THE RED CROSS FERRY

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2873, 11 September 1916, Page 3

THE RED CROSS FERRY

ONTHE HOSPITAL SHIP MAE AM A. Staff-Sergeant J. W. Buchanan writes to'a friend as follows, states tho Hawke's Bay "Tribune":— . H.JLN.Z.H.S. Marama, ' July 12, 1918. v "I thought that perhaps you would • like to have a short account of a littlo of the work we are at present carrying out in the cross-channel run between England and France. Owing to tho strict military censorship, 1 cannot mate the names of places, beyond mon« tioniu£ that Southampton is our base, nor give details, hut just mako a general statement. Now that the Big Push has begun we are, of course, exceedingly busy, and everybody oil boaid is going for all they are worth,. As you well know, the boat is fitted up for 550 cot cases, and when I tell you that we have taken on ono trip well over three times that number you can guess tho boat is well paoked. Wo stoal into some harbour about midnight or 1 a.m., and immediately we are ti«l up alongside the wharf the embarkation of wounded commences. Underneath the brilliant electric lights erected on these wharves, we see standing rowa of wounded, perlmpsf in the hand, arm, hoad, or some other place that does not incapacitate them from walking, and these are what .nra oslled 'sulking cases,' most of them just straight from the firing line. come on as fast as we can receive them through three or four gangways. Our embarkation staff is of course working at. high prosaure, as we hare to have their name, rani, regiment, nature of wound, etc., to enable a nominal roll to be mado for the authorities at the disembarking . port. When we have. embarked tho 'walking cases,' then ire take the stret. cher cases, who occupy the oots on board. They are carried on by R.A.M.O. • ineu. It is wonderful to see these men, the majority with ghastly wounds, bearing the jolting patiently, gripping tho side of the stretcher- to keep from -crying out in-pain, yet giving .you a smile as you take their particulars, and when at last safely'plaoed in their cot on Board perhaps fainting off with fatigue and, pain, and .vet nevor a murmur, never a complaint. I don't think that, could he seo these brave, tioble fellows on board a hospital ship . in their sorely wounded state, hearing : it as the British soldier- bears pain, there is one man who would hold oack from doing whatever bit of sorvico ha can do in whatever branch he may bo fitted for. When theso men are aboard they have to be fed, no easy' matter when thero is hardly any room to walk on deck, in fact anywhere, becanas they arc everywhere, . in:, alleyways, Under stairways, in every available ppssiblo place. There are baskets and baskets of bread and butter to be out; cans of . tea to bo made and served, messing utensils, porridge, sago, stew, whatever food we have all to bo served out * to the 'walkers,' and this besides the feeding of the cot cases. Wounds have to be dressed, awful arid ghastly shrapnel gashos, b'ayohfct wounds, : sprains, swellings of every nature, and this in the space of a comparatively tow hours taken in the cross-channel run. , "Then as we sail into the disembarkation wharfs there are the lines of the Red Cross trains .waiting to tako them off to the hospital to wnich they havo been allocated, and in ttfo or three hours-we are onco more an empty ship speeding back to the -war centre for another load of humanity. It 16 truly

an interesting- and necessary work, and perhaps one does Hot realise the strenuous nature of it until experience lifts taught the lesson, but i still everybody on the ship feels that all they can do will repay very slightly- those heroes who are fighting for us and fall wounded on the field of battle-"