HEROES ALL.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 January 1917, Page 5

HEROES ALL.

i , • j WORK Of WAR DOCTORS. j | THEIR LIFE UNDER FIRIi ' HEAVY CASUALTIES SUSTAINED j A tribute to the magnificent wor.t being done by the doctors at the front is paid by Lord Northcliffe in an ntefresting article dated "Somewhere in France," which appeared in a recent issue of the London Times. The writer stated that if there be degrees of chivalry the highest awai;d should be accorded to the medical profession which at once forsook its lucrative practic-.'S in London, or Melbourne, or Montreal (he omits to mention New Zealand) in a great rally of self-sacrifice. As indicating the' hazardous nature of their work, lie quotes the Royal Army Medical Corps' casualties for three months from the Times as follows:—Officers killed 53, officers wounded 208, ofticei's ltr'ssing 4; n.c.o.'s and men (R.A.M.C. only): killed 200, wounded 1212. missin«r 3. LIFE UNDERGROUND Describing arrangements at the front for wounded soldiers, Lord Northcliffe snvs:— "X know iio more moving experience "than an afternoon in an advanced dressing station. Let me describe that o 1 West "Pcronne. Its location is changed now, so I am giving the enemy no information. We reached it on a heavy and sultry Sunday afternoon by hiding ourselves behind anything possible. Dust and smoke gave, the atmosphere of a coming thunderstorm, the thudding of the guns on both sides was incessant. New nnd then was heard the brisk note of a machine-gun, which sounds for all the world lijte a boy rasping a stick along palings or the rattle which policemen carried in Mid-Victorian days. "There was no sign of anything in the nature of a hospital, a tent, or of anything above ground. I was getting down £at every few seconds to avoid, bursting shells, when I saw a couple of stretcher-bearers coming through tho hozo' as from nowhere and then disappear underground. 'lt is underneath there' I was told by my.guide, whose I daily duty it was to inspect those med'.I cal outposts. "As quickly as possible we got down into a trench and followed the stretcherbearers. There in darkness, lit by a few candles, we gradually made out a very grim scene. Talking was difficult, for one of our batteries had just come into action a few yards away. "Owing to the heavy enemy shell fire what I soon found to be an underground maze—a plan of which I print herewith —haj] become completely blocked with wounded men lying in the dark on their stretchers, the passaf< ways dug out of clayish earth beir>y jrst the width of a stretcher handl ' mi.' no more. Wo trod

