The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1918-11-26
BOY IS
REAL WAR HERO
Bears Excruciating Pain Without
Word Of Complaint.
LEG BONE IS SNAPPED OFT

III
EIevsn-Ysar-oId Youth Is Hi by Dis
4 patch Rider on MotorcycIe--Not !
Cry Out Of Him 10 Automobile
Dashes Over Rough Roads to Take
Him 70 Hospital ExampIe Of Hun
savagery In Bombing Of commercy.
He Is only eleven years old but the
entire battlefelds Of Europe have fail
ed to produce bigger hero.
came across him the other day
while on my way to Saint Mihiel, dur
ing which I noticed a crowd in the
road near Pagny sur Mouse. A dough-
boy stepped from the crowd and
stopped our car, saying that an
American motorcycle dispatch rider
had struck child and broken his leg.
He also explained that the rider had
sustained a dislocated shoulder.
There were no hospitals or doctors
In the town, SO we stopped and told
him the D. r. I. would take him back
to Toul to the hospital. He asked me
If would deliver his dispatches and
when ] told him / could not, he re-
fused to 60 to the hospital.
Gives First Aid.
So the chauffeur, the doughboy and
.Lyself got hold of him, wedged him
against the car and pulled on his left
arm until we snapped 1t back in the
socket. y
I got him some cognac from a
Frenchwoman. He took a drink,
finally got on his motorcycle and rode
on slowly.
Then ! looked at the boy, French
kid about eleven years old. His right
leg bone was snapped off clean as
whistle just below the thigh, so that it
wabbled around. His poor old father
was standing there helpless, and beg
ged that I wouldn't leave the child
there helpless CONNIE unchien," like
a dog In the road.
So we put the lad in the car and
rushed him to the Toul hospital. It
must have caused him excruciating
pain as we dashed over the road but
never a word Of complaint, although
in the front seat I could hear him
sucking In his breath sharply from the
torture Of the broken ends Of the bone
rubbing against one another.
He was as white as marble. Wei
put him If the hospital at Toul II
then went on to Saint Mihiel. and as
I was passing through the buckle Of
the Mouse river southwest Of the
town where It is low and fiat and was
formerly mo mans land" covered
with barbed wire, an American avia-
tor, Lieut.. Palmer Gaillard Of Mobile,
who knows my grandfather, stepped
out and asked me where he was.
Knew II Was All Right.
He had been forced to land through |
engine trouble and was not sure
whether he was in the allied or Ger
man lines, but when he saw a car /
marked III. g." he knew 1t was all |
right. He was long way from an
town, as the nearest ones, a
couple Of kilometers away, had been
shelled to pieces, and he couldn't talk
French, SO was in bad position.
picked him up and we went to !
Saint Mihiel. It was just getting
dark. and the Boche bombed us there,
at Commercy, going back, at Void, at
Pagny. and at Toul again, where I
dropped him and I ran into raid get
ling back to Nancy. Six raids in
one night is record, I guess.
We stopped outside Commercy while
they were bombing 1t, then running
through we could smell powder wher-
sver bomb struck.
They were taking dead child out
u one house and dragging a wounded
WnYnan mt NJ thu oo11or ~ oro%y,o~ iii