HOW IT FEELS TO BE A CASUALTY

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2857, 23 August 1916, Page 6

HOW IT FEELS TO BE A CASUALTY

EXPERIENCES OF A WOUNDED NEW ZEALANDER , ; FROM THE FIGHTING LINES TO LONDON A SPLENDID SERVICE • Corporal A. N. Field, late of The ■■■:. Dominion literary staff, and now "a casualty" in England, recovering from Itis wound received last June, m the course of a letter received by this • week's mail gives a most interesting detailed description of how our wounded are removed from , the fighting lines 1 to the comfortable hospitals provided ' for their treatment. ' > "In my last letter," he writes, "I ■ promised to let you know how it feels to be a casualty. J. have discovered, for instance, that seeing casualties' and being ono oneself are two very different things. "During the latter part of my fast ; spell in the trenches it was a common i -, , enough thing to ('meet stretcher-bearers carrying out wounded men. And to all of us, light-heartedly as we might • go about our work, these stretcher v cases were always a little reminder : ./that it might be one's own turn any minute—not that any healthily-consti-tuted man is obsessed by that feeling v " on activo servico any more than the . civilian at home' lives in permanent , fear of the brick that may fall and ■■".lit him on the head. Still ' mingled ' with one's sympathy for the man down ■ y aM out was always a feeling of thank- . fulness for one's own luck. "The passage up the trenches from , • the front line is a difficult and an uripleasant business for the badly wounded. The bearers were generally for ail hour to an hour and a half geW " ting a bad case out, and it was only ■with the greatest difficulty that tho stretchers could be manoeuvred round ' some of the corners at all. The com- \ j munication trenches' were narrow, tortuous, and with sharp-cornered, rightangle traverses at frequent intervals. In some of those traverses a man lying Ml length on a stretcher could only bo got through by being lifted clear ! above the top of the trench. Those > who could sit up at all were placed on f the short trench stretchers, and taken out "with less difficulty, but in all cases there was the stream of ordin- ' ary traffic up. and down tho lines to ■ ' contend with, a slow business where to pass even a single man-meant a squeeze. • "To pass the little stream of cases from day to day was to realise for how muoh temperapent and constitution count when a man is down. One' fa'Ges pr!3e in the fino fellows who, ; ; sore-stricken as they might be, were : .. able to hide their pain behind a smile ; and a cheerful word as they passed a ■r friend on the way out. Whatever the ■ .end for them, "cine saw mado visible there the victory of tho spirit over the .' flesh,' a thing to send a glow of pride -•and resolution through oven tho feeblest. _ "Once out of the ' trenches, the wounded.'men were taken to the dr.essi' y ing-station, an abandoned cafe in the centre of a village of shattered houses. Here wore tho doctor and the mcdical ' orderlies who examined the wounds rand re-uressed them, for tho attention hitherto had beeri of the first-aid varioty from the stretcher-bearers themselves. The motor ambulances came . down, when required, and transported the patients to the ambulance and clearing stations,- of which more anon. No ambulances wero kept at the dressing station, as the locality was liable to be shelled at any time. The cars simply ' came, picked up the patients, and departed in tho briefest possible space ol time. So much for : the process of evacuating wounded | from the trenches to the ; dressing station. It is not a srubject on which I can write with the intimato first- ;• hand. lmowledgo that comes of having' !■ ■ gone out on a stretchor oneself, but of ; what follows I can e.peak feelingly enough. : "On the outskirts of,the town, lying a mile or two behind our section of the ;front, is another dressing station. It is a largish house, standing a little • back from the road, with a Red Cross , flag 6tuck in its garden railings, and with that exception, differing not at all from the gloomy and abandoned dwell- , ■ ings common in that locality. As a rule 1 passed the place four or five times • a week, _ but., beyond giving it a brief glance, never regarded it as an especially interesting feature of the landscape. > • "Then suddenly one morning a violent and complete change came over my relations with the Army. I had been . on an errand up to town, and was somewhat foolishly taking"chancos on get- '■ ting past a corncr of the road that was : - being shelled, in preference to. going a- !■- longer way round. About ten of us were racing for dear life across this bit of road, when three shells arrived ; simultaneously. Five, I think, got through scathless, and fivo did not. : I was one of the luckless ones myself. 'About two hundred yards away was the dressing station I have spoken of, and ■ ? within a few minutes the five of us ." had been carried or helped across. Wo were now in tho hands of a sido of 1 'Army organisation completely new to us, but which automatically took us, .■ ticketed us, docketed us, and sent us from point to point, until finally here I am, lying on tho broad of my back in ■; :a great London hospital, with. Big Ben towering up through tho window and tho Thames flowing past tho door. In one sudden bound it was good-byo to . ; sergeants, officers, orders, fatigues, ■ pals, and everything else (including, alas, the entire contents of one's kit, ' which I understand a wounded man sees again). . "The dressing station carried on business in one of tho front rooms of the house, a dim and dingy apartment, ;• -with a couple of trestle tables and the usual medical appliances. Our two worst cases wero lifted iu their ; stretchers on to the table. After a brief examination by tho doctor a blanket ..was silently drawn over one; nathing to bo done there exccpt get tho padre for - the funeral service. The next man, " who was in a bad way, with about a ' dozen wounds in various parts of his body, was then attended to. Then cauio my turn, and the orderlies soon . had my clothing cut away, a comlortf able dressing bandaged on, : and finally they injected an anti-tetanus serum in - my arm. As an instance of how little one may sometimes feel a wound at the ; moment, I may say that my own impression was that I had been merely, bruised on tho hip and my leg stunned for tho time being by a bit of flying brick, of which cataracts were falling, whereas in reality a piece of shrapnel or shell had gone in through my thigh and was lodged in the centre of my ■ pelvis, as was some days later dis- : closed by tho X-rays. The other two cases, which were leg or arm wounds, ' were soon dressed, and the dressings complete, each of us had a tag Irvbel pinned on to him, stating name, rank, | ; number, name of wound, time at which it was dressed, etc. "This performance was no soonor over than we wero carried out and : placed in a motor ambulance waiting at tho door. And here I want to ■ say that in every ambulance I was in i; the drivers handled their cars with : real feeling for the men inside. The : cobblestone roads of French towns and : .villages in their present state are the J

