 Chapter 9 and 10 of A Surgeon in Arms by Robert James Mannion Chapter 9. Dugouts To anyone who has served any time at the front, the above word will bring back recollections of various kinds, for dugouts are of varying types. The term is employed to denote any shelter in the neighborhood of the firing line from the funk hole, which is only a recess cut into the side of a trench with little or no shelter above it, and none at the entrance, to the cavity dug down into the ground a distance varying from 10 feet to 70 and strengthened by supports of wood, steel, or concrete. It is also loosely used to denote cellars, caves, and shell holes which may be employed as means of protection from rifle bullet, shrapnel, or high explosive shell. It is probably true in dugouts, as in many of the other necessities of war, that we learned much from the German, for he was probably the first to recognize the protection rendered by a well-built, or rather well-dug, reinforced hole in the ground. At various times when we have taken portions of the German lines, we have found well-made homes underground with two or more long entrances, one at either end, so that if one is hit by a shell, the other affords a means of exit to the inhabitants. Those we took at Vimy seemed almost free of rats, which statement could not truthfully be made of our own dugouts. I don't know whether the German has some method of getting rid of rats, but I do know from practical and irritating experience that the German either has no method of freeing his dugouts of lice, or else thoroughly enjoys the company of vermin. None of us who occupied his underground dwellings, even if only for a few days, came back free from these annoying and disgusting companions. So tenacious and clinging were they that it took repeated bazz and changes to free us of them. One might conclude that they had been treated in a brotherly way by the Hun. Of course, as Kelly said, scratching is common in the best circles out there. The man who has to reach over his shoulder in an attempt to remove an irritation from that almost unattainable spot between the shoulder blades is not shunned or looked at, a scant, but serves only as a source of amusement to his companions. Underwear searching is a common, very common form of pastime. Though you may have been a very dignified and sensitive soul, your sensitiveness gradually dulls until you care not a hoot who may see you sitting in a brilliant sunshine anxiously scanning your clothes, or rising at midnight from a much troubled sleep, and by dim candlelight beginning the often well-rewarded inspection. So far, as the ordinary Tommy is concerned, he ignores not only his acquaintances, but the world in general. There he sits in his bare pelt, and performs a massacre which in numbers dwarfs almost to infinity the killings of the Armenians by the Turks. In the town of Vimy I one time passed a jocular, though profitable hour, at this occupation, while I sat on the floor of the cellar of an old brewery with a scotch podre on one side of me, and a Nova Scotia major on the other, all absorbed in the same intense search, while above our heads the shells every little while hit the fallen walls of our shelter. And through the thin-walled partition that separated us from our soldier servants, we heard propounded a most momentous question which showed us that they, too, were employing their time to advantage. The question was, Say, Kelly, what the hell will all the lies do for a living after the war? And for once Kelly was floored. Often dugouts or but shelters dug into the wall of a trench, a thin sheet roof put up on top, and two or three layers of sandbags on top of that. This gives protection against bullets, shrapnel, or bits of shell, but a straight hit from a medium-sized shell would go right through. And yet it is strange how seldom these are hit direct, considering their large numbers. This may in part account for one's feeling of relative security while in them, but this feeling is no doubt also partly due to our resemblance to the ostrich, which hides its head to avoid danger. Be this as it may, many a good night's sleep have I passed in shelters such as this, with shells bursting within 100 yards at frequent intervals during the night. During a month previous to the Battle of Arras, my orderlies and I lived in an abode of this nature most of the time, only 500 yards from our front line trenches. Shells continually fell within the 100-yard radius of it, as a matter of fact, shortly afterwards this dugout was completely blown in. Yet no one worried in the least about it. This is not told as a strange experience for all officers who have served at the front, have often lived in the same surroundings. This experience is related only to illustrate one type of protective shelter. Deep dugouts vary in depth anywhere from 10 to 40 or 50 feet in cases where the soldier has had to do all the digging, but in some cases where limestone quarrying has been extensively carried on, there have been found ready to hand caves 60 to 100 feet in depth, such as the famous Zivi Cave opposite Mount Saint-Eloi. There are many of them about this region, some of which, as the one mentioned, are large enough to give shelter to a thousand men. Usually there is a circular air shaft in the center. This shaft in Zivi Cave was the target for months for German gunners, as they had occupied this region and knew it well. In fact, the story is told that in this cave, or one of the others near about, 800 Germans were gassed and killed by the French when they retook this ground. How much truth is in the story it is difficult to say, but at any rate, all through the hard cold winter of 1916-17, the Canadians who were holding this front found good protection and some warmth in this cave for many of their men, though at all times the air in it had a grayish tinge as the ventilation was hard to update. On one occasion, at 11 p.m., Colonel Jay and the writer found Zivi Cave as welcome a sight as ever struck the eye of man. Coming into the trenches, we stumbled into a heavy hun artillery barrage. After a number of close shaves, and two of which we were buried in mud from the exploding shell, we were heavily dragging our feet through the thick mud of German trench, when a shell struck full in the trench, 20 feet in front of us, nearly bursting our eardrums. We pressed closely against the wall of the trench, awaiting the next. It came almost immediately, landing 30 feet behind us, bracketing us. The next one will get us, sir, I said. Not on your life, doctor, cheerfully replied Colonel Jay, and he was right. For a few minutes later we were stumbling into the entrance of Zivi Cave, and that slimy dark four-foot opening was more welcome to us than would be today the spacious rotunda of the Savoy. I always admired the Colonel's cheerful confidence, but as Kelly well said, a confidence is a point thing, but it really has very little effect and stop on a hunch shell that's coming your way. This, the Colonel unfortunately found out, and the Battle of Arras. From one of these deep caves in the Vimy Front, previous to the Battle of Easter Monday, tunnels, miles in length, electric, lighted, were built, leading to different headquarters, aid posts, ambulance depots, and to various points in no man's land. They were of inescapable service when the day of battle arrived. No doubt they will be among the showplaces of France to encourage tourist traffic after the war. The entrance to deep dugouts is usually only high enough to go through in a stooped position, and in this case the easiest way to enter them is to back down. After some practice, one gets accustomed to this manner of progression, and it becomes easy, as if our bodies had reverted to the days of our cave-dwelling ancestry, to accompany the turning back of civilization's clock. The two entrances preferably point away from the enemy lines, but in case of advance the enemy dugouts may be taken over in spite of the fact that their entrances seem to invite a shell to enter, and rather strangely shells rarely seem to make a straight hit on an entrance. Sellers are quite often utilized as shelters where a little village has become incorporated in the lines. They often