The Carlisle independent., 1918-09-05

of their own men in this way. But the fire was so heavy that, when they coun- ter-attaeked, we had to retire again. and this time they kept after us and drove us beyond the trench we had originally occupied.
 We left them there, with our arti!- lery taking care of them, and our ma chine guns trying to enfilade them, and moved to the right. There was a bunch of trees there, about like a small woods, and as we passed the Germans concealed in it opened fire on us, and We retired to some reserve trenches. We were pretty much scattered by this time, and badly cut up. We reformed there and were joined by other of our troops in small groups-what was left of squads and platoons and singly. Our captain had got it fifth time, meanwhile. but he would not leave us, as he was the ranking officer. He had scalp wound. but the others were in his arms and shoulders. He could not move his hands at all.
 
 for the woods. We carried some ma chine guns with us as we went. and the gunners would run a piece, set up, fire while we opened up for them, and run on again. Some troops came out of a trench still farther to the right and helped us. and we drove the Ger mans out of the woods and occupied it ourselves.
 From there, we had the Germans in our old trench almost directly from the rear, and we simply cleaned them out. I think all the vows were kept that day, or else the men who made them died first
 I was shot through the thigh some time or other after the captain got back. It felt just like a needle-prick at first. and then for a while my leg was numb. A couple of hours after we took our trench back, started out for the rear and hospital. The wound had been hurting for some time. They car ried the captain out on a streteher about the same time. but he died on the way from loss of blood. Fresh troops came up to relieve us. but our men refused to go, and though official ly they were not there in the trench, they stayed until they took the cap- tain away. Then. back to billets-not bullets. this time. believe that we re- ceived an army citation for that piece of work, but do not know, as l was in the hospital for short time after. ward. do not remember much about going to the hospital except that the ambulance made an awful racket going over the stone-paved streets of Etaples and that the bearer who picked up one end of my stretcher. had eyes like dead fish floating on water; also. that there were some ciyvies standing around the entrance as We were being carried in.
 The first thing they do in the hos ! pital is to take off your old dirty band l ages and slide vour stretcher under ! big electric magnet. 4 doctor comes 1 in and places his hand over your wound, and they let down the magnet over his hand and turn on the juice | If the shell fragment or bullet in you is more than seven centimeters deep, ! you cannot feel the pain. The first doctor reports to the chief how deep your wound is, and where it is situ- | ated and then Q nurse comes up to | you. where you lie, with your clothes still on, and asks you to take the | pressure"
 Then they lift you on a four-wheeled i cart, and roll yol to the operating the i ater. They take off your clothes there remember ] liked to look at the | nurses and surgeons; they looked so | good i.l their clean white clothes.
 Then they stick hollow needles into, you, which hurt a good deal, and you | take the pressure. After a while, they | begin cutting away the bruised and | maybe rotten flesh, removing the old | cloth, pieces of dirt, and so forth. and | scraping away the splinters of bone.
 You think for sure you are going to bleed 10 death. The blood rushes through you like lightning, and if you get sight of yourself, you can feel yourself turning pale. Then they hurry you to your bed, and cover you over with blankets and hot-water bottles. They raise your bed on chairs, so the blood will run up toward your head, and after while, your eyes open and the doctor says, "Oui, oui, il vivra." meaning that you still had some time to spend before finally going west.
 The treatment we got in the hospital was great. We received cigarettes, to- bacco, matches, magazines, and clean clothes. The men do not talk about their wounds much, and everybody tries to be happy and show it. The food was fine, and there was lots of it.
 do not think there were any doe tors in the world better than ours, and they were always trying to make things easy for us. They did not rip