The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1918-07-17

Chief Interest Is in Outcome OF Bat
tie In Which They Were Hurt--tios-
pitaI Crowded With Men From All
Sections Who Were Barring the Way
to Paris When They Got Their
Wounds-Tricks With Red Cross.
The minute / 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 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 cor
rldors in 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 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
boy whose gaze fascinated me. One
loo I,xy s,ttn t.. 40 t1s1 do n
bedclothes and one arm swung from
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 q half
block apart, they reached out and
spanned the distance, stretching an in
visible bridge between him and me.
/ said to myself he wanted some
thing and that would go and fetch It
for him. I hurried rs fast as I could,
which wasn't very fast, because of the
congestion of the corridor by blan-
keted men on stretchers who We're
being wheeled along the narrow path
between the cots. Nurses hurried
along with thermometers and Red
Cross men with cups of Cruel.
"There's good deal of traffic along
this boulevard" grinned boy from
behind 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 ] neared his bed in the
last lap of that trip pushed past
doctor and all hut upset cup of cof-
fee on chair beside cot, so urgent
seemed this one boys need.
"Easy, lady' He threw out his voice
tow I'd ne. "Could you possibly tell
me have they got any news of my
regiment. Do you know whether they
held?" He made no personal request.
AS I was gasping to recover from
the question so unforeseen another
voice REINFORCED him. 1t came from
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 l want to know is, did they
hold the railroad station in front of
-? That is the important question.
If 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 a
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 We're set and square. 81 wish /
could get back at that, doggone it I
rculdn't have stood 1t If those swine
had got to Paris"
later got his record. He was Will |
liam Myers of Louisville and he trav-
eled for his father, who is In the liquor
business.
Foe Avoids Open Fight.
"Tm so Interested in my regiment"
said the blind boy. His nelghbOr beck
oned to me and whispered that he new
er thought about anything else. He
never talked about himself, nor made
a personal request nor asked If his
sight was gone forever. He wanted to
know If his regiment had been re-
lieved. A visitor had come and asked
him If he wanted anything, and he
I