The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1916-03-24
CHAPTER TX.
&c VIII Foraive.

He viii Forgive.
life next mornfng went by
train 70 the town where the
fever hospita. was located. An
- hour away the contour of the
country changed. Chains of hills rolled
away in a peaceful undulating line
and trees in the distance with their.
thick foliage appeared like a great
wave of green fog. Hare and there the
autumn coloring looked like huge bou-
qGets of red and yellow flowers, while
the sky overhead was beautiful pool
of liquid turquoise.
There had been SO little time in the
last month for self communion that
enjoyed to the uttermost this chance
for quiet and repose. stretched out
on the cushions, oblivious Of the heat
and dust, thought of approaching
events, considered the future possibili-
ties and esSayed to penetrate the great
darkness that engulfed us all. The
hours passed, and I was there before
dreamed It was timet to arrive.
I found the hospital not yet system
atized, the patients streaming int In
such numbers as to prevent almost any
attempt at organization. Mile. F., in
showing me around said when we
came 20 the operating room:
'It is as If fate meant to have good
laugh at us. We have here a whole
service of rare and expensive tools: we
have an oesopha goscope and the very
latest pattern of stethoseope and a
marvellous set OF tools for plating frac-
lures, but we have no knives, no arr
terry forceps and not stitch of cat
gut"
We had to laugh. It was a little like
having gold service from which to-
eat and not a crumb of bread. Hasty
telephone messages soon renedied that.
The conditions In the hospital were
pathetic in the extreme. HUNDREDS of
men stricken with typhoid and not a
single bathtub in tie place. It was
not, however, that France was indif-
ferent or unable. It was an avalanche
of wounded descended on a country
totally unprepared.
On my return Captain Frazer was.
greatly interested In the tales that the
men had told me down at the fever
hospital, as his regiment had been
fighting in that locality for some
months just before they had been or
dered to -. My stories led him to
visualize for me an average twenty
four hours down there in the trenches.
Personally he began, ST believe
trench warfare is better suited to Ger
mans than to us. They are so method
zeal and deliberate that the sitting still
plan is their very best way.
Zone of the little diversions of our
officers is to go forward on observation
duty in the foremost trenches. For it
is only by making q careful study OF
the ground that one can be sure which
trench is theirs and which is ours
they are SO close together
Two nights before we came here I
was ordered to be in a sniper's trench
an hour before dawn and in telephone
communication with the battery. The
way Jed through No Mans Land (the
space between the opposing trenches),
The night was as dark as pitch, and
again and again found myself on the
edge of pit twenty feet wide which
Jack Johnson or his first cousin
sWooily' had made and which was deep
enough to drown man or two. "A
fine bath well get In the warm
weather. my telephoner said.
Pretty soon we caught up with an
Infantry guide who led US along the.
path that the trench relief men, sap
pers and stetcher bearers use. It was
dangerous bit, and the soldiers, no
matter how heavy their kit or how
long the march had been. break into
double quick, for the whiz of bullets
and the shrek of shrapnel is not the
sort of music that tempts one to linger.
We had been warned about a fallen
tree by the waysfde which seemed an
ideal stop for a breather. But it has
proved to those who had been tempted
the song Of the LtoreIei, as the enemy
had marked down. the position exactly
and had rife set on it,
I said something about the fatal
music of shot and she'll" Captain Fra
ger laughed and replied, well, really.
that sort of music is not fatal, because
SO long as we hear it it is not for us;
the bullet that comes straight is the
dog that bites before it barks'
At last" the captain continued, 1--WE
came to a forward trench, which might
be better described as a vvatercourse
In the half gray light it seemed a dim
mysterious background to the mud
gray sandbag walls against which mud
gray soldiers in full equipment were
alternately standing or lying These
latter are supposed to be asleep, and
for the most part they are, for with
the fatigue and exhaustion of it all it
takes more than the fear of death to
keep man awake.
Among OILY things we were told
OF to put up wire ENHANCEMENT. The
noise of our equipment disturbed the