Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1918-12-06
FRENCH BOY IS
REAL WAR HERO
Bears Excruclatlnu Pain Without
Word Of Complaint.


9lsNpD.Nsar.old Youth 10 Hi BY Die
patch Rider on Motorcyelo-Not .
ery Out Of Him a. Automoblls
oashes Over Rough Roads to Take
biIm to ACCOMPLISHMENTS Of Hun
Aavauery In Bombing Of commeroy.
10 10 only eleven years old but the
eOtire battlenelds Of Europe have fail.
e % produce q bigger hero.
came across him the other day
t1hlls on my way to Saint Mlhlel, dur
ing which I noticed a crowd In the
read near Ppgny sur Mouse. A dough-
beg stepped from the crowd and
stopped our car. saying that an
AnogIcan motorcycle dispatch rider
h0A struck a child and broken his leg.
HO also explained that the rider had
sustained a dlslocated shoulder.
There were no hospitals or doctors
IN the town. so we stopped and / told
him ne q. r. I. would take him back
20 EOui to the hospital. He asked me
n would deliver his dispatches and
when ] told him I could not. he re-
fused to 60 to the hospital.
Gives First Aid. >,
% the chauffeur. the doughboy and
.IyDeIf got hold Of him, wedged him
aEainst the car and pulled on his left
arm until we snapped It back In the
socket.
I rot him some cognac from q
Franehwoman. he took drink,
AnaiIy got on his motorcycle and rode
on slowly.
Then I looked at the boy. a French
hid shout eleven years old. His right
leg bone was snapped of clean as
whistle Just below the thigh. 80 that It
wabbied around. His poor old father
was standing there helpless, and beg
gpd that I wouldn't leave the child
thore helpless "comme unchlen," like
a dog In the road.
So we put the lad in the car and
rushed him to the Toul hospital. 1t
must have caused him eXcruciating
min as we dashed over the r0nd hut
never a word of complaint, although
IN the front seat could hear him
sucking in his breath sharply from the
torture of the broken ends of the bone
rubbing against one another.
He was as white as marble. We
mt him In the hospital Mt Toul. I
then went on to Saint Mihiel, and as
I was passing through the buckle Of
the Meuse river southwest Of the
town where It is low and fiat and was
formerly mo mans land" covered
with barbed wire, an American avia-
t0r, Lieut.. Palmer Gaillard Of Mobile,
who knows my grandfather. stepped
out and asked me where he was.
Knew It Was All Right.
He had been forced to land through
engine trouble and was not sure
whether he was in the allied or Ger
man lines, but when he saw car
marked ~. ST." he knew 1t was all
right. He was a long way from an
inhabited town. as the nearest ones, a
couple Of kilOmeters away, had been
shelied to pieces, and he couldn't talk
French, so was in bad position.
! Kicked him up and we went to
Saint Mihiel. It was just getting
dark, and the BOche bombed Us there,
at Commercy, going back. at Void, at
Pagny, and at Toul again, where /
dropped him and / ran into raid get
ting back to Nancy. Six raids In
one night is a record. I guess.
We stopped outside Commercy while
they wereS Bombing it, then running
through we could smell powder wher-
ever O bomb struck.
They were taking a dead child out
OF one house and dragging a wounded
woman out Of the cellar Of another.
VlIA0 aR0TuEDc 0DHAMI7E