make comparatively luxurious places of residence for officers and men as luxury goes in these parts. The fallen brick walls, in addition to the cellar roof, give fair protection, though a straight hit by a shell would mean a good chance of death to those within. As breweries are usually the most palatial buildings in French towns, they are often chosen as headquarters or as dressing stations, either for field ambulances or regimental aid posts. A brewery at A Noulette, which not accepting the church, was the only building not destroyed by shellfire, for many months served as a most complete advanced dressing station. The rats were plentiful, as they are in most dugouts, and often their little BDIs would stare in a startled manner at one's flashlight, and their bodies remain in a sort of hypnotized immobility. But this brewery gave shelter to 30 or 40 patients and was exceedingly useful, till one day a selfish artillery officer came along and placed a battery of heavies just behind it to draw German fire on the brewery. This is a disagreeable habit of the artillery to choose hitherto safe locations and to turn them into uninhabitable ones to the disgust of those about. One cellar dugout in Cologne is worthy of description. It was in the cellar of what had been a large residence. We used it as a regimental aid post and it was by far the most luxurious that I have had the pleasure of seeing. In the room of the cellar occupied by the MO, the walls had been papered, a fireplace installed, and it contained two comfortable beds, armchairs, two carved oak-framed mirrors, and a well-tuned piano with a stool. This was only 400 yards from the front line. Often as the shells dropped all about us, a group of officers sat there in the warm glow of a coal fire, the coal probably filched by our batman from the Foss nearby. While some one of a musical turn played the piano and the others sang such classical ditties as Annie Laurie when Irish eyes are smiling and another little drink wouldn't do us any harm. One morning after a night of jollity such as this, during which the shelling had been fairly heavy, one of the orderlies found a dud in the next cellar which, had it exploded, would have jolted the piano a bit. An engineering officer mentioned to me that he had been passing the previous night and could not believe his ears when he heard the singing and the piano accompaniment. Could he be blamed? I hasten to add that this was the only dugout in which such luxury as this existed or anything approaching to it. This cellar had one other advantage. It still had enough of the walls and roof standing to allow us in spare moments to look through the holes made by shells and see what was happening in no man's land. And on one occasion the writer stood up there and watched every detail of one of the most successful raids ever put on by a battalion on the British front. It was a cold winter's day and the ground had a complete covering of snow. Just at daybreak a box barrage was put on a part of the German line on our front. Our men climbed out of the trenches and apparently at their leisure went across to the German lines. One of the men carried a telephone with wire coiled about it which he unrolled as he went and a major RMC telephoned back to HQ in our lines that all was proceeding well. They returned with one hundred prisoners at that time a record number for a raid. The boy aged twenty who had carried the telephone coolly rewound his wire and brought phone and wire back with him getting a bullet in the thigh but finishing his work and later receiving a military medal for his conduct. I was called down from this interesting site to dress him and some others of our wounded as well as many German wounded who were brought in prisoners. For those who are unacquainted with barrages it may be explained that a box barrage is a heavy shelling put on the enemy lines in the form of a box taking in the front line and some of the supports in such a manner that those within it cannot get back and reinforcements are unable to come up from the rear. The enemy are then dependent upon shell and machine gun and trench mortar fire in retaliating. We obtained the identification of the troops opposite by the prisoners taken as well as getting from them in different ways information useful to us and detrimental to the enemy. Of course the enemy employs like methods but during the winter of nineteen sixteen seventeen on our different fronts we positively owned no man's land. End of chapter nine. Chapter ten the sick parade. The handling of the sick is not so easy a matter as the caring for the wounded in the lines for the reason that it is not what disease the man has that the medical officer must decide as much as whether he has any disease or has simply joined the independent workers of the world. In other words is he really ill or is he just suffering from ennui has he at last become so fed up with it all that he has decided to go sick running the gauntlet of an irate MO with the hope of receiving a few hours or days of rest at the transport or in hospital. It may be a lucky father who knows his own son but it is a fortunate medical officer who knows his own battalion. If he does it is fortunate for the MO for it makes his toils lighter but it may not be so fortunate for the poor devil who has just decided that once again he will endeavor to put it over the doctor for the latter gets to know the regular parater and meets him with a suspicious look of recognition. Well Jones and what is it this time ask the MO in tone so cold that the poor victim can almost taste pill number nine or castor oil as he listens. If he's not ill but is simply sick and tired of the mud dirt rats lice discipline and discomfort as we all get at times he will have to tax his ingenuity and his acting ability to convince the doctor that his pains in his legs and back are real not imaginary or that his right knee is swollen when the practice die of the physician says it is not. If he is an old soldier and knows the game well he may get away with it sometimes with the tacit consent of a sympathetic medical officer. Tommy is not the only one who endeavors at times to get out of the lines with imaginary ills. His officers and some medical officers for the matter of that occasionally set him the example. It is very human on occasion to long for comfort instead of discomfort cleanliness in place of dirt a decent white sheeted bed in exchange for a hard uncomfortable and possibly vermin infested bunk and to wish to indulge in peace quietness rest safety and civilization after the noise fatigue dangers and barbarism that give truth to the saying that war is hell. But the officer gets the same treatment as does his men. On one occasion I saw a colonel removed from an ambulance to make room for a badly wounded Tommy and it may safely be said that if the ordinary soldier hates the sick parade his abhorrence of it is mild in comparison to that felt for it by the battalion representative of the army medical corps it is a thorn in his side that makes itself felt daily and the reason is that he is between three fires the assistant director of medical services who expects a low sick rate in the different units the battalion and company commanders who expect the men on parade which means fit and on duty while at the same time insisting quite rightly that the men get every attention at the hands of the medical department and a certain small percentage of the men for whom the novelty and glamour of the war has worn off and who have become tired of the food and find the work arduous and monotonous it is this small percentage of the men not large in numbers but present in most units who make the work difficult for they began to wonder how they can escape the working parties or the dangers and hardships of the trenches and if by any chance they have varicose veins flat feet rheumatism short sight or any of the thousand and one ills that man is heir to they immediately began swinging the lead as the boys call malingering in the royal army medical corps they call it scrim shanking the mo is not popular with lead swingers or scrim shankers a witty tommy once said that all you can get from an officer of the medical department is a