Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1917-09-07

r WAS taken from Pozieres to Albert
in a Ford ambulance or, as the
Tommies would say, a "tin Lizzie"
The man who drove this vehicle would
make a good chauffeur for ar adding
machine. Apparently he was counting
the bumps in the road, for he didn't
miss one of them. However, the trip
was only a matter of seven miles, and
1 was in fair condition when they lifted
me out and carried me to an operating
table in the field dressing station.
A chaplain came along and murmur-
ed a little prayer in mr. a | imagine
that would have made a man feel very
solemn If he had thought there wis a
chance he was about to pass out, but
I knew l merely had a leg pretty badly
smashed up, and while the chaplain
was praying l was wondering If they
Would have to cut it off. figured, II
so, this would handicap my dancing.
The first formality in a shrapnel case
is the administration of an anti-tetanus
~innoculation, and when it is done you
realize that they are sure trying to
save your life. The doctor uses a horse
syringe, and the injection leaves a
lump on your chest as big as a base
ball, which stays with you for forty
eight hours. After the injection a
nurse fills out a diagnosis blank with
a description of your wounds and a
record of your name, age, regiment,
regimental number, religion, parentage
and previous history as far as she can
discover it without asking questions
which would be positively indicate.
After all of hat my wounds were CIV
en- their first real dressing.
Immediately after this was done I
was bundled into another ambulance
and driven to Contay, where the @. G.
s. Casualty clearing station and rail
head were located. In the ambulance
with me were three other soldiers, an
artillery officer and two privates of in
fantry. We were all ticketed off as
~shrapnel cases and probable r%ecoveries,
which latter detail is remarkable, since
the most slightly injured of the four
had twelve wounds, and there were
sixty odd shell fragments or shrapnel
balls collectively imbedded in us. The
nurse had told me that l had about
proved conservative. More accurate
and later returns showed twenty-five
bullets and shell fragments were in
my leg. They took these out and pre-
scented them to me. | have been CIV
ing them away for souvenirs.
We were fairly comfortable in the
ambulance, and 1 especially had great
relief from the fact that the nurse had
strapped my leg in a sling attached to
the top of the vehicle. We smoked
cigarettes and chatted cheerfully, ex-
changing congratulations on having
got "clean ones'-that Is, wounds not
probably fatal. The artillery officer
told me he had been supporting our
battalion that morning with one of the
sacrifice batteries"
A sacrifice battery, l might explain,
is one composed of field pieces which
are emplaced between the front and
support lines and which in case of an
attack or cou%nterattack are fired at
point blank range. They call them
sacrifice batteries because some of
them are wiped out every day. This
officer said our battalion that morning
had beer supported by an entire divi-
sion of artillery and that on u front
of 400 yards the eighteen Founders
alone, in a curtain fire which lasted
thirty-two minutes, had discharged
1900 rounds Of high explosive shells.
I was impressed by his statement, of
course, but l told him that, while this
was an astonishing lot of ammunition,
it was even more surprising to have
noticed at close range, as 1 did, the
humber of Germans they missed. To-
ward the end of our trip to Contay we
were much exhausted and pretty badly