Semi-weekly herald., 1915-04-01

a man sank in our trenches the fel-
lows who were not busy usually gath
cred around him while some one ran
two miles through the trenches to get
Red Cross man. 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 doctore had soaked it in iodine,
which burns like fire If the wound
was serious the doctor would do the
best he could in the way of dressing
it and then one of us, or perhaps two,
would be detailed TO take the unlucky
man back to safety. He had to be
carried through two miles of trenches.
1t was impossible to use a stretcher
owing 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
walls as well as your own. One of
our fellows who had been wounded in
the leg was being carried on the back
of a comrade, who shot through the
head and killed one day at one of the
many dangerous turnings in our
trench system.
After this two mile trench journey
was ended, the man had to be carried
along a pathway down 200 foot
cliff. Here he was safe from bullets
or shells, but warm, clean hospital
bed was still millions of miles distant
Here he would be taken into peas
ants house, where the first aid men
were on duty. There would be moth
ing but straw for him to lie upon.
The first aid men would dash cold
water on his face, wash his wounds
and bind them as best they could.
Then the wounded man would lie on
the straw until nightfall, for it was
necessary to carry him through a fir
ing zone to get back to the infirmary,
which was another little house in a
town a mile distant He would either
be wheeled along the towpath of the
canal on stretcher made of two
baby carriages, which were connect
ed by board or "charon" would car
ry him in an old boat. Charon was
alsold French peasant with lcsg white
whislSers. His Goat was floored with
straw and because he carried only the
most gracely wounded men, who often
died during the mile journey down
the canal, we used to call him "Char-
on" and we named the canal the Styx.
At the infirmary there were real
surgeons, but they were pressed with
work and were forced of necessity to
perform their operations hastily in an
improvised operation room.
If the wounded man were still
alive, by this time, he would be put
into Red Cross wagon or automobile
or some other sort of vehicle and
carried 80 miles to a large town
(which l 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 seat in third, second or first
class coach; or, if he was lucky, it
might be a sheeted bed in regular
Red Cross car.
At last this train will pull into
Paris or into some other distant city
of France, where there are big hos
pitals. Scores of ambulances will be
waiting in the railroad yards. The
attendants will be running
each seeking out the wounded
who are TO be assigned to the hospital
which he represents. To them he is
only "a number, or perhaps a chalk
mark on the door of the car. They
will put him on stretcher, place him
in a huge motor ambulance, perhaps
with one or two other men who have
been injured on distant battlefields,
and the car will race through the
streets of the city to the hospital,
which once seemed to the sufferer so
many miles away and where warm
white beds, gentle nurses, flowers and
no responsibility awaits him. 1t is no
wonder that the wounded men who
reach the hospital wards sink back
onto the pillows with sighs Of relief
and smile when they catch the first
glimpse of the white nurses. Look
back at the journey he has taken since
that moment he was hit in the
trenches and you can understand how
a hospital ward looks like heaven to
a wounded soldier.
To get into hospital is one Of
soldiers dreams and there are strict
laws in all armies against men
wounding themselves. In the French
army this eeIf- woundinp is known as