pill number nine made up mostly of kalamal that if you got a pill nine he'll give you a four and a five no doubt the man who swings the lead is to be sympathized with at times often he is given work to do almost beyond human endurance his dug out may be a mud hole his clothes soaking from a downpour of rain his rations short and finally perhaps the rum ration the one cheery thing on a dark day is missing he has done his bit anyway or thinks he has and his only possible relief is to say that he is too ill to go on the next day occasionally he has an attack of what a sharp little french canadian sergeant called a fragility of the feet and he dreads his next tour in the front line at any rate for one cause or another he decides to go before the mo and many funny stories are told of the attempts made by men to get a few days excuse duty which means a few days with nothing to do two men are overheard at the following conversation saint bill what are you going to tell the croaker a common name for a stern mo oh i've got bad rheumatic pains in my back that devil you have that's what i had well i'll go strong on diarrhea each tells his story it depends on how sick they appear or how often they have been before his medical majesty in the past as to the result the latter at least may work a day off at the expense of a nauseating dose of gastro oil taken at once and some lead and opium pills consigned to the gutter as soon as the sick man is out of sight the former probably gets m and d that is medicine and duty which translated means carry on with perhaps a good rubbing of his back with a strong liniment my corporal told me a story of two men who opened a can of bully beef and for four days left it standing on the parapet during hot weather then they ate it with the hope of getting tomean poisoning another chap is said to feigned insanity by giving all his attention to snapping up every bit of paper he could find in the trenches or out of them and studiously endeavoring to make the bits of paper into some important document he carried out this apparently foolish search so long that at last he was pronounced insane and given his discharge from the forces on receiving his discharge papers he studied them carefully as he walked away another soldier heard him murmur why that's the paper I've been searching for all the time deafness is one of the commonest complaints of a soldier who is grim shanking the soldier tells the mo that for some months past his hearing has been lessening and that at last he is so deaf that he cannot carry on he claims that while on sentry duty or standing to in the front line he has already nearly shot one officer and three different men because he could not hear them giving him the password the mo in a loud voice questions him as to his name place of birth age and so on and so on keeping his face straight and his lips hidden to avoid allowing the soldier if really deaf to read his lips gradually the voice of the officer is lowered and the man who at first had difficulty hearing his loud tones unconsciously if faking answered the lower voice till he is answering to a voice that is almost a whisper then comes suddenly a change in the manner of the croaker he becomes stern and rebukes the man ordering him forth to do his duty like the other men of his battalion and not ever again to dare to come on parade with a plea of deafness under a threat of marking him plain duty which means climbing and a likelihood of twenty eight days first field punishment looking backward one can think of many amusing incidents in which some chap tried to get out of the lines and perhaps exceeded in so doing by an imaginary ill a soldier named jones who had not been long in the lines became a regular caller upon me as usual at first every consideration was shown to him but as his face appeared and reappeared almost daily and as the said face was suffused with the glow of health his form of the robust type and his complaints always functional that is consisting of symptoms only with no signs of a real disease to cause them I began to feel certain that he was a lead swinger on his first call or two he had been excused duty but as my suspicions grew firmer that he was simply shifting his work onto the shoulders of some other poor Tommy my manner toward him grew rather reserved and finally antagonistic about this time he came to see me at one of my daily morning sick parades he tried to look as ill and dejected as his very healthy appearance would permit well jones what is the trouble this time I asked harshly when his turn came I can't swallow sir I can't get any food down my throat I don't know what's the matter sir but I had this happen to me 10 years ago and I nearly died I was in the hospital for three months how long since you have swallowed any food jones well I managed to get down a little night before last but not a bite since not a bite and I feel an awful week I don't think I could carry on long like this but of course I'll do my best sir yes I suppose so jones I answered feeling certain that he was lying of course a few days without food really does most of us good a friend of mine regularly goes a week on nothing but water whenever he feels a bit livery as the English say and then you remember there was a man once who went 40 days fasting he became quite famous so another day or two won't hurt you jones however if it went too long it might become serious so I want you to report back here tomorrow morning sure if you have not succeeded in swallowing by that time I have in my tenure a stomach tube and will pass it down through your esophagus and open it up it's a very tender passage I continued without smiling and you must expect severe pain from the passing of the tube unfortunately we have nothing to deaden the pain but you can stand it if you can make up your mind to do so now you do your best to swallow like a good fellow and I think you will succeed but be sure to come back tomorrow if you don't that'll do Jones next as a matter of fact I had no stomach or esophageal tube but I was just trying out a little Christian science treatment for as Dooley says if the Christian scientist had a little more science and the medical men a little more Christianity it would not matter much what you called in so long as you had a good nurse and the moral treatment proved effective in this case for Jones did not come back next day nor did we see him again until nearly a week had passed when he came in on parade again what's doing this time Jones can't swallow again oh no sir I got my swallowing back all right I could hardly resist the temptation to smile well since I then I bombed all my food have kept a thing on my stomach since I saw you sir I saw you man Kelly the other day and he was so unkind as to tell me that I had better take something with claws and it he seemed to think I was swinging the lead and I'm a sick man sir with an injured air which somehow did not take any of the healthy red from his cheek I stepped outside and asked the corporal in charge of the sick from his company what diet Jones was able to eat diet he don't eat no diet sir eats every darn thing in sight and looks for more was the sneering reply I thought so now Jones I said sternly if you come on sick parade again when you are not sick I'm going to put in a crime charge against you for malingering now get out and he got out and that was the last time I saw him on sick parade the chaps who fake are nearly always new arrivals in the line one such came hopping into my dugout in the middle of the night with his boot sock and putty off one foot which he carefully kept off the ground he said he had been blown up by a shell and buried severely injuring the foot he had bared I examined the foot tenderly and found a swelling half the size of an egg just over the inner side of the ankle he howled with pain when I touched it so my examination was rather cursory that is hurried without diagnosing the condition I swabbed it with iodine merely to do something and applied a dressing telling my assistant to make out a hospital entry guard for him after leading him to go back to my bunk for I was tired I happened to glance around and saw a broad grin on his face stepping back I took off the dressing