The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1918-07-31
WOUNDED BOYS
SHOW AMERICAS
SPIRIT IN WAR
Hope Of New Chance Is the DOM
inant Note.
IN PAIN DO NOT MURMUR

Gle In Which They Were Hurt-Hos-
pitaI Crowded With Men From All
Sections Who Were Barring the Way
to Paris When They Got Their
Wounds-Trlcks With Red Cross.
The minute / entered the long hos
pital corridor / was aware of a pair
Of eyes. They were wlstful; they were
searching. They wanted something.
This was one of our base hospitals,
and ! was there because 1t was crowd
ed with wounded Americans, writes
Mary Brush Williams In the Chicago
Tribune. Our boys had smelled the
smoke Of battle and borne Its wounds.
Swathed In bandages, they crowded
the wards whose swinging doors watt
ed the heavy odors of iodoform. Not
nearly all of them could get into the
rooms, and the overflow lined the cor
ridors In a lane of cots stretched end
to end.
Men from the Mississippi basin and
the wheat fields of the Northwest,
from California, New York and Ken
lucky filled that hospital, and 1t was
nc light skIrmlshing that had brought
them there. They were barring the
way to Paris when they got their
wounds.
In a cot against an end wall sat a
boy whose gaze fascinated me. One
leg lay stiffiy In a cast outside the
bedclothes and one arm swung from a
pulley. His pallId face was framed
In strong. black hair that reached
backward against the upright pillow.
Only his eyes showed any animation,
and. although we were fully a half
block apart. they reached out and
spanned the distance, stretching an In
Visible bridge between him and me.
i said to myself he wanted some
thing and that ! would go and fetch 1t
FOR him. I hurried as fast as l could,
which wasn't very fast, because of the
congestion of the corridor by blan-
keted men on stretchers who were
being wheeled along the narrow path
between the cots. Nurses hurried
along with thermometers and Red
Cross men with cups OF Cruel.
There's a good deal of traffic along
this boulevard" grinned a boy from
behind a diagonal bandage with which
they had bound his head.
Wants News Of Regiment.
All through my slow progress those
eyes left my face. They kept
drawing and shortening the bridge be-
tween us. As I neared his bed In the
hast lap Of that trip I pushed past a
doctor and all but upset a cup of cof-
Tee on a chair beside a cot, so urgent
seemed this one boys need.
'Easy. ladyw He threw out his voice
eoward me. "Could you possibly tell
me have they got any news of my
regiment. Do you know whether they
heldf" He made no personal request.
Az ! was gasping to from
me question so unforeseen another
voice REINFORCED him. 1t came from
q lying fiat on his back In the
the next cot with his eyes bandaged
over and his face wearing the with
orawn, unparticipative look Of those
Who cannot SEE.
what I want to know Is, did they
hold the railroad station in front of
"3 That Is the important question.
f they did, we're all right, and those
80ches could never get another foot
nearer Paris along that front"
A boy on a neighboring cot made a
gesture to indicate to me that this
mans sight was forever gone. Only
his upper forehead and his lower jaw
we're visible beyond the bandage. but
hey were set and square. II wish !
could get back at that, doggone I'll /
eDuldn't have stood It IL those swine
had got to Paris"
/ later got his record. He was VIII
lam Myers of Louisville and he trav-
lied for his father, who is In the liquor
business.
Foe Avoids Open Fight.
I'm 20 interested In my regiment"
said the blind boy. His neighbor beck
oned to mi and whispered that he new
~ thought about anything else. He
never talked about himself, nor made
= personal request nor asked IL his
night was gone forever. He wanted to
know II his regiment had been re-
lieved. A visitor had come and asked
him II he wanted anything. and he
asked her to please find out anything
nhe could about his regiment. She
rad the papers Of three consecutive
days which mentioned them. Then all
news ceased. But the blind boys only
comment was that they must have
ben relieved.
I wa1 invited to sit down and the
eonvernation became general.
ssThose Boches can't fight In the
open,r said Frank Deluca, a boy from
New York state. who had been shot In
the lung. He painted q little as he
talked. s@This was an open scrap and
put four Of them on the run with my
bayonet. They can't stand the sight
d4 = boyonet. Individually, they aln't
- brave. It's that they're organized
md 80 IN great lots or else they stay
~ TIE woods or In the trenches and