The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1918-05-16
RED CROSS
WORKS At FRONT
FAMOUS CORRESPONDENT WITH
OUR ARMY TELLS OF CARE
OF WOUNDED
AsT0RY FULL Of PlTHOS AND INTEREST
Description OF The Care And Atten.
ton That 10 Given Those Who
Need Care And Comfort
BY REGINALD w. KAUFMAN
Copyright 1918 by the Philadelphia
North American)
Reprinted by Permission

NoIlu AucTlCduJ
Reprinted by Permission
The American Camp, Somewhere in
France.-It was as if we were in the
cleft of an iceberg. Ice vanished the
~clay-cOvered logs that walled our mar.
row trench; when either of us crouch
ed a little lower into the freezing mud
of the floor. a crust of ice broke under
us; from the narrow strip of sky v
head, the stars, which seemed close
enough for p%lucking. hung like so
many icicles. For a long hour there
had been no sound saw the occasional
crackle and tinkling of ice-we might
have been alone upon our berg in an
arctic sea
I'D rather like to know" whis-
~pered-at night you always whisper in
the trenches-'Pd rather like to know
what it's like when a shell explodes
in a dugout."
Whang!
A couple of hundred yards on our
left the bIackness blazed into sudden
fire and instantly left us in binding
dark.
WELL" said Bill, you've come to
a likely place to learn"
My aching fingers could almost have
touched the boy. had the cold per.
mitted me to stretch out my arms. and
yet he was only just discernible.
Only just d%iscernible and scarcely to
be recognized for the American infan-
tryman. In any conscript camp from
that at Aver, Mass. to that at Annis.
ton, Ala, the rawest reserve officer
would have censured him, for his uni.
form had suffered the sea change that
every n of u uniforms is suffering
over here. The familiar service hat
had been replaced by a fore-and-aft
cap that covered his ears; a Red Cross
knitted muffler hid all the lower por.
ton Of his face; he had raggedly cut
off the skirt Of his OvercOat to his
knees; when he worked his toes to
stimulate circulation, water gurgled in
his broken boots.
THAT" he explained, evidently nod.
ding toward the scene of the explo-
sion, was a trench mortar-minen-
werfer. Mornings, you can see 'em
comm. Ever play football? Those
things look like a spiral kickoff"
Another conclusion put a period to
his concluding sentence, a conclusion
different from it's predecessor. / was
acquainted with the sound that fol-
lowed it, a sound for all the world like
the first drops of rainstorm on autumn.
nal leaves. 1t was shrapnel, and that
meant that the enemy was finding a
range for his bigger guns.
The shrapnel increased, and then
there was a minutes lull.
Now for the big show" said Bill.
meant to ask him something. Per
hapg | did ask 1t. I don't know. l
don't eve remember the tremendous
bang that must have succeeded when
the heavens seemed to split open and
tumbling down upon my head"
hes all right 1t fell in the
next trench"
A man with a Red Cross brassard
was bending over me.
Look here!" 1t was another man
with a brassard that now spoke. "This
fellows got his!"
1t was Bill they meant. 1 caught
broken phrases about a broken left
and an abdominal wound, a re-
quest for a irst-aid pouch and then
the clear order: "Stretcher this
way!"
Out Of the communication trench
two more men trotted with a stretch.
er. On 1t they placed the inert thing
that had been Bill. and with it, l fol-
they staggered, STOPPING be-
hind clay mounds log-buttressed. slip
ping and stumbling through the mud,
now and then another shell blazirg
and believing close at hand.
OF old. army medical corps waited
for the wounded to be brought to hos
pital; in modern warfare the medical
corps reaches its saving hand up to
the first line. The injured man is TAX
en- direct to a regimental dressing sta
ton; if his injuries demand 1t, he Is
thence to more deliberately
equipped stations. and therefrom when