and carefully examined the swelling not with standing his protest that it was very painful I found then that it was simply a fatty tumor and excess but harmless growth of fact in a localized area which had probably been there for years he then admitted the fact that the swelling had been there for years but of course still claimed that he had heard his ankle a few minutes before as it showed no sign of it he went back to duty every medical officer has many such incidents after a few months of service they often add a bit of humor to a dull business rather strangely the parades are always larger out of the lines than in them for the vast majority of the men hold it as a point of honor to stick it out no matter how rough it may be while in the line but as soon as the battalion gets out of the line and hard training route marches equipment cleaning and inspections begin the parades increase in size often the men hope that they will be given excuse duty which means that they have nothing to do for that day or should the parade be held at a late hour some few of them prefer to stand about the M. O. Stent awaiting their turn to doing some drill or route march the sick parade is held daily at a fixed hour and as a rule the earlier the parade the smaller the number who come if it is held before all other parades only the really ill come for the others would but add to their daily number of parades if they came pretending to be ill a medical friend of mine had an interesting way of keeping down the numbers at his parade he was a young man with a ministerial air wore eyeglasses and was apparently very serious though underneath the outer covering was a rich vein of humor when his numbers grew too large to suit him in other words when 50 to 100 came to practically all he gave an ounce of castor oil to be taken in his presence one day the colonel came to him and said that he had had some complaints from the men that the only thing they got from the M. O. for all complaints was castor oil the medical officer's face remained long and serious and looking at the colonel over his spectacles he said well do you know my dear colonel that castor oil is a wonderful remedy marvelous almost miraculous can you believe it on my sick parade a week ago today there were 75 sick who came I have given them nothing but castor oil and so many are cured that today only 17 came to see me it's really an astonishing remedy wouldn't you like to take an ounce of it sir now damn you I wouldn't roar the colonel as he made his exit I was sitting in his tent one day when a lieutenant came in to see him saying that ten years before he had broken its clavicle collar bone and that over the old fracture he was having so much pain at times that he feared he would have to get a month off I guess my dear Mr. Blank would you kindly divest yourself of your clothes till I examine the shoulder and the half of his face on my side screwed itself up into an exaggerated wink which meant to me that he considered that this officer was trying to put one over he probably knew him when the officer had stripped Captain Smith asked him to show the exact spot of tenderness and the lieutenant put his finger with exactitude on a certain point Captain Smith touched the spot with his fingers the officer exclaiming oh that hurts doc and drawing back in pain I guess I'm sorry but I'll be careful Mr. Blank and he examined gently the shoulder arm and chest but always finished the examination by pushing in fairly hard with his finger and saying now that's where it hurts Mr. Blank and Mr. Blank would each time cringe with the pain of the touch he repeated this again and again but I noticed that each time he came back to the tender spot he chose a point an inch or so from that which he had chosen the last time finally he had to pour blank saying yes that's the spot when the spot touched was nearly six inches from the original sensitive point at last the doctor said very seriously yes yes Mr. Blank that painful condition must be attended to it is a strange condition don't you know for as I go on examining it the tenderness shifts about a great deal and I feel sure that with a little rubbing it may be driven out altogether now this liniment is the very thing the very thing yes yes twice daily night and morning good afternoon my dear blank don't fail to come back if it troubles you anymore and blank went out looking a bit sheepish while the doctor turned to me again with his face wearing that exaggerated wing then he continued as if he were just carrying on an interrupted conversation you know manion some of these officers are exceedingly troublesome exceedingly so when they happen to swing the lead for one must appear to have the greatest consideration for them now I have one extremely interesting case of laryngitis in one of the officers it goes every now and then to the extent of complete loss of voice troublesome condition for he cannot give his orders to his men and to hurry him back into condition I have sent him twice to the hospital now though this officer's courage is absolutely unquestioned I find myself at times wondering if it may not be just that general fed up feeling that we all get rather than laryngitis that affects him Captain Thompson is a great friend of mine which makes it all the more difficult but you know my dear chap really it's so easy to quit speaking aloud and just whisper instead I wonder does he talk in his sleep by Joe that would be interesting I must make inquiries but he continued I told him off of it a couple of nights ago one of our companies was putting on a raid at daybreak and the officer in charge of the raid is not overburdened with nerve one half hour before the raid he started to groan when we were all in headquarters dug out together and said he had a very severe pain in his stomach or bowels though I doubted the pain I examined him carefully and finding no real cause for it I allowed him to carry on and to do him justice he went over the top like a man and did his bit in the raid as well as anyone could have done but just after I had examined him Thompson stepped up familiarly to me and said do you really think Smith that so and so did have a pain damn you Thompson I replied what right of you to ask me such a question oh come now Smith really do you think he did have a pain well frankly Thompson I answered in a low confidential tone I am losing so much of my faith in humanity don't you know that I find myself doubting if you have any laryngitis when you lose your voice and with a good-natured burst of laughter he left me but I somehow feel that he won't have laryngitis again for some time but honestly manian my great surprise always has been and still is not that so many try to get out of the line but that in spite of the dangers and hardships ninety five percent of officers and men do their hard dangerous trying jobs with a smile and without complaint how very little cowardice there is in the world and anyone who has served out there must agree with that opinion particularly when he remembers the great numbers who have remained at home facing no guns braving no dangers enduring no hardships the above stories are told to illustrate the humorous side of the life for all praise and gratitude is due to the men who have served out there in the noble cause of the allies if at times some officer or man gets tired of the mud rain lice shells dirt and dangers that he is daily encountering and tries to get a few days in civilized surroundings he is but showing a very human side to his nature end of chapter ten chapters eleven and twelve of a surgeon in arms by robert james manian this liver box recording is in the public domain chapter eleven caring for the wounded the method of caring for the wounded at the front depends a great deal upon whether a battalion is holding a set of trenches on a standing front or advancing either in a big push or in a raid the medical officer to a fighting battalion is the member of the army medical corps who is closer to the firing line than any of the other officers of that core in the whole theater of war he is served by the nearest field ambulance whose stretch of errors not only evacuate the wounded from his r.a.p. regimental aid post but