FRANCE AT WAR.

Hokitika Guardian, 26 July 1918, Page 4

FRANCE AT WAR.

There are some vivid impressions ol war in “Tho New Hook of Martyrs,’ 1 by M. George Duhamol, a French sur-

geon, who lias had an extensive experi-

ence in advanced hospitals at various points on the front. Naturally the author has little to say about the glamour and exaltation of warfare; it was his lot to sec its grisly aftermath, to patch up its shattered wreckage, to perform the last offices for those who wore beyond human aid. He lays bare all its pain and squalor and miserv; its awful sights and sounds and smells, lint although lie does not seek to burke the ugly side of the war, his hook is anything hut a mere eataiogue of horrors. Behind his most poignant descriptions of suffering we catch a glimpse of the spirit that lias transfigured France, and animated her hosts. All this agony is not in vain, cannot be in vain; it is the price her sons must pay for her ransom. In her victory wiil ho their reward, the only reward they ask. To the combatant soldier war presents itself as an affair of masses. but the nature of tlio author's work makes him see it rather as one of the individuals-. of innumerable Martins, Duclos and Duponts, drawn from the plough, the forge, or the desk, and still retaining their separate entities. They are no mere cogs in a machine, they are what, they always were, compound of the same hopes and fears. The outstanding quality of the book is its human note. It deals for the moat part with the humble lives entrusted to the author’s care. M. Duhamol ’ seldom leaves the hospital to describe scenes of battle though lie gives one vivid picture of Verdun, a background of dreary grey and fiery red and the hillsides in the foreground crawling like an antfied with troops advancing and casualties coming in, the whole quivering with a tremendous, unremitting clangour which first stunned the ear, and later made no impression on it at all, But i these excursions are few and far. lie-. ; tween. Even when the shells are falling | on the hospital he i= too busy with his beloved piou pious to note what is going on outside. M. Duhamol has much to say about the pliyschology of the Wards, and he

believes that the surgeon's success depends hardly more on bis technical 'skill than upon bis power of suggestion. The military surgeon is more immediately and poignantly an arbiter of destiny than .is possible in civil lile. As the casualty lies on the table before hint lie must make up bis mind at once, and alone what must he done. Can life be saved if this limb <>r that be sacrificed? Can lie risk delay? “Tn a inomen of effective thought he has to perceive and weigh a man’s -whole existence and then act with method and audacity.” To his patients who know • that for hours oil end he is making these momentous decisions lie becomes almost a god. If be has sympathy lie can, acquire an aeendaney over them that will help them far on the road to recovery. M. Duhamel was again and again impressed with the part that “moral effect" plays in a .military hospital. Everyone has heard of the “will to live” as an agency that I will save where medical art alone would fail it; it has peculiar importance n* military surgery, for while the result ol most civil operations is to leave . a sounder and healthier body, too often the militaiy surgeon at his hast can only send the patient away maimed or a cripple. Again and again the author had to light against the apathy which did not care very greatly whether life or death was in store. IK. records it ns an ascertained fact that the cheer ful ease stands the best chalice of r>eovery than the one who takes tilings hardly, and this is true even where the cheerfulness is merely a piece ol courageously assumed bravado. He has seen many whose experience "as that of Corporal Legliso, a lad who lor weeks without a murmur endured tolerable pain in the hope for saving first one and then the other leg. When all his suffering proved to be in vain be lost, his desire to live. Yet his friends were able to exorcise the dark spirit, and to-day calm and exalted he has won back all bis zest in life, ilieie are thousands such .

But M. Duhamol would not' have us believe that all his soldiers are plaster saints. The German shells are no respecters of character; all sorts and conditions of men find their way to the wards. Sumo are chronic grumblers.

some foul-mouthed rascals, some are selfish and exacting, some bear 'the

p;iin with so little restraint that they make tin' lives ol all around tlum a ilmvtleii and their attendants almost forget pity in exasperation. Hut one and all have received their wounds in the service of their country, which at-

ones for everything, and in any case the “had subjects” are lew in number compared to the many who suffer uncomplainingly and ehecrfnlly, and who are pathetically grateful for all that is done lor them. There is Auger, for instance, the life and scu! of the hospital, who acts like a Louie on the patients and makes his lost leg the subject of innumerable and not always decorous jests. Visitors who come and chat with Auger and give him little presents go away well pleased with themselves because they have been generous. “Hut there is no merit in being kind to Auger. With a single story, a single clasp of his hand, lie gives you much more than lie received from you. lie gives you confidence. Ho restores your peace of mind. Co rather and see Oregoire, who has nothing but bis suffering to give,” poor, bitter, inarticulate Gregoire, who will allow few to penetrate Ids reserve; or Fumat the giant, who, 100 old for the fighting line, was employed ns cook, and was wounded in a hundred places as he blew up the lire for soup. He was two days in dying; throughout those two days of purgatory he made not a single complaint; he was always “quite satisfied.” or “very well, thank you.” “He died with a. discretion, a modesty, a;: sc]f-fjorgetfuh)oßs.w liich! redeemed the egotism of the universe. He did not die fighting; he uttered no historic j word. He fell at his post as a cook, he was not a hero. You are hot a hero Fumat, you are a martyr.” There are many '"Funiats in the French armies, humble souls, who nsk no more than to serve their country, and hold any sacrifice light if by it she may endure. M. Duhnmel gives, us unforgetable pictures of these, the noble and innumerable army of martyrs, who have returned to the earth of France which they held so dear. FROM THE FIRE-STEP. Private Arthur G. Empev. author of

