Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1917-11-17
PAST THE DUG OUT
THE PAINTED POSTS
Is The Trail Of The Wounded
"flver There" In he Trenches.
SUPPOSE YOUR BOY is ONE
OF The Walking Wounded "A Plea To
Help The Y M. c. A.
And Whv.
By BRICE BARTON,
Editor of Every Week. "

landed from the western front; and
he told me the heart-rending story of
the walking wounded
The wounded who have lost an arm,
or an eye, or part of the face. but
are still able to struggle back from
the front line trenches alone
Go with me for moment to France.
/ want you TO see what he saw.
want you to know the truth.
II is the day before the big push.
For weeks the army has known the
exact hour and moment when the bar
rage would lift and the men leap out
"oyer the top
The enemy has known it, too; his
preparations are as great and as care
ful as ours.
On the day before, the engineers
plant line of painted white posts a
few yards apart. leading from the rear
straight to the borders of No Mans
Land
Simple painted posts; what are they
for?
They are to guide the walking
wounded. Eyes blurred with blood
and suffering that might lose the road
can follow the trail of those painted
posts; bodies too weak from shell
shock or gas to stand alone can find
there momentary support.
The trail of the painted posts is the
trail Of the walking wounded; the
trail of blood and misery and pain.
Just before dawn the men file into
the forward trenches. Singing? Not
a bit. Talking? Hardly word Only
the silent, heavy tramp of men who
have written their last letters home
Men with faces carved out of stone
They pass out of camp; they pass
the base hospitals; they pass the
canteen. And just before they reach
the front trench-at the very front.
under the fire of the big guns them
selves-each man pause cor just a
second at a dug-out.
1t is the front line trench OF the
Y. M. G. A.
From it hand reaches out; in the
hand piece of chocolate for each
man to be eaten in case he falls
wounded in No Mans Land. A hearty
Good Luck and God Bless You 1t is
with this, the voice of the Y. M. c. A.
secretary, ringing in their ears that
men go cover the top
An hour passes; two hours And
slowly, painfully, draggingly, they
come back. The men who have lost
n. nj h. hox lrf
an eye, and the men who carry in
their shoulders or their abdomens or
their legs the enemy's bullets and
she'll
Bleeding, staggering men, following
the trail of the painted posts.
And they stop at the Y M. c. A.
dug-out first. 1t lies nearest the guns
Nearer than the doctor or hospital
There every man gets cup of hot tea
if he wants it; there two orderlies
stand with hypodermics in their
hands
do you want it?' they demand Of
each man who passes through.
And either he thrusts out his arm
to receive the soothing potion. or he
mods his head and passes on.
On along the way of painted posts
to the hospitals and to rest.
Sometimes the dug-out is shelled.
and Y. M. c. A. secretary loses his
life; two went out together on one
day recently.
1t is part Of the game: they ask for
no sympathy; they ask not even for
pay; many Of them are working for
nothing at all.
All they ask is for money to carry
on" To be able to stand just behind
the front with chocolate for the men
who are going lover the top" To be
able to stand there with hot tea and
morphine for the men who are stag
gering back along the way of painted
posts.
Thirty-five million dollars-it is a
lot of money. Bur you would not say
so if you stood beside the way of
painted posts
You would not say so if you saw the
procession of the walking wounded
1t would not be much If one Of the
walking wounded were your brother
or your cousin or your son.
He may be one of them before the
war is over; he may be over there
even now Stand with him, asks the
Y. NJ. c. A. Let the hand that Y. NJ.
c. A. reaches out BE- your hand. Let
the chocolate that it gives be your
chocolate, as he goes past the dug-out
"over the top
And be there with your cup Of hot
tea and your morphine when he comes
back again.
Past the dug-out
With the walking wounded.
Along the way Ut painted posts