The Glasgow courier. [volume] (Glasgow, Mont.) 1913-current, 1919-01-31

death. There were fleecy white clouds
and it was Sunday and back home the
folks whose money had sent this Red
Cross flivver to the Piave were on the
way to church-under a blue sky that
didn't howl with invisible demons Of
steel and dynamite. One of the
wounded was delirious and shouted
to his comrades to advance! and when
the car jolted he consigned us eternal
ly to the bottommost pits. There was
a mean shell crater in the road at a
place where there had been no hole
when we passed a few hours before
a big hole right in the middle of the
narrow road. Men are at work con-
stantly to repair these places. else
war traffic couldn't continue, but this
one hadn't been touched. To go over
it meant agony for the conscious
wounded-meant hideous cries from
the delirious one. But we had to go,
we had to go-for the boy with the
notified face of old, gray marble that
was fast turning to putty had a chance
I-one out of a thousand, say.
"Courage!" called Fred, pceping
through the little window of the am
bulance curtain. "Have courage! It
will be but a moment! Courage!" We
went overland God knows we tried to
go gently-and we went yer as 81
lently as though the bus had been
loaded with lead. There wasn't a
whimper. There wasn't a word. The
call for courage had even stilled the
raving of the poor, pain-maddened
man for the time.
Presently we were just back of the
lines. On for a bit over roads where
nothing passed save soldiers and m
munition supplies for the front line.
On through skeletons Of villages bro
ken and scattered by shells as one
might smash and stamp a doll play
house into bits and fragments. And
then into the courtyard of what, be-
fore the war, had been a handsome
villa. Now it smelled like a drug
store-that is, a drug store that has
no perfumery or scented soaps-and
Red Cross ambulances passed in and
out and surgeons and nurses were
busy at the operating tables day and
night.
AS the boy was being lifted out,
the man within the car who had been
delirious began to rave again, first
, praying that we burn m%iserably in
t hell for all time to come, and in the
next breath invoking the blessings of
, all the saints upon US. AS the boy
with the face of old, gray marble was
being carried into the hospital, his
eyes opened-for the effect of the
r opiates was dying away-and he NOV
2 ed his hand ever so slightly, and look
2 ed at the ring with the opened set
!. ting where a girl looked back at him
sadly through a mist of blood. The
e blanket sunk in on one side where 8
! leg should have been, and a grotesque
4 rubber thing stuck out where he haG
, had a hand a few hours before. Anc
his face was gray and still and his
dim eyes were seeking uncertainty, tt
e focus upon the little picture that was
smeared with red.
n That was the last we ever saw Of
him. But Fred asked the doctor wha'
d chance he had. ooh, fair-now
t Wouldn't have had any if he hadn'
e reached here pretty darn pronto!"
elbow much chance ?" insisted Fred
r zone in-well, as much as one in :
thousand?"
d But the doctor had gone. Doctors
e at military hospitals are busy individ
n uals, especially when a big action i
e under way.
d The battle went we'll, as the worl,
k knows now. The Italians and allie<
d troops crossed the Piave-the Re-
e Cross ambulances and canteens an,
kitchens getting over with them a
'" rapidly as possible. The front NOV
u ed on and we went to that hospita
no more. But one day, a few week
It later-Austria had surrendered the
and there vas 10 more fighting on tn
Italian front-we CHANGED upon tina
t doctor in one of the base towns.
," "What became of that boy-the on
y with a face like gray marble, you kno,
le old gray marble?"
y "Let's see," unused the doctor-sur
geons look at many men with cole
le gray faces.
le "This boy had a bloody ring wit
It a girls picture"
= ooh, yes! 1 remember. Why he
ID getting welcoming along famousl,
% Darn good thing you guys got hir
lie in when you did, though
Wouldn't it be interesting to as