The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1915-03-27
PUNISHMENT FOR
MUTILIATION' IS
D ] thin WARzONE.
Soldiers Dream is to Obtain Place in
Hospital Strict Laws Govern /.
Against Self Wounding.
SAVING OF WOUNDED DIFFICULT
Men Must Be Carried for Miles
Through Trenches and Firing
Lines Smile at Nurses. u
By, PHIL RAIDER.

ICOpyrlgAIed, 1919, ny United Press
Is London, March being wound
led in our trenches was gruesome
business. If wounded man drop
ped back to safety, he was extra
lucky, for everything that was done
for him, during the first few hours
only tested his waning strength and
was likely to make his condition
worse. -.
Often a man would not know he
was wounded for some time. One
chap came limping up the trench one
day complaining that he had been
shot in the leg. He could hardly put
his right foot to the ground. We
ripped open his trouser leg and could
find no bullet mark. And then we
discovered he had been shot through
the forearm and the wound was
hours old. To be hit feels like be-
ing punched, so many soldiers have
told me. When a man sank in our
trenches the fellows who were not
busy usually gathered around him
while someone ran two miles
through the trenches to get a Red
Cross man. <
Carried for Miles. T.
Within half an hour the Red Cross
man would come. If the wound was
not bad, the man would remain in
the trenches after the doctor had
soaked it in iodine, which burns like
fire. If the wound was serious the
doctor would do the best he could
after dressing it, and perhaps two
or three of us would be detailed TO.
take the wounded man back to safe
ty. !, He had to be carried through
two or three miles of trenches. It
was. impossible to use gtretcher oW-
ing to the sharp turnings and if you
carried a man on your back you had
to be careful at many places to keep
his head down below the trench top
as well as your own. One of our
fellows, who had been wounded in
the leg and was being carried on the
back of a comrade was shot through
the head and killed one day.
Were Many Dangers.
There are many dangers in turn
ings of our trench system. When
the journey was ended the wounded
man had to be carried down a 200
foot bank. Here he was safe, but
warm clean hospital bed was still
many miles away. Here he would
be taken into peasants house where
first aid men were on duty. There
would be nothing but straw for him
to lay on. The first aid men would
dash cold water onto his face, wash
his mounds and bind them as best
they could. Then the wounded man
would lie on tn straw until night
fall, for it was necessary to carry
him through a firing zone to get back
to the. infirmary, which was another
little house in town a mile dis
tant. He would either be wheeled
along the tow of the canal on a
stretcher made of two baby carriages
which were covered by a board, or. a
"charon" would carry him.
There were some carried in boat,
but they were the most gravely
wounded cases. We used to call the
boatman "Charon" and we named the
canal the Styx. In the infirmary
there were real surgeons, but they
were pressed with work and they
were forced through necessity to
perform their operation hastily in
an improvised hospital room. If
the wounded man was still alive by
this time, he would be put into a
Red Cross wagon or automobile or
some other sort of vehicle and car
ried 80 miles to large town (Which
cannot for obvious reasons name)
and here he would be put on the
next Red Cross train and started for
Paris. His bed in the train might
be a seat in third, second or first
CONTINUED on last page).
- -