The Devils Lake world and inter-ocean. (Devils Lake, N.D.) 1915-1920, 1918-07-24
WOUNDED BOYS
iShoW AMERICAS
SPIRIT in WAR
Hope Of New Chance Is the Dom.
inant Note.
IN PAIN Do NOT kURMuR

Chief interest IL In Outcome Of Bat
tie In Which They Were Hurt-Hos-
pItalF Crowded With Men From All
Sections Who Were Barring the Way
/: to Paris When They Got Their
Wounds-Tricks With Red Cross.
The minute I entered the long hos.
pital corridor I was aware Of a pair
of eyes. They were wlstful; they were
searching. They wanted something.
This was one Of our base hospitals,
and 1 was there because it 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 r
Eidors 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 filed that hospital, and it was
NO light skirmishing 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 stifhy 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 I would 60 and fetch it
for him. I hurried as fast as I 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
Gross 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 never left my face. They kept
drawing and shortening the bridge be-
tween us. AS I neared his bed in the
last lap Of that trip I pushed past a
doctor and all but upset a cup Of cof-
fee on a chair beside a cot, so urgent
seemed this boys need.
Easy, lady" He threw out his voice
coward me. "Could you possibly tell
me have they got any news Of my
regiment. Do you know whether they
beld?" He made no personal request.
AS I was gasping to recover from
the question 80 unforeseen another
voice REINFORCED him. It came from
a man lying fiat on his back In the
the next cot with his eyes bandaged
over and his face wearing the with
drawn, unparticipative look Of those
who cannot see
"What I want to know is, did they
hold the railroad. station in front of
-? That Is the important question.
II they did, we're all right, and those
Boches could never get another foot
nearer Paris along that 'front.'"
A boy on a neighboring cot made q
gesture to indicate to me that this
mans sight was forever gone. Only
his upper forehead and his lower jaw
were visible beyond the bandage, but
they were set and square. II wish
could get back at that, doggone It!
couldn't have stood it If those swine
had got to Paris"
I later got his record. He was VIII
Ham Myers Of Louisville and he trav
'eled for his father, who is in the liquor
business.
Foe Avoids Open Fight.
I'm so interested in my regiment
said the blind boy. His neighbor beck
"oned to me and whispered that he new
~er thought about anything else. II
never talked about himself, nor mad
a personal request nor asked If hi
sight was gone forever. He wanted t
know If his regiment had been re
aieved. A visitor had come and aske
him If he wanted anything, and h
asked her to please find out anythin
she could about his regiment. Sh
read the papers Of three %consecutiv
days which mentioned them. Then a
news ceased" But the blind boys on]
comment was that they must hay
beef relieved.
i was invited to sit down and tt
conversation became general.
'@Those Boches can't fight In IL
open" said Frank Oeluca, a boy fro
New York state, who had been shot
the lung. He painted a little Al
talked. '"This was an open scrap al
H.put four Of them on the run with n
bayenet. They can't stand the hgl
sof a 'bayonet. Individually. they air
80 brave. It's that they're organize