also keep him supplied with medicines dressing splints and other medical and surgical necessities his food is sent up with that of the remainder of his battalion from his own battalion transport the field ambulance evacuates the severe cases to the nearest ccs casualty clearing station which is the closest hospital to the lines it is at the ccs that the necessary operations are performed here the real surgical work of the medical corps begins for up to that station it is much a matter of first aid from the casualty clearing station cases that look as if they will require protracted attention or transfer to ambulance trains which convey the cases fifty sixty or more miles to the base hospitals at the rear perhaps about boulon avre and other towns reasonably well out of danger and from these hospitals the wounded are sick may be transferred again this time to hospital ships which cross the channel to one of our channel ports at these points they are once more put aboard ambulance trains and distributed to hospitals in london manchester canterbury edinburgh or any of the other large hospital centers suppose that a battalion is holding a part of the entrenched front roughly one thousand yard square the medical officer always travels with his battalion in an area such as this his r a p would be in a dugout somewhere in the vicinity of the one which is used as headquarters for the battalion a medical officer's position is toward the rear of his battalion whether the men are on the march in an advance or holding the lines for the reason that the wounded and sick are naturally sent toward the rear very commonly the r a p is about halfway from the rear support trench to the firing line the dugout of the mo is generally of the superficial variety it has a roof made up of two or three layers of bags of sand piled on top of a layer of boards just sufficient to give one a feeling of security in a most insecure position a straight hit from a shell on the roof of this type of dugout means that a new medical officer will be required for that battalion at once i have a vivid recollection of my first experience in such a dugout long before i had become accustomed to living in them by the week it was in a fairly active front near bully grenade i had been sent from a field ambulance to relieve the regular mo while he took a well-earned leave his palatial residence was only about two hundred yards from the front line its ceiling was less than six feet from the floor for my head hit it whenever i stood up and the rain which poured for days trickled down our necks as it filtered through the roof in many places the shells kept dropping most unknowingly that first day hitting everywhere except exactly on the center of the roof and i knew it was only a matter of minutes till one landed there then to add to my uneasiness the sergeant lit a fire with wet wood which made a black smoke that poured from the bit of tin which was used for a pipe in the roof this was the finishing touch for i felt certain that every gunner on the front was using that smoke for a target turning to the sergeant i asked with as cool a manner as i could command how close do those shells have to come before you would consider it and advisable to move out to move out oh coming through the roof i guess he answered with a blank stare i did not dare to ask any more questions but i thought to myself what a nice healthy time to move it took some time for me to become a custom to that billet but out there one learns to become a custom to anything in front of the medical officer or the men who hold the line there are four platoons to a company four companies to a battalion and with each platoon is one stretcher bearer making 16 bearers to each battalion these stretcher bearers are trained in first aid dressings setting fractures and so forth by the mo of their regiment when they are out at rest billets behind the lines in the lines they accompany their platoons and companies and when the men go over the top in raids and advances the stretcher bearers go with them stopping to dress and care for the wounded as they cross the battle area no finer set of men serve out there than the stretcher bearers whether they serve with a battalion an ambulance or any other unit their work is without the stimulation or excitement the fighting men get but has the same dangers and hardships they go over the top as do the others and it is their duty to carry wounded with all haste through heavily bombarded areas the fact that out of 32 stretcher bearers used by me in three days 13 were hit well illustrates the dangers that these boys cheerfully go through a good story is told of one of them a chap who in civil life had been a tough in the slums of one of our large cities and who had seen the inside of a jail more than once but who as a stretcher bearer faced coolly even gaily in extraordinary danger to get his wounded to the rear he was in charge of a squad for number blank canadian field ambulance one day he and his men were taking a stretcher case over a ridge which was under constant and heavy shell fire tiring he commanded his squad to stop and rest they obeyed but demerred saying that it was too dangerous a place to rest nah he said lighting a cigarette after handing one to the wounded man there ain't no danger sit down and take it easy but look here now tom the others argued you may be the first to have one of those ballet shells blow you into kingdom come not by one dance site he slowly replied i've got a hunch that i'm going to slip me arm around lizzie once again before they get me and he lay on the ground and thoughtfully puffed at his cigarette so the others joined him for their bravery was unquestioned and with the philosophy so common out there one said well i guess we can stand it if you can tom had puffed at his fag a few moments with the shells dropping dangerously near when without changing his position he asked did your mugs ever hear the story of the two specials what met at london the other day nah well i'll tell you's two special constables met and one of them had no hat coat all torn to rags boat eyes black and smell gone hello brown says to utter what a hell's wrong which is and the first answers you know that's pretty little missus smith what lives behind the lion and dragon whose husband's gone on the front well he ain't gone even the wounded man joined the laugh they all finished their smoke without even glancing in the direction of the shells bursting nearby when the stretcher was picked up and carried safely to the rear his officers all say that they would as quickly trust tom and a ticklish job as any other man in the world but he is just an example of the thousands of loyal life-risking stretcher bearers some like tom rough uneducated uncouth many others with the culture acquired in college halls and drawing rooms who are daily and nightly giving of their blood and their service to the men in the lines these bearers wear a red cross on the arm are non-combatant troops and carry no rifles each two of them carry a stretcher and all of them carry a little haversack slung over the shoulder and filled with large and small surgical dressings bandages scissors splints and perhaps a bottle of iodine being non-combatant troops they are supposed to be allowed to carry out their work in comparative safety but they really run the same risks as the combatants this is to be expected in severe actions for a machine gunner or artillery man cannot even try to avoid the stretcher bearers when they are mixed up, as they always are, with the fighting troops but at any rate the Germans get the reputation of carrying as little for red crosses or white flags as they do for scraps of paper one afternoon i stood in a trench one quarter mile from Villaval which was held by our troops and in the ruins of which there was an advanced dressing station of a field ambulance for some reason two ambulances came over the crest of Vimy Ridge in broad daylight in plain view of the Germans and ran rapidly down into Vetterval they arrived without mishap but one half hour later i saw them start back over the ridge a few minutes apart the first one had got halfway up the steep side of the ridge when a heavy German shell hit 30 feet