“From the Fire-Step,” is an American who. on hearing of the sinking of the Lusitania, decided that it was up to hint to fight the Huns, and forthwith crossed to England where be *n-

listed. His motive was anger against Germany rather than an} original affection for Britain. He shared tho not. uncommon idea of the -untravelled , American that the British wore frigid, reserved, slow in thinking, and destitute of humour. His history books had brought him up in “an opinion of an Englishman about equal to a ’76 minuto man’s backed up by a Sinn Feiner’s. • It took him some little time to re-con-j.-struct his views. At first ho felt that the authorities were not -sufficiently' conscious of his magnanimity in coming all these miles to help them in what was no quarrel of his; the recruiting officer, instead of making difficulties over his enlistment, regarded it quite as a matter of course, merely remarking: “Oh, we take anything over here!” Moreover, Private Empey | thought that as an ox-sergeant-major in the United States cavalry he would be treated with a certain amount of deference; “I tried to teach the English drill sergeants their business,” he observes, “but it did not work.” But after he had lived and fought with the British for a little, and grown used to their eccentricities, he gives them his most ungrudging admiration. He does not. seem to have had much to do with French or dominion troops, and. he habitually uses the term English where he means British. Nothing will convince him that every Tommy does not drop his h’s and talk with a cockney accent, but, in spite of that, he has now a very warm feeling in his heart for that individual. “1 found Tommy to be the best of mates,” is his verdict, “and a' gentlemen through and through. He never thinks of knocking his officers. If one makes a costly mistake ami Tommy pays with bis blood, there is no general condemnation of tlie officer; lie is just pitied. It is exactly the same as it was with the Eight Brigade a‘L Balaclava, to say nothing of Gallipoli. Nouve Chapolle, and Loos.” Although for the most part the author seems constitutionally unable to .distinguish between English. .Scottish and Irish, he can nevertheless note their different characteristics. The Irish aticl the Scots, he -declares, are very ~ impetuous, especially when it comes tn bayonet fighting. The Englishman, though less agile in mind anti body, is more methodical, and has the grip of a bulldog on a captured positinn. “He is slower to thing, and that is the reason why he never knows when In' is licked.-- Twenty minutes before going over tho top the- English Tommy will sit on the fires top and thoroughly examine the mechanism of liis riile to sthat it is in working order. After this examination lie is satisfied, and ready to meet the Bodies. But Hu* Irishman or Kent sit on the lirestep, his rifle with bayonet fixed between his knees, the butt perhaps sinking into the mud—-the holt couldn't he opened with a- team, of horses, it is so rusty—bur lie spits on bis sleeve, and slowly polishes his bayonet. When this is done he also is ready to argue with Fritz.”

Private Empey made some good friends in his battalion. One was another American, a grizzled, ohl frontiersman from West of the Rockies; nu mu* knew how he managed to pass the doctor. He was a wond , '*’ , fnl shot, and reduced sniping snipers i.> a line art. Another was an Englishman, who had spent long enough in America to acquire some of the traits and mental

iiiliook of an American: “at swearing ho was a wonder.” naively observes the author, “A cavalry regiment would have been proud of him.” With these Private Em | ivy was taught the technique cl ;.,i.'deru war ; learner! not to duck

it tb.' sound of bullets; for if is not ..he Imllot that von hear that' hils 'you. .1 is the bullet that you do not hear ; tin acre fact that you call'catch the whis- •!.' c i its passage implies that it. is not t:i - ImiieL meant for you. And finally u* went over tho top with them. IKdescribes his sensation.*) vividly; the suspense of waiting; the relief when flic signal was given, the scramble over the parapet. “How 1 got up tied lari let- i will never know. The first ten feet were agony. Then we passed through the lanes in our barbed wire. I knew 1 was running, but could feel im motion below the waist. Patches o l ' the ground seemed to lloat to the rear as if 1 wore on a treadmill and scenery was rushing past me. The Germans had put a barrage of shrapnel across, and you could hear the pieces dap the ground about you. -The crossing of No Man’s Land remains a blank tn me.” In the melee in the German trenches lie. got his first wound : “Something hit me in the left shoulder, and my side went numb. Tt felt as i! a bot- poker were being driven through me. I felt no pain—just a sort of nervous shock. A bayonet had pierced me from the rear.” It was not long before he was back again in the firing line, but at the Somme received injuries which closed his military career. He. ends his record with a note of reassurance. .Private Empey did not'flatter himself that fie was a hero, and, like many a recruit,' wondered "bow lie would stand the tost when the time came. He was afraid of being afraid. His fears were groundless. “There is one thing,” he writes, “which my <*xnerienco has taught me might help the boy who may have to go. It is this: Anticipation is far worse than realisation. • When the time comes a man

riscs to the occasion ; is up and at it. and is- surprised to find how much more easily than he expected he fills the resnonsibilitics. It is really so ‘out there,’ Ho has nerve for the hardships, the interest of the work grips him ; he finds relief in the fun and comradeship of the trenches, and wins that best sort of happiness that comes with duty (lone.”