The courier-index., 1917-11-30

Trnon the request Of the ed1tor or .,o Courier-Index, Judge E.. A. Nc cnl,och of Little Rock, has consented ~ furnish this paper with some ex- .oocts from recent letters written by nr Hugh McCulloch, who is with the ct Louis hospital unit at British hosnital base in France. The ex- .raots are from letters written by nr McCulloch to his wife. Dr. Nc Dl,1locb formerly resided in Marianna ond his many friends will read with a,nch interest what he has to say anout his experiences behind the pri+;eb lines in France. Incidentally # nav be mentioned that Dr. McCul- loch has the rank of captain. The extracts follow:
 rronce october IS, 10 p. m:
 have made g very surprising and painful observation today. Both my hands are badly frostbitten. Monday morning l walked down on inc wards where there was heavy fog and I got very cold making hls- tories of examinations last night, and today my hands are badly swoi- len. painful and blistered. l cannot oct my ring off and they are very uncomfortable. Have done my work today and am really not worried about them have great many men with trench feet and hands, and I know how they must feel, for some of them are very bad
 Friday, 10:30 p. m.:
 My hands are about the same to- day. itching and swollen. and l cer- tainlv sympathize with the men at the front-it must be terrible at the front now. I do not see how human beings can live there now. These men come back, though, without word of complaint against anyone, inst cursing the mud that keeps them from going ahead. You know they have to lie out in shell holes full of water three or four days at time and even if they had a dry place 1t would not keep back the cold. We had an exciting time last night-had an aeroplane raid drill. have about sixty shell shot pa tients some of them mutes Well as signals of drills come real bombs were exploded and the shell shot men got much upset. and at the mo- ment the bombs exploded two of my mutes had their voices come back. They said that almost involuntarily with the explosion they had desire to speak and with the desire the words came out. Today they can talk all right, but none of them did any more sleeping after the bombs went off They are very interesting people to talk to. One boy was blown up in the air about ~th1rty-flve feet and was conscious all the time he was up in the air and could see the ground spinning around. The ex- plosion tore all his clothes off, but his only injury is a bruised liver and back where he hit the ground. My hands are better, not so swollen, and by keeping them cold they are fairly comfortable, but I cannot stay where there is any fire, and l can not wear gloves. for my hands get warm and off they have to come.
 If this war keeps up until next year. which is very probable. and 1t takes six months or a year to get peace finally settled, and then a1 year to get all the troops and sup plies home. it will be 1921 before can get home, and T. believe 1t IS pretty close to the way it will be. They say that it will take England two years to get all of her stuff out of France. just across the channel. By next fall we will have as much over here, and hospitals will be the last to get out, for as long as one stays there will be sick people to be cared for. Of course. 1 am putting the outside limit when I say 1921.
 l bought some fresh English wal nuts. They grow everywhere just like our black walnuts do at home, and are large and very good much better than when they are dried out as we get them in the states. There are lots of horse chestnuts, but no eatable chestnuts. The horse chestnuts are brought up by the government and used in mak- Ing explosives or some kind or mu- nltlons. 1t is quite stunt gathering them for the government.
 We get fine white grapes, the kind Kind that raisins are made rom ana still get good vegetables, es- peclally lettuce and little radlshes. <Sctober 21, Sunday:
 Al ho papers nave Wnoie Iot ooo"' the Zeppelin raids We didn't hear anything of them except the warning .hat they were out. I helped to en- certain a bunch of Swiss Red Cross people who had a staff of Colonels showing them around, etc. They spent some time on my ward. we now have a Ford car for our unit which was given by the Red Cross ana IS to be used for the convenience of the unit, and not on official busi- ness.
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