly on his side, In posture of utter resignation to anguish.
 He was a Belgian peasant, clumsily built he had broad, rather ugly face. narrowing suddenly as the fringe of his whiskers became a little struggling beard. But to me he was the most beau tiful person 1 had ever seen, I loved him. He was my first wounded man.
 q tried--I still try-to persuade my self that if I hadn't bullied my two bear CTS and repulsed an attempt to get my stretcher away for some other patients he would have been left behind in that little house. We got him out of ..-e yard all right. and on to the paved road Then, to my horror, the bearers dumped him down on the paving stones. They said he was much too heavy. They couldn't possibly carry him unless they rested.
 q didn't think it was exactly the mo- ment for resting, and told them so in several languages. The Germans were likely to come around the turn in the road at any time You never know,
 But the bearers stood stolidly in the middle of the road and mopped their faces and puffed. The situation began to be as absurd and terrible as a night mare So I grabbed on one end of the stretcher and said I would carry it my self. I said l wasn't very strong, and perhaps couldn't do it, but, anyhow ! WOulu try.
 They picked it up at once then and started off at a good swinging trot over the rough paving stones. jolting my poor patient horribly. I suggested that they walk on the smooth path at the sida. They hailed this suggestion as a most brilliant and original idea.
 ''As my patient was brought into the villag where the battery was stationed the ambulance had got it's wounded and was ready to go. But he had to have his wound dressed. He lay there in the middle of the street and I had to watch while the surgeon stuffed his wound with antiseptc gauge. I had always supposed that the dressing of wound was a eau tious and delicate process. But it wasn't There was a careless audacity about if The surgeon worked rapidly. unmoved as if he were stuffins an old crate with straw. And it was all over in a moment or two. There seemed something inde cent in the haste with which my Belgian was disposed of
 Then the surgeon remarked casually that my patients wound didn't amount to much. Tt looks much worse than il really is he said. felt hurt, as if this beloved person had ben sighted. also as if there had been some subtle disparage- ment of my find.