THE MEN WHO COME BACK

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 14 September 1917, Page 1

THE MEN WHO COME BACK

TENSE INCIDENTS. The ' Scotsman' correspondent with the British Army in Franco writes the following description of incidents in a dressing Station at. Arras: It is the strangest club in the world. •You come to it through a damp and narrow tunnel, lit by dim little oil lamps, grojjing your way in the shadows past the silent, spectral figures of wounded men. The great vaulted chamber beyon'd is chill and gloomy. A fragment of it is hedged about by low canvas walls. There are a - deal table, with cup's and saucers, biscuits, and cigarettes : half a dozen wooden chairs 011 the brick floor: a pile of tattered newspapers ; a single lamp burning under the arched roof. It is the Club of the Men Who Come Back. Two are huddled over the little iron stove, talking in tired monotones ; a third sleeps uneasily over his untasted tea, his head limp on his blood-stained tunic. The voices of his companions are scarcely audible above the restless whispering of many men hidden beyond the canvas screens. The great chamber is alive with vague movement, the heavy air taut with pain. Unseen feet tramp past heavily, bringing burdens that are left, and taking others away. Occasionally a murmur of agony, a sigh of exhaustion, a word or encourages-

meiit. and always the rustle of garments, the ripping of cloth, the-gentle splash of water in a bowl. The. wounds of battle are tended here. A constant stream of soldiers is passing the white-aproned surgeons beyond the screen, and the floor is carpeted with stretchers. Here, within the canvas walls of this: improvised little room, the officers who have walked with death and returned alive halt on.their way to hospital, rest for the first time in many weary days, are warmed and fed, and think of home again. It is the underground dressing station 111 the cellars of the Arras Citadel. A CHEER FOR TEE CAVALRY. I left at eight,'' said the man beside the stove. "We got the next thousand yards well. y sergeant was scuppered, but we silenced their machine gun." •. y And your O.C. ?'■- asked the other. ' Dead!" Yv hat happened to the major ?" L bullet wounds, but still carrying "Is old Turner still all right?" "Fighting like hell!" He nursed -his broken arm and stared into the fire. He was caked with mud from puttees to eyebrows; his breeches were torn and damp with red stains; his hollow cheeks covered with the stubble of three days' beard. "It's infernally quiet hero," he continued. "What day is it?" I told him Thursday. " Morning or night!"' Ten o'clock in the morning." I only remember Monday morning," lie said. "... There's* been a lot of snow. . . . Lord, I'm deaf." His companion wore a turban of new white bandages over his broken head. ,my pipe, you?" he asked. Im no good at a left-handed job." His right arm was shattered at the. shoulder, but he smoked calmly and talked of the cavalry. " Oh, they went well," he said. "We were at the edge of the Cambrai road when they charged up the hill to Moneliy—stiff and cold, the lot of us: but we gave them a cheer, though they couldn't have heard a whisper,- riding hell for leather right into the Boches' barrage, and keeping a perfect line- Horses were going down, but others were going on. It Was worth keeping alive to see the cavaliv show." '"Just my luck!" said the other. "I got mine an hour before." The sleeper at the table lifted Ms bloodshot eyes. '• Do you know the sunken roaa out of Guemappes?" he asked. ''l got mine there, but the Boche gunners got theirs just afterwards. ... I wish I could keep awake long enough to drink this tae. . ' . . Pass me those biscuits." " of biscuits," said the lieutenant of the Warwicks, "my men did u line thing. We got beyond all rations, and there v.-as no going back fo.v more. The men behind us sent \i.s up biscuits and 'bully, and volunteered for the carrying parties. Why,'they even sent me cigarettes," HOT. TEA. A youth, whose cheeks were still'pink through the coating of grime, stuck his head into the little room. " Cheer 0!" he said: "any tea going?" He hobbled into a chair and stuck out his damaged leg. "It's a stiffish promenade back to these parts," he continued. "How can you hop out of the way of ammunition columns with a foot like this? I say, this tea's hot. It's years since I had hot tea !" "My men were frightfully bucked up when, they took those guns in Battery Valley," said one of the men by the "stove. " Nothing like capturing guns to cheer them up." " Well, we didn't do so badly," said the youth, between mouthfuls of plumcake. "Don't forget the cavalry. We found those two 'Hows.' near Feuchy 'Chapel— in a great square pit they were—must . have been firing at a high angle. Brother Boclic began putting over some stuff, so there wasn't much to do for the moment except smoke his pigarsi Not bad, those Hun cigars, but rather strong. We stayed there that night in the gunpit. very tight and comfortable, thank.you." Another muddy scarecrow of a, figure came uncertainly into the light. "Good morning!" it said politely. "It's stopped snowing outside. Hullo, "is that a. London paper? Monday's? Good! I want to read about this fine big battle. I've been so busy fighting I haven't had time to find out what's happened,"

Through the wrappings of this -wounded man it was possible to see tlie crown on one muddy shoulder. He lowered himself into a chair, fumbled in liis pocket for hia glasses—"This_ mud is like armor " —and settled himself with, the open paper. . . . Three paragraphs, and. lie was snoring loudly;. A FUXNY THING. " War is a funny thing/' said the lieutenant of the War wicks reflectively- " Fancy getting the day's post in the Boche lines. There we were, lyiag in shell holes, half-frozen, at the end of two days and nights of scrapping", wondering whether we'd have a chance joi' seeing the sun shine again before we got ours—and up comes the post. Carrying party comes' along with 5.9's lobbing about promiscuously, and a Hun Maxim plasisring us for dear life, and the corporal says : ' A letter for you, sir.? Oh, a funny thing is war." "Well, you didn't mind, I suppose?" asked the major, awakened by 1 nearly fall-/ ing out of his chair. • *" T" " Of course, I did," replied the other. "There I was, hugging a hole in the ground, wondering whether Fritz would score after all, and I get a letter from home._ From my wife? Not a bit- of it. A dun'from my rascal of a tailor! I '. "What day did say it was?'' demanded the man - with the broken arm." "Thursday? I thought it was, Tuesday. Well—yesterday morning, one of my men wrote a letter while we were "lying near Pelves. He thought he was going to be killed, and he aslced a pal to deliver it when he got back. Five minutes later the pal blown, to bits, and the other is somewhere in this cellar with a scratch