The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1917-11-24
(By Bruce Barton, Editor of Every
Week.)

JUST anued from the western front;
and he told me the heartrending story
OF the walking wounded.
The wounded who have lost an arm
or an eye. or a part of the face, but
are still able TO struggle back from
the front line trenches alone.
Go with mo for moment 20
France: / want you to see what he
saw. / want you to know the truth
1t is the dav before the big push
For weeks the army has known the
exact hour and moment when the
barrage would lift and the men leap
out "over the top"
The enemy has known it, too; his
preparations are as great and as care
full as ours.
I ON the day before, the engineers
plant line of painted white posts u
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 can
teen. And just before they reach the
front trench-at the very front, under
the fire of the big guns themselves
each man/pauses for just second at
a dug-out.
1t is the front line trench of the Y.
Nj. G. A.
From ii hand reaches out: i'm the
hand a piece of chocolate for each
man to be eaten i'm 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 "over the top"
An hou~ passes: two hours. And
slowly, painfully. dragging. they come
back. The men who have lost an
arm, and the men who have lost an
oye' and the men who carry in their
shoulders or their abdomens or their
legs the enemy's bullets and shells.
Bleeding. staggering men, follow
ing the trail of the painted posts.
And they stop at the Y. M. c. 4.
dugout first. 1t lies nearest the guns
Nearer than the doctor or hospital.
rhere every man gets cup of hot
tea IL he wants it, there two order
hes 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
10 receive the soothing potion, or he
mods his head and passes on.
| On along the way of naipted ros,.
to the hospitals and to rest.
Sometimes the dug-out is sbo,,ed
and Y. NJ. c. A. secretary loses his
life: two went out together on one
day recently.
1t Is part OF the game. they ask for
no symapthy: they ask not even sor
pay: many of them are working for
nothing at all.
All they ask is for money to "corrv
on To be able to stand just behind
the front with chocolate for the mo,
who are going "over the top" To No
able to stand there with hot teo md
morphine for the men who are stoo.
gering back along the way of paint.
ed posts.
| Thirty-five million dollars-it is =
lot OF money. But you would not saw
so II you stood beside the way OF
painted posts.
| You would not say so If you saw
the procession of the walking wound -
ed.
| IL would not be much If one of the
Walking wounded were your brother
or your cousin or your SON.
| tie may be one of them before the
| war is over: ne may be over there