handle over the silent men, some »l t,iom asleep with the. blessed morphia'iJ their brains, other© cheerily «min other staring as wouhded men do All v. ho could move u hand had a ciearetM • -now admitted to be the first' need pi a i but the very dangerously wounded. IN THE MAIN DRESSING BOOM, Passing ,011, and using our electrll tore) l as little as possible, so as not tai : disturb the slcfopers, we came io th# main dressing rocim. k Remember it was 1 underground.: all dark, and that the on-coming wail of approaching shells/ with immediate subsequent explosions* was continuous. ''ln tins main d.essing room the dog*, tors, all young men, some of them subalterns in the R.A.M.C., were washfoff Awl bandaging with the care and flpeeil t-.at. can bo seen in the Somme fllm. X counted twenty-four patients Id that small chamber. 1 We crept onward arid 1 earne to anothe. room where there were *■ mne raises, and again to a smaller one > where lay the more dangerously wound, "These dressing roonu faere protected 1 by some four or five feeWpf earth abort them. There\\vas a small' officers' mess and a medical storeroom, which wew uici'flly shielded by corrugated iron from ' -il.iipnej splinters, a kitchen, an'office. "I'd M'l't w » s about all An operation ov tracheotomy was taking place In onfl ' 01 the dressing rooms." ' ANXIOUS FOR THE JTSXT "STDJJTJ!» V' 0" the party's way rearward WW! •• I'll id a visit to the walking wounded coU iccting station, consisting of - in which n considerable numhqr of Tom" mics of, all dialects were partakioft of Hi hearty meal. „ - - ' "As each arrived his name and regft* , ' mental number were entered, with ticulars of his case. Where liis dressings were re-arranged, and iis* every case a cigarette was Prodigious quantities of tea, cocoa, 1 bread, butter and jam were disappearing. Respite t'io bandaged headsjand arms of some and the limping of others, they wire a merry, if tiral party. Eagetty 1 ' nnd in vigorous and unprintable Angloy " Saxon one of them said: 'I want to' have ; ' another smack at the Allomans.' In a tent was a wopnded officer, famous in" the world of big game (scarred as the result of a miraculous escape frofa 11 an African elephant';, who, though' 80"M .villi blood, had only one anxMtjv t and that was to have his wound dressed; > fiet. a bath, and return to his men- in tune for the next 'stunt'—to use an. abominable Americanism which ha£ 2 J own weed-like into our war language. 1 Two days before, this Walking Wound#} : ; Collecting Station had been shelled by the enemy. By a strange stroke of fortune, the only victims were a ' number of German prisoners. •' jS "T.ife is held gaily and cheaply tt . these advanced hospitals. Th«te was i small underground chamber here fitted.. ' " with bunks as on shipboard, In wlild the officer? could sleep if they chose) ;■ but they did not seem to be particulat ?'■ whether they used it or not." FRIEND AND FOE TREATED ALIKE. : Later the party, after? an hour's jouh nev, visited a Casualty Clearing Sta< tion, and of this.Lord Northcliffe says* 'I have discovered from their eon« ' vusation that very few people realise- ' (lie intricate nature of the nit spread v W tlie R.A.M.C. over the field of war. " The meshes are many—but not too ■ many. An important part of the nei l ' are theso very perfect clearing ' lishments. The description of two will* be sufficient: One of theso clearing stic tiens was a large old water-mill, whicl ' had been transformed into a most beautiful hospital. I reached it in time to witness the arrival of the ambulic'es. Out of them came all manner of w.-und* ed, British and German. Frien mi foe were treated alike. They wev iust " wounded men—that was all. Si< ' as , n . cf'»ld walk by themselves, or with tty help of orderlies, eame out dazed inic. the sunlight from the ambulances. The Germans, who had for days been trench- ' bound by our barrage, were, as a rule, hori ibly dirty, and impossible to approach for physical reasons. Later, at another • lospitaf, I saw gently-born V.A.D. r.i.rscs washing great unbathed wounded Prussians and Bavarians. X felt posU tively guilty when '] thought of th 6 > clmft' with'which the V.A.D. movement, its uniforms, and salutings, was received ten years ago, in,the bad old days when we ought to have been preparing fot war. GRATEFUL GERMANS ' "Here, in this mill Casualty Clearing • Station, the broken soldiers came for I the first time under the influence and i gentle touch and consoling smile of woe • men nurses. Many Of the men had been in and about the firing line for ' weeks, several of the Germans for longer than that. I talked with some of the 1 enemy who had arrived a day or two let'ore in what must have seemed a fairy palace. Some spoke of the care, kindness, good food, flowers, and muslo (the gramophone never stops) which were provided. As a rule they avo arateful—at any rate, at first. Some ■v. art very grateful. One officer used th# word 'lovingly (liebevoll), and 'lon/ ugly' it nuist seem, for nothing is mora ' marked in inspecting German hospital)!, even such an establishment &u the Kp» dolf Virchow Hospital in Berlin, ttyan to notice the roughness of the surgery, the callousness shown in making rev murks before patients, and the inferior* ity of the under-trained nums. "Some are not grateful, and. like thS pampered civilians at the Alexandra Palaco, think it necessary to place, on record complaints based on mere how ' t:lity. . "This Casualty Clearing Station, placlfl * with its river, with its sunny gardens—* into which many beds had been carried | so that the wounded might enjoy the birds, the flowers, and trees—seems like V ar. oasis after the grim desolation of wilderness of the Somme heights, ;iv "It is impossible to convey in wsri!s J the amazing tireless activity of the nurses nnd doctors. I did not know that human beings could work so many hours without sleep at the most anxious ktad of work the world provides. .No wonder, that tin? women sometimes break down, and require hostels and L'cst homes. Ye» during a number of wav visits 1 have met with not one complaint from any r;i ember of any medical staff, in the flelA or elsewhere." There is, on the oihe* bund, tiic same continuous enthusiasm throughout the medical servico as one sees in the great boot factory at CWIIU, or the vast motor repair shop in 3P#Sf or our transport from Havre t»-ti* -■; front The stimulus of war seemi