behind it and then shell after shell dropped behind it all the way up the steep slope fortunately the gunner's aim was short for the car disappeared from view over the crest then the second car made the trip the German shells falling behind it just as they had with the first one they both got out in safety but no thanks were due to the Huns who had done their best to get them with heavy shells that was one instance in which i saw the German shell two ambulances which could not have been mistaken for any other type of vehicle suppose a soldier is hit by a piece of shell or sniper's bullet while he is in a trench which his battalion is holding he is first attended by the stretcher bearer nearest to him at the time who should use the man's own aseptic dressing which each soldier is compelled to carry in the lining of his coat or tunic the injured man is then taken to the dugout of the mo if necessary on a stretcher where the mo rearranges the dressing gives a dose of morphine if pain is severe and after seeing that all hemorrhage is stopped and the man is comfortable he hands the case over to the field ambulance stretcher bearers who always serve him and live in an adjoining dugout this squad carries the case back through the trenches if there is no hurry but overland if haste is important to the advanced dressing station of the field ambulance if this should be a particularly hard trip it may be done in relays for their relay post the dugouts are established with other bearer squads the ads is usually situated a mile or so in the rear of the trenches preferably in a large cellar but at any rate in a fairly well sheltered area where cots are ready to receive 50 or more patients at the ads one or two of the medical officers of the field ambulance are stationed with a large staff of men the patient is here made comfortable given coffee or cocoa name number and battalion recorded and finally he is inoculated with anti tetanic serum this has practically wiped out tetanus or lockjaw which was very prevalent at the beginning of the war he is kept here till a convenient time which may be after dark when he and any others who may have come in are put into ambulances and taken to the mds main dressing station of the field ambulance another two or three miles behind the mds may be in some old chateau or in a group of huts or if the weather is mild intense here a light case or slightly wounded man may be kept for a few days and then sent back to the line or to a rest station to recover his stamina and quiet his nerves but if the case should be a serious one such as a shattered leg or arm or a large flesh wound that will take a considerable time to heal he is again transferred by ambulance to the ccs casually clearing station another two to four miles back the ccs usually in huts or tents is the first real hospital behind the firing zone it may have accommodation for a couple of hundred patients is supplied with x-ray equipment a well-arranged operating room with expert surgical assistance and is the nearest place to the line that trained nurses are sent here for the first time since he left the line the patient gets all those little motherly attentions that only a woman can give the injured man may be kept here days weeks or even months if he happens to be a case that would be endangered by moving all immediately necessary operations are at once performed and often a seriously wounded man from the firing line may be lying anesthetized on the operating table of a ccs being operated upon by expert surgeons within two or three hours of receiving his injury practically as good attention as this type of injury would receive in civil life this is particularly the case where a man has been wounded in the abdomen from which wound he may quickly develop peritonitis and reach the valley of the shadow of death in a few hours if prompt attention is not given it is also done in cases of head or lung injuries or in any wound causing uncontrollable hemorrhage in any of these emergencies after the m o in the line has given all immediately necessary attention the patient is ticketed serious by him and he is rushed with all speed to the ads perhaps at great personal risk to the stretcher bearers here he is quickly transferred to an ambulance which may have to rush him over heavily shelled roads missing the main dressing station all together and taking him directly to the ccs for his lifesaving operation after varying periods in the ccs the patients are sent by ambulance trains which run almost to their doors to base hospitals at the rear from here they are retransferred to hospital centers in england and scotland so much for the methods used in caring for the wounded in the lines during stationary periods the same principles and methods are employed during big advances but of course on a larger and more thorough scale all the arrangements are made during the weeks preceding a push extra stretcher bearers are trained the field ambulances increase their staffs particularly just behind the firing lines in order that the field may be cleared of wounded at the first lull in the fighting the whole intricate system is so complete and so well arranged that hundreds of cases may be rushed through in a few hours some of them being comfortably in bed in english hospitals the evening of the day on which they received their blighty it must be remembered that in actions of a severe nature such as great advances the first object of the advancing troops is to obtain their objective and to hold it therefore care of the wounded may not be possible till the action is over but during these hours the wounded are by no means without attention it is here that the battalion stretcher bearers do their finest and most self-sacrificing work they go over the top with the fighting troops and as the men are hit it is their duty to give them first aid while the fight still goes on with machine gun bullets whistling by their ears and shells bursting all around them their duty it is and nobly they perform it to dress the wounded stop bleeding if possible and temporarily set fractures then they place the wounded men in the most protected side of a shell hole or in any other sheltered spot and pass on to the next needy one after placing any bit of available rag on a stick or old bayonet to attract the attention of the field clearing parties who come over that area in the meantime the wounded who can walk walking cases make their way to the point at which the MO is caring for the injured after getting the required attention they walk on back to the ADS of the field ambulance at the first lull in the fighting it is the duty of the medical officer to see to the clearing of the field of those wounded who cannot walk any men going to the rear for supplies and any German prisoners are commandeered by the MO as stretcher parties in big actions his own trained stretcher bearers are employed only as dressers in the battle of Vimy Ridge which began at 5 30 a.m. it was 12 hours later air all the wounded on our front were evacuated to the field ambulances that was quick work when one considers that some battalions including my own had 35 percent of their men hit 100 German prisoners were sent up under escort to act as stretcher bears and gradually the field was cleared the only difference between the handling of the wounded during actions and during stationary warfare is the fact that in the former more unavoidable congestion takes place though this is prevented as far as possible in the forward areas by rushing the cases to the rear or to england in big actions where many wounded are expected this is always done after hospital treatment in england or scotland the men are sent to convalescent homes in ramskate hernbay wittstable sturdy brighton or any of the 101 other points that are suitable in the british aisles later these men are sent before medical boards which decide as to their disposal thereafter they may be sent directly back to duty to prolonged rest to have some weeks pt physical training which is not popular with the men but is often needed or they may be marked pb permanent base duty which means that they are not fit for general service but are able to perform some duties at the base or at home lastly