NEW FACES FOR OLD

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 207, 21 May 1918, Page 5

NEW FACES FOR OLD

IN THE JAW WARD OF "NO. 70, GENERAL" CHINS FOR CHOICE (By J. C. Arnold, in the London "Daily News"). I first saw them oho Afternoon through the flap of tho hospital tent while the orderly was washing my face with the firm touch of an ex-vetorinary corporal. Down the road came a group of men in hospital garb, each with his head bandaged up to the cars. They were singing lustily, though you could not distinguish any words. There were, two or threo girla in the party, with whom they had ex. changed headdresses in true B'ink Holiday fashion. A couple of rather shamefaced nurses'acted as ■whippera-in. Pausing in tho work of rubbing more soap into my eye, the orderly remarked: '"I'liem's tho ■'Jaws' coming back from a _ picnic."

For tho benefit of the uninitiated let me explain. In one of tho groat base hospitals in Prance there is a large ward reserved exclusively for men whoso faces and jaws havo been shattered by wounds. They are under the care of a great master af plastic surgery who came over early in the war from the States to take charge of the work. Under his magic touch, restorative work that is nothing ehort of marvellous is going on day by day. Men whose features have been, blown literally to smithereens are saved from death, which is good. But, better even than that, they are enabled to look out on the world again with faces no longer distorted by the devilish artistry < of war. but remoulded after the image in which they were created. Take one example, that of my friend Smith, of tho. Ulankshires, who used often to como in ami seo me. Smith got a whack that blew away the wholo lower part of his. face. He was brought in as good as dead. At each successive dressing station padres aud surgeons hinted delicately that he would never reach tho Base. But Smith proved the padres and Burgeons false. He was still alive when they bore him into the jaw ward at No. 70 General, though owing to tho fact that what was left of his tongue was gummed on to a splint he could not boast of his victory. The surgeon got to work on him. A bit of bone was taken from his leg, and another bit from a Eheep. Various people "provided the skin, and gradually a new chin and lower jaw was grafted on to him. It. will still take months to complete -the job. but I have seen Smith without his bandagea, and he has already got a very respectable face. He may not be an Adonis, but neither am I, and I never had my jaw broken at all. ~ ~ . The "Jaws" formed a distinct community in the hospital, and rather looked down on the rest of us. Great eurgeons came to view the wonderful wort, and made the patients think no end 01 themselves. True, like imprisoned suffragettes in the old days, they had to take their daily bread in the form of liquid through a tube. But then, as my orderly remarked, it is worth eating through a tubo if you can get plenty oE stout for your meat. The Jaws got stout in more senses than one. It was rumoured to us that when your chin waa being remodelled in the jaw ward you could choose the particular type you desired. Was there not an illustrated catalogue of them kept in the surgeon's room? You could take the -double ohin of a John Bull, the cleancut mouth of a Napoleon, or the square jaw of a Pilgrim Father. Once an OTangeman from the Ulster Division hit upon a face that he liked, and asked for it He discovered only in time that it was described as having a Roman chin, and countermanded tho order. Like' all pampered communities, the "Jaws" were a somewhat fraotious lot. They oould all walk about and amuse themselves, and it needed a firm hand to keep them in order. One morning the eggs that were served us 'for breakfast happened to be somewhat high. Wβ ate ours, or starved, according to our in-1 dividual degrees of courage. Tho 'Jaws j gathered all theirs together, placed them | in a bed, and jumped upon them. They I got seven days C.B. in a body for mak•ing this spirited protest, but the eggs j .were fresh in future. After that wo j recognised the "Jaws" as a valuable poll- i tical asset. Whon any question of hospi-1 ill privilege was at stake, to have them on your side was to have won half tho battle. What praise shall we give to the man who is the author of all this work? If you asked the "Jaws" they would tell you that no military decorations could be good enough for him. After all, his real decoration lies in the hundreds' of living men throughout the Empire to whom he has given baok in all its myEtery the order of the human face divine.