With our Fighting Men Part 15

What a picture it presents of absolute devotion and of the highest Christian courage! The guns hardly cool from their deadly fire, soon to belch out death again, the men in the depth of winter caring naught for the cold or for the enemy's shot and sh.e.l.l, using their brief interval to lead their comrades to Christ. Pray on, Salvation Army lads! You will fight all the better for your country because of your fight for the King of Kings, and if death stares you in the face you will know that you have spent your last moments in pointing your comrades to the Lamb of G.o.d Who taketh away the sin of the world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A NEW FORM OF RED-CROSS WORK.

The Red-Cross Motor Field Kitchen, under the direction of Miss Jessica Borthwick, dispenses hot soup to the wounded on the battlefield.

_Drawn by S. Begg._]

CHAPTER VIII

AT THE SIGN OF THE RED CROSS

Regimental Aid Posts--What Night Fighting is Like--The Young Doctor--Making the Grave Bigger--Field Dressing Stations--Where Caution is Required--Where Pluck is Shown--When Does the Doctor Sleep?--Nothing but Tragedy--Those Grand Tommies--Winning a V.C. Clasp--A Dreadful Scene--A Kitchener's Train--Devoted Nurses--The Healthiest War--Preventive Measures--Hospital s.h.i.+ps.

So complete is the organisation of the Red Cross at the front that it is possible to indicate its work in four terms--Regimental Aid Posts, Field Dressing Stations, Clearing Hospitals, Base Hospitals. Add to these the Home Hospitals, to which the men are finally transferred, and you have the work of the Army Medical Organisation at a glance.

During this war the cryptic letters R.A.M.C. and M.S.C. have interpreted themselves into actual glorious service which the British public will ever delight to honour, and it will be borne in mind that most of the Christian ministers who have enlisted during this war, have enlisted into this branch of the service. They bear no arms, but theirs is the highest of all service, that of ministering to the wounded and dying. Such work as this requires heroism of the highest order.

Let us glance at each branch of the work, that the service of the Red Cross may live before us.

1. _Regimental Aid Posts._--Just a little behind the firing line, as near to it as possible, often exposed to sh.e.l.l and rifle fire, is the Regimental Aid Post. It may be in a cottage, possibly in a cow-shed, perhaps only under the partial shelter of a hill, with a doctor and a few men of the R.A.M.C. in charge. To it are brought as quickly as possible the men wounded in the firing line. During recent months, however, it has been impossible to bring the wounded even this short distance during the day. It has only been at night that the men in the trenches could remove their wounded hither, or the stretcher-bearers could go out to seek for them. The fire has been so terrible that no one could venture into the open. The men have had to lie where they fell, often in agony, waiting until they could be carried to the aid post to receive first aid from the doctor waiting for them. But the doctor does not always wait; he goes where he is needed most, right into the trenches, risking his life at every step, and there ministers to those who cannot wait to be brought to him.

The Rev. E.L. Watson (Baptist chaplain) vividly describes one such outpost as I have indicated.

"In the vicinity of the trenches star bombs were constantly being thrown up, causing whole lines of trenches to be under the weird flare. German search-lights swept the whole of the surrounding country, bringing to light every movement of the troops not under cover.

"For one brief moment the shaft of light rested on me as I stood watching the scene of battle. The experience is equal to an unexpected cold douche. Night fighting under modern science is, I should imagine, h.e.l.l let loose, and the surprise to me is that so many should survive the inferno.

"From 8 P.M. to 8 A.M. the rush was terrific. In one of the field hospitals no less than seventy odd wounded were treated, about twenty of these requiring chloroform.

"Be it remembered that each case is hastily but carefully dressed by the regimental doctor at the Regimental Aid Post before coming in to the field hospital for more thorough treatment, then one realises the enormous amount of work that often falls to the men occupying these positions of grave risk and tough work.

"These gentlemen are night and day at the call of the man in the trenches, and gladly make any and every sacrifice to render needed medical and surgical a.s.sistance. Each trip they make to the line of fire means that they carry their lives in their hands; for there is more danger getting into the trenches than actually exists in the trenches, because most of the fire pa.s.ses over our trenches and sweeps the approaches night and day.