they may be discharged as permanently unfit for further service the amount of their pensions being decided by the pension board until the wounded man reaches the ccs his wounds are dressed in very rough surroundings not the aseptic dressing rooms of peacetime's dugouts sellers or open trenches are employed for dressing stations after the battle of vimy ridge my boys and i dressed our men for four days in an open muddy trench with the shells dropping about all the time dugouts are simply holes in the ground and it may be most primitive dressing rooms everyone knows how aseptic the ordinary seller could be made even with the greatest care on the part of an m o's assistance but our dressings are folded and wrapped in such a manner that they can be applied even though the dresser's hands are covered with mud without the aseptic part of the dressing which is applied to the wound being in any way soiled i have given 150 inoculations hyperdermically for the prevention of typhoid in a tent in which the men and myself stood ankle deep in mud not one case of infection of the point at which the needle was inserted occurred this illustrates the efficiency one reaches from being accustomed to working in filthy surroundings your stretcher bears and dressers become as skilled in this art as yourself so that the men really get good attention in spite of the many difficulties in the way of course at the ccs which is five to ten miles from the trenches the surroundings are as good as they are in the average city hospital and the base hospitals are often elaborate in their equipment though they may be situated in large tents or newly constructed wooden huts with stoves to lessen the raw cold of the french winter weather the base hospitals in england are the highly scientific city hospitals simply put under military control end of chapter 11 chapter 12 cheerfulness something that is noticed by all who have served at the front is the drollery of the men in dangerous or uncomfortable surroundings sometimes it is good-natured sometimes ill-tempered and critical but it is ever present one cannot but believe that the wag of the company is better than a tonic to the men in fact is almost as good a pick me up as the rum ration who has not felt the benefit of a good laugh who has not seen a well-developed sense of humor save a difficult situation or at least alleviate it with tommy the humor crops out in the most unexpected situations under circumstances in which the ordinary man would turn ghastly pale tommy cracks a joke crossing an open space toward a railway embankment I was fifty yards or so from a culvert through which I had intended passing when a soldier reached it he was carrying a load on his back and was sucking on a pipe his head bowed and thought a whiz bang shrieked by me and struck just at the entrance to the culvert missing him only by inches fortunately it banged into the earth four or five feet beyond his position at the moment so that the fragments spread from him not towards him he had escaped death by a hair breath he stopped in his path took his pipe from his mouth raised his head and looked with a surprised air at the hole in the ground made by the bursting shell his only comment was uttered in a slow voice well I'll be jiggered and putting his pipe back into his mouth he coolly resumed his walk and his meditation without altering his course by one inch thus do men come to accept narrow escapes from death as a matter of course where such escapes are as common as is plum jam in the rations the men are plodding along in thick tenacious mud carrying sixty pound trench mortars each foot with its accumulated mud weighing at least twenty pounds and feeling as if it weighed a ton they are sweating and blowing and tired they hope for a rest and lean up against the wet muddy wall of the trench carelessly chucking the heavy mortars into the mud then the wag begins by cursing the bowley war consigning the officers to perdition condemning the food as unfit for villians and wishing the Kaiser was an owl and the blighters expect us to stand face the enemy and yet bet your life we'll do it too because we couldn't run if we want to we're stuck in the mud a smile passes along the tired faces their rest is over and more or less rejuvenated they take up their burdens and pass on coming out of the front lines one day when we were relieved by another battalion my corporal and I were going along a support trench when we came up with some officers of our battalion who were leaning against the parapet waiting for the Germans to let up shelling the trench 25 yards in advance of us we joined the other officers and were soon joined by about 60 men who were trying to get out the same way the Germans were persistent so we all finally turned back to go out by another trench the shells followed us along the trench for which reason none of us slackened our pace as we hurried along a rich Scotch voice said loudly enough for all to hear by God these hunch shells are better than the pipes to make us march passing along a muddy support trench returning from a tour of inspection we came upon a fatigue or working party of soldiers digging and ammunition dump they were working on a ridge and as it was a bright day they could be seen much of the time by the German snipers and might at any moment get some shells or bullets thrown into their midst it was hard dirty and dangerous work but bantering voices reached us what did you do in a great war papa asked one a dog alls my son replies another but that's not as bad as having alls dug in ye says a third yeah belly right it's not says the fourth and the work proceeds humor of course is not limited to the ordinary ranks oars as they are called officially our battalion was putting on a big raid a show in the end it was carried out very successfully but owing to the fact that it was a daylight raid and that a smoke barrage was to be employed the wind had to be taken into account and the raid was put off from time to time code words had to be arranged to be telephoned by brigade to the battalion codes are employed because of the danger of the Germans picking up the messages by a special apparatus for that purpose an English officer present at the meeting to discuss plans suggested the following code which was employed if the raid was to be indefinitely postponed the word ask with was to be used meaning wait and see the word howl bane was employed with the signification put off until tomorrow and when it was finally decided to be put on Lloyd George was the code word which meant to be carried out at once anyone familiar with British politics during the war will agree that it was rather a neat code and it is said a French Canadian commanding officer in whose battalion a murder had been committed had inserted in his orders of the day the following bit of unconscious humor it is to be regretted that a murder has been committed in this battalion this is the second murder in our Canadian forces it is to be distinctly understood that this pernicious habit must cease forthwith many amusing stories are told of the contents of letters censored at the front usually all the letters of a company or section are censored by the officers of the company or section one of the best stories was told me by an English officer a Tommy of his section wrote to his beloved dear Maggie I had a bolly site rather be in your arms than in this trench with a dead German I sat one evening smoking a cigar with a Canadian colonel who was much incensed at the fact that he had served at Gallipoli where he caught an infectious diarrhea of which he nearly died while in the meantime his other officers who served no better than he were decorated and promoted mannion he said to me in an angry voice I was promised that if I went to the Mediterranean I would get a promotion at any decoration they could get for me and the only damn thing I got was dysentery and I wouldn't have got that if my superior officers had the giving of it a rather good story with a touch of dry humor provoked by a desire for justice is that of the lonesome soldier one of our Tommy sent an advertisement to an English daily in which he ended rather than said that he was a duty-loving Britain honorably doing his