The copper era and Morenci leader., 1915-11-19
SEES WAR HORRORS.
Stretcher Bearer Gives Impress
 sions of Life at Front.
Is Nearly Overcome by Sight of Firs. Operation Till Given Slap by Sur qeon-Dare Not Tell Men
 Truth.


 Villers-C -Cotterets.-We had just left the hospital and had reached the sta tion. We were exchanging glances of joy and shaking hands, saying 'Parisl We are going to see Paris again." The train was waiting on a siding. We climbed into it; the hospital atten- dants placed us in our seats.
 There I 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 a confidential mood that day. began to relate the impressions of his life as military hospital attendant.
 '1t was in the early days of the war. I had received 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 min ute to be lost.
 'I remember the terrible slap the head surgeon gave me the first day he entered the operating room, when was ordered to hold a wounded sol dier whose leg was being amputated. The odor, the cruel sight of the opera tion, caused me to turn as white as death, and was about to faint. That blow brought me quickly to my senses. I have seen worse sights | since!
 we spent some terrible moments of anguish there. We had no anti tetanus serum; we had written and telegraphed everywhere for 1t, but the hospitals which had 1t kept it jeal- ously and it was impossible to obtain any.
 "I recall one of the finest men l 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 1t was. He was sent to a spe- cial hospital; 1t 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 requisitioned 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 I spent in Arras as stretcher bearer during the fierce combats oi Notre Dame de Lorette. I was there a month gathering the dead and wounded; witnessing the most terri ble 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 oi stretchers. More than one died or my back.
 N 'T am old; I'm forty-six. was taken of the conductors of this train oi wounded.
 Day before yesterday we had . wounded soldier whose head was z mass of bandages, with a little hole in the place of his mouth. Another hospital attendant and 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 lucl he had not lost his sight. His wounds had been cleaned and disinfected; 2 piece of skin had been removed from his back and applied to his face; il this a round hole was made through which he was fed, and another through which he breathed. LiquiC food was given him by means of z rubber tube.
 And those poor unfortunates whose limbs have been amputated! I saw one whose two arms and leg hat 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 anC serious, fine tall Moroccan, who wal wounded, got up from his seat. Hi eyes were filled with tears and ht . started to talk with fierce energy: Why French take care bocht l wounded? After war they go home l have many children; begin war agail with children, and war no good French stupid. Boches, kill all, al bad men. When no more boches, nt : more war. That gocd."