vilest tilings I know of for motoring or cycling over, and it must require the patience of a Job to nurso a. stifflysprung ambulance over them. But tho cars were nursed, and one could leel every tendency to» bump and bounce watched and nipped in the bud, so to speak. "In about twenty minutes we arrived' at one of tho central New Zealand ambulance stations. The car turned in off the road into the shady aud tree-planted courtyard of what had been a school or college'of some sort, J think. As it was within range ol the German artillery, tho doors and windows of the building, wero screened by piles of sandbags. Wo wero immediately carried into the dressing-room, our wounds unbandaged and re-examined by one or other of the several doctors busily at work, among whom I recognised Dr. Kemp, of tho Upper Hutt. This over, additional particulars were inserted on our luggage labels, and warmly/wrapped up in blankets we were carried into an adjoining room, where we found a largo and varied assortment of our comrades lying about on stretchers. Dinner was served here, and a padre came around, evidently looking for those likely to require his ministrations. Ho informed me ho couldn't te'll which were tlfe really bad cases by looking at them, and always had to ask tho doctor. After going about indiscriminately for a- while, ho went into the dressing-room, and presently came out, and had tho orderly discover" three or four men, to each of whom ho spoko for a little while. "This midday meal was barely finished' when in camo tho bearers again, and I- and another man were taken up and run out on the ambulance on the next stage of the journey—an eightmile stretch to a British casualty clear* ing station. This was good-bye to New Zealand, and in tho subsequent proceedings. I have been a. 'stray' in amongst the men of the Old Country, Canada, and what not. After a rather trying journey over the usual dead flat countryside of Flanders, we arrived at another town, and presently the car into the yard of a girls, college—a large, dingy brick buildingj with dark corridors and an apparently endless series of the most cheerless class-rooms imaginable. Here wo were taken inside into an empty room, laid on our stretchers on the floor, and tho remains of. our uniforms and underclothing exchanged for suits of warm flannel pyjamas and socks. We also received haudy littlo, calico bags, in which to put the contonts of our pockets. Then our wounds wero dressed again by another ' doctor. More labels and tags wero filled up, and /ffie collection put insido a transparent envelope, and tied on our coatbuttons, and off we were.carted back to another room, where rows of other wounded" men wero laid out in their stretchers—some smoking and talking, and others groaning and kicking up a row generally. Ambulances wero arriving outside all day and all night, for this, was.one of the casualty depots and railing centres for a fairish stretch .of.'Hie.front. At ten o'clock next morning when wo were gathered up and put on tho hospital train, the various casualty clearing stations in tlib town disgorged some 450 wounded men ,in an apparently endless procession of ambulances. "The orderlies who looked after us at mo clearing station, taken generally, wore a very decent lot.' With the exception of one man all my recollections are of tho greatest kindness and consideration at every stage in tho long process of 'evacuation'; and this, mind you, in spite of the fact that those concerned in this process have of lato been busy people indeed. "The principal contribution to our train-load of wounded was made by a, British regiment which sent in a num--ber of gassed cases. With discoloured faces and gasping for breath, these men are a painful spectacle, : and all that the doctors seem able to do for them is to put them out in the open under canvas and let theui have as much fresh air as possible. "From what I.could learn these men wero gassed through over-confidence. They had neglected to put their gas helmets on. As I daresay you know we are each, supplied with two gas helmets in little cloth bags which we wear at all times. In oue of the bags is also a pair of goggles for protection against tho lachrymatory shells, for which it is not necessary to cucumber oneself with the helmet. From time to time wo had gas alarms in the trenches. The alarm is given by the blowing of motor horns, the beating of gongs, usually empty shell cases ; and the Tinging of bells. One hoars it first" faint in tho distance, and then it runs along the line, theoretically just so far as it is necessary to be on the alert and no farther, but practically for any distance you like. With all our alarms wo saw no 6igu of gas at all. The last came two days before I was' wounded, and tho din of tho alarm signals rang out just at tho close of the bombardment I mentioned in my last letter. The night was clear and still, with a young moon in a cloudless sky. What air was moving seemed to bo drifting over from us to the Germans—hardly a suitable night for a gas attack, ono would think. We got out our helmets, hung about for a while, and then turned in. At the clearing station I found that a fow mtfes up tho line there had been reality enough behind that alarm to put a good number of men hors de combat. 'It appears that in this particular regiment the men in tho front lino put on their helmets when they saw tho Germans turning on tho gas in frout of them. They camo through safely with hardly any casualties, but in tho support trenches nobody took the alarm seriously at first, and with a quick drift of air the place was soon full of gas, and everyone gasping for air. The helmets are a good protection, but as in many other things eternal vigilance is tho price of safety. "A number of these men slightlv gassed were in the same, carriage with me on tho hospital train. Except that they breathed loudly, coughed at times, and had a dull unhealthy look about the face there did not sceni to bo much wrong with them so far as outward appearance and evidence of discomfort went.

(To be concluded.)