The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1919-01-03
BATTLE DEVELOPED SOME
FINfSENTIMfNT AMONG HOBOS
How the Wounded From a Regiment
Made Up of TOughs Showed Their
Human Instincts

and struggling in the heart of swirl
ing pestilent vapors something has
come which is so trenchantly splen-
did and heroic that its hard to find
word strong enough, tender enough,
to adequately describe it. 1t makes
men out of boys; more, it shows itself
- this something" -. among the
"toughs," the "hard-boiled eggs" This
is the theme of Virile and vigorous
yarn which we quote from Associated
Men"
lizard luck, Pal ," said the doctor,
interrogatively, as the bearers set
down stretcher in the court yard
The boy shrugged his shoulders, ac-
tually shrugged them as well as he
could, bundlet up on that stretcher,
and grinned wanly
Comm fine if I can get you fellcrs
to save that foot. She's smashed
plenty. If you can't-all The same"
"We1l run you right in"
mix, DO, not me. I'm gettin' past
all right, nothin' but my foot. You
jest femme be here and git busy with
them guys that's hurt. I'm on the
waitin' list"
They were coming back out of the
hot blast of the great battle-those
boys of certain division now famous
thruout France, and one day to be ia
nous thruout the world. They were
not coming back because they wanted
to, nor because they had had enough
of it; they were being brought on
stretchers, wounded, gassed, she'll
shocked, to an advanced dressing sta
ton. Some of them seemed just boys.
One could see them grit their teeth to
hold back the moan of pain.
That was one boy. He belonged to
an outfit that bears name far and
wide for being boiled hard Tough
birds, you hear them called, rough
talking boys with the crust outermost.
If you had seen them month before,
or two months before, whet. they had
not had their purifying in blood and
fire, you would not have prophesied
that they would hold back IN suffering
to wait for one in greater suffering
TO be cared for first. 1t was an attri-
butte that was not apparent to the
casual eye. Hard boiled you would
have agreed, and you might have felt
a tr,fle sorry for the enemy that had
to encounter them. But you would
not have stood by with tears in your
eYes-not in your eyes, bur rolling
down your cheeks--and have nuttered
again and again, Here are men!"
But now they had felt the scorching
breath of war. suddenly they had
been dropped into The furnace and had
come out with the dross buinel away.
Something had happened. They were
still hard-boiled. Their language was
made up of the same words, but the
words had taken on a new meaning,
their very faces had taken on a new
aspect. In spite of blood and CRIME,
and the discoloration and burn of gas,
you could see that something was pres
ent there which had been absent be-
fore-until you could not see at all for
the flooding of your eyes.
Crude may be their language, but
the words come clean from the heart.
Last words of great men, some true,
some doctored and polished are trum
peted to listening world; but for
heroism, blended with tender thought
for others, none can surpass the last
words of one of the Coughs"
"I-got mine. No use,-sport
Can't do-nothin' foT--me. . Git
busy with some of them boys-you kin
help"
That was the spirit. That was the
thing that had been burned into their
souls by the hot breath of war. They
had forgotten themselves. Jim was
not thinking of Jim but of Mike. Mike
was not thinking of Mike but of Jack.
Each passed it on.
The dressing station was small and
many must lie outside until the men
who were taken in first could be evac-
uated. You heard groans. but amid
the groans you heard CHEEKY, gritty
words. Dow :. that leg! =. How's
Charlie maxim it? . Anybody know?
seen him git it. Dow -.
"They just took Charlie in. He
wasn't saying much.
"Say, them stretcher bearers ought
to git the Croy de Gerr, them birds
ought to. Sc 'em fetche me back with
them shells a-bustin' like it was rain
in? And would they hurry? Not
darn bit. | hollers to them to git
move on or the'dgit busted on the
dome, but that little shrimp says for
me to mind my own business, he was
carryin' that stretcher. Afraid if
he hustled he'd shake me up and hurt
me some. Can you beat that?
Ooow"
1.-TWO of them stretcher bearers was
Y. NJ. c. A. guys What they doin'