"Some few days ago, I had occasion to spend some time with a young regimental doctor in his lonely outpost. We were drawn together by common interests and promised ourselves a smoke night together. The first case that met my gaze in the field hospital was my friend the young regimental doctor, fatally wounded whilst going in the rush of work to render help to the wounded.

"Perfectly conscious, he said as he took my hand, 'You see, Padre, they have claimed me at last. I always felt it would come.'

"Calmly he dictated a brief message to his young wife and child, then bravely waited for the end. He knew exactly the nature of his wound and was quite prepared for the surrender of his soul to G.o.d. He accepted his end as n.o.bly as he had striven to do his G.o.d-inspired work. The real tragedy of this is in the house yonder in England made desolate by this cruel war."

So does the Regimental Aid Post doctor give his life for his country.

The Rev. Owen Spencer Watkins (Wesleyan) gives us another picture of a Regimental Aid Post.

"Near the trenches in a deserted farm by the roadside is the Regimental Aid Post which last I visited. Two regimental doctors have made it their headquarters--Captain Brown and Lieutenant Eccles--and thither are gathered the sick and wounded belonging to the Manchester Regiment and the East Surreys. I had been sent for to bury the dead.

As usual on such occasions, I went out with the bearers and ambulance waggons after dark, and when I arrived I found three men waiting burial. Two as they stood side by side had been killed by the same bullet, the other had been shot whilst issuing rations to his comrades in the trenches.

"'You've timed your visit well, Padre,' said Captain Brown. 'There's been a bit of an attack on. Enemy evidently got the wind up badly, and have been loosing off wildly in the air. Bullets have been falling around the house like hail; half an hour ago you couldn't have got to us. One comfort is that if the bullets were falling here, they must have been going high over the heads of our fellows.'

"'Yes, we're ready for you as soon as ever the waggons are loaded, but Eccles has a man of the East Surreys; perhaps the grave had better be made bigger, and then you can make one job of it.'

"A few minutes later we were pa.s.sing through the farm-yard at the back of the house, mud over our boot tops, into a field, in the corner of which a little cemetery had sprung up. 'Twenty officers and men, most of them Manchesters,' Brown said in an undertone. 'Winnifrith buried three here last night, and two the night before. No, you need not be afraid to use a light to-night. The weather is too thick for it to be seen by the enemy, and in any case they're busy, for our fellows are attacking. Listen.' Again the angry voice of the machine-gun, the noise of rifle fire, so heavy that it sounded like the bubbling of water boiling in some gigantic cauldron."

2. We pa.s.s now to the _Field Dressing Stations_. It appears to be only when the fighting is severe that these are needed in addition to the Regimental Aid Posts. Sometimes the wounded are taken direct to the clearing hospital from the Regimental Aid Posts; but when the wounded crowd in upon the latter, they can only receive rough first aid treatment there, and are pa.s.sed back as quickly as possible to the Dressing Station.

This is carefully explained in a letter by Staff-Sergeant Barlow, R.A.M.C., to the Vicar of Prestwich. "Perhaps it would be well to explain where our work as a field ambulance comes in. We are not in the sense of the word a hospital. In the first place a regiment is in the trenches, and in close proximity to the trenches, the regimental bearers carry their wounded to some place of cover or comparative safety, such as a barn or farm-house, or in the case of a town being sh.e.l.led, cellars are used. These are called Regimental Aid Posts.

"As a Field Ambulance we follow from one to two miles in the rear of the firing line and form dressing stations, using schools or barns for the purpose. Our ambulance waggons and stretcher-bearers go out under cover of darkness to collect from the Aid Posts the wounded soldiers, the waggons halting perhaps half a mile away, while the bearers cross fields and roads to the Aid Posts where the wounded soldiers are.

"This is very dangerous and requires much caution; lights are prohibited, as even the flare of a cigarette becomes a good mark for the enemy's snipers, of whom they appear to have many.

"Each regiment forms its own Aid Post. One ambulance unit attends a brigade. After the wounded are brought to the dressing station, the wounds are redressed, and the soldiers are as soon as possible despatched to the clearing hospitals at the base."

Staff-Sergeant Barlow proceeds to describe his first impressions of this awful work:

"What were my first impressions? you may ask. They were such as I can never forget. We were halted near a farm-house, the tenants of which had cleared out, leaving fowls and pigs unattended. The pigs could not have been fed for several days, as they were shrieking for food; we called it crying. The pigs were fed with food from the lofts. Dinner was served to the men (army biscuits and jam), in the midst of which an order came for an ambulance waggon for a wounded man.

"We were all astir, and it was the first casualty we had had to deal with. The waggon went out, and later several stretcher squads and other waggons. The remainder had to fall back about half a mile to a small village to prepare a school and church for the receipt of the wounded.

"My first thoughts were: What is it like; shall I be able to stand the sight of it? In the evening our waggons began to return, bringing many wounded. The medical officers rolled their sleeves up and set to work.

My duty fell to a.s.sisting by taking off the dressings from the wounds, the first one being that of a soldier with part of his elbow blown away. It looked awful, but I got over it very well. Why? Because we had not time to think of it. There were others to attend to, most patiently waiting--and I think it is in such circ.u.mstances as these that one can see the true pluck and courage of the British soldier,--with here and there one pleading for attention.

"Everyone worked hard; the hours pa.s.sed as minutes, and when all were attended and we looked in solemn silence around, I turned to a comrade and asked the time. He answered it was after 4 A.M. I thought it was midnight. We had dealt with 134 wounded, among whom were several Germans. Under a shed in the school-yard lay five men who had died after being brought in; they were reverently buried in the local cemetery. Since this we have had worse and much of a similar nature, but they have become a conglomeration of events. It is the first night with the wounded that lives, and through it all a voice within me continually saying: 'And this is war.'"

3. Away behind the firing line, in some quiet spot unreached by sh.e.l.l or rifle fire, is the _Clearing Hospital_. To this spot come the ambulance waggons bearing their ghastly freight of broken bodies gathered from Regimental Aid Posts and Dressing Stations.

The doctors are busily at work. Night is their busiest time. We wonder when the doctor at the front sleeps. We wonder with how little sleep it is possible to support life. These men seem tireless. Hour after hour through the night they toil on, probing here, amputating there.

This is where we see in all its horror the meaning of that new word "frightfulness." I cannot describe the scenes that may be witnessed. I have before me, as I write, copies of _Guy's Hospital Gazette_ from the beginning of the war, kindly supplied me by the Editor. It is necessary that descriptions of the horrors should be written for professional eyes, but I will not harrow the feelings of my readers. I turn away from their perusal echoing the words of Staff-Sergeant Barlow--"And this is war."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A RESCUE PARTY.

Systematic search is made for the wounded, who often crawl away in the hope of reaching their own lines.

_Drawn by Sydney Adamson._]

I will rather let the Rev. E.L. Watson (Baptist chaplain) describe to us, as he saw it, the work at such a Clearing Hospital.

"In the same ward were many wounded upon the floor stretchers, lying still in their soaked and muddy clothes just as they had fallen, with b.l.o.o.d.y bandages showing up in dreadful contrast against their poor soiled bodies. Some delirious, others lying in profound silence, but n.o.ble fort.i.tude. In a ward like this one sees nothing but tragedy.

"In the receiving room the R.A.M.C. officers were working at highest pressure to save life and limb, by steady hand and cheery manner imparting confidence and hope to every patient in turn.

"I could not help expressing admiration for the way in which each piece of work was carried out, but the officer commanding simply said, 'You know, Padre, we cannot sacrifice enough for the man who is standing up to this hail of h.e.l.l for us.'

"I was surprised to see such a large percentage of officers among the wounded. No wonder our men are proud of their leaders; where risks must be taken, the officer claims this as his privilege and thus shows the way in every undertaking. One brave major leading his men into the German trenches, when hit, simply shouted "Go on!" as he fell wounded in the head. He is being buried to-day, as every brave soldier desires, in his uniform and blanket."

It will be perhaps as well to look at a similar scene through a doctor's eyes, and I therefore quote a letter from a medical officer at a receiving base in France published in the _Scotsman_.

"We get the wounded here at practically first-hand. They are brought in with all possible speed, dealt with at once, and sent out to other hospitals as soon as we can send them, to make room for the others who may (and who invariably do) come. They're wonderful chaps, those Tommies. Great stuff; too good to lose! They are brought to us at all hours. Exhausted, covered with mud, hastily but well bandaged on common-sense principles; and aye the quiet, plucky grin, or the patient, enduring set of the jaw.