bit and being without friends in the world he would welcome a correspondence with some English girl he implied that as the diet was rough a few comforts would not go amiss signing his advertisement H.H. a lonesome soldier he was rewarded by a male large enough for her ratio bottomly accompanied by so many parcels that our male department had to add another man to its stamp to handle his portion instead of imitating the generosity of these English girls and sharing his ill-gotten gains with his companions he chose the selfish part keeping most of the good things for himself giving away only what he had no possible use for and what was still worse he started a correspondence with each of the priceless young things who had offered him their goods and their friendship had this been a fair and square correspondence it might have had nothing to condemn it but though uneducated he was sly enough to suit his letters to their recipients to one he implied the possibility of a strong attachment to another he was more reserved speaking only a friendship while to a third he would send a warm date-making epistle hinting at cozy hotels all according to what he thought their letters to him showed him of their characters this went on for some time the lonesome soldier writing many letters daily all franked by a kindly government and all to be censored by a group of HQ officers the friendships he had worked up were getting more friendly the intrigues deeper and the passions warmer when major e decided that in fairness to the young women and injustice to the wily tommy he would put an end to this planning and plotting so in censoring the letters major e saw that the warm passionate letter to my beloved maizey was by mistake of course put into the envelope of dear miss jones miss jones letter put into that of darling kiddo and the ladders into my own maize and so on the result was a rapid cessation of the letters and parcels to the lonesome soldier and the straightening out of what otherwise might have been an interminable tangle to the really lonesome soldier and there are such all consideration but to such a one as this may justice arrive swiftly as it did to him potash is a north american indian he was chief of his tribe is very intelligent well educated and the best sharpshooter in his battalion his intelligence is proven by the fact that he is never indulged in alcoholic drink nor has he in any other manner allowed his close association with us whites of canada to deprave him in other words he is a living refutation of the remark that the only good indian is a dead indian if it were not for the copper tinge to his skin one would take him for what he is a well informed educated north american he is very proud of the fact that sir wilfred laurier when premier of canada presented to him and his bride at their wedding a silver t-set being the only indian in his battalion he is treated with a good deal of consideration by all colonel blank stood chatting to him one day the center of a group of officers you are an indian potash tell me why it is that alcohol has such a bad effect upon indians in general you know sir seriously replied potash that alcohol acts principally on the tissues of the brain and so the indians having more brains than the whites alcohol has a greater effect on them the colonel and potash joined in the general laugh often shells do not explode and tommy calls them duds but up to the declaration of war by the united states in april last these duds often got the nickname american shells too proud to fight in the lines one often finds evidence of a prejudice against officers of the staff nicknamed brass hats by the boys this prejudice being due to the fact that tommy looks upon staff jobs as being safety first positions and that the man in the line thinks rightly or wrongly that too many young fellows who should be doing their bit under fire remain at the rear through family pool or connection there is also the impression that many of the staff only get under fire when they absolutely have to of course this is a much exaggerated idea but that it exists is shown by the following humorous conversation overheard in the lines say bill did you hear that piece has been declared nah nothing to it hot air no such luck to it has didn't you see those two brass hats going along the trenches just now the tommys call their helmets ten hats and on a certain occasion one soldier was heard to ask another if he thought a ten hat a safest of brass hat of course in a war such as that of today mistakes are inevitable at times occasionally battalions or companies are ordered to accomplish the impossible the charge of the light brigade has repeated itself more than once and the staff get the credit or discredit for these mistakes sometimes it is the orders which cause the wag of the company to speak of these officers with his fine contempt everyone has seen baron's father's a picture of a subaltern under heavy fire in the front line and at the same time having to answer a telephone message as to how many cans of apple jam had been sent in the rations in the past week it seemed no doubt a ridiculous exaggeration but is no more ridiculous than an order which came through one day to test out a certain rat poison a sample of which accompanied the order the battalion receiving this command was at the time holding a very bad bit of line where the Germans did much sniping and dropping over of pineapples rum jars whizz bangs and so forth the battalion was to test this poison with particular reference to the following points one adequacy of eight dens for one thousand yards of trench two amount of bait consumed three number of sick or dead rats seen for post mortem examination of dead rats five as to diminution of rat population staleness of rat holes might be taken as cooperative evidence of diminution then followed three fools cap pages of type written directions along this line fools cap in the foregoing is not intentionally sarcastic do you wonder that the men made jokes imagine if you can a battalion under very heavy fire night and day trying to carry out tests that might easily be carried out behind the lines as to the efficiency of a rat poison imagine a medical officer while not attending the wounded or sick doing post mortem examinations of dead rats or estimating the staleness of rat holes with perhaps a German sniper trying to get a bead on him of course such an order as this written by some theorist in a comfortable room two or three hundred miles from the bursting shells would usually be stopped by the practical men of the staff when one has inadvertently filtered through as in this case can those in the lines be blamed for talking about fool killers as it is to be expected the order was ignored until the battalion sometime later received a reminder they protested that this test was surrounded by too many difficulties and were told to try it on a small scale the gruff voice of the regimental sergeant major said that he supposed they would send up some small scale rats to try it on as they were not forthcoming that is as far as the order got but those staff officers are disliked almost as much as medical officers Tommy must bear with them even if it be with a poorly disguised sneer of disgust and tolerance for an army without a staff would be as incredible and undesirable as sick and wounded without attention no doubt in spite of Tommy's humor and banter when the truth is told both of the above types perform their duties as ably as they can according to their lights while dining with the officers of sea company one evening i heard two of that company's likeable young subalterns arguing as to whether the rum ration so popular with most of the men out there on cold winter nights would after the war conduce to temperance in the nation the argument grew quite hot as it often did there and one of the debaters stuck his helmet on his head and strode to the entrance of the dugout where he turned and clinched the argument with this nearing remark big gad smith you know less about more things than any other man i've ever met then made a victorious exit and speaking of the rum ration an old soldier once told me that being the oldest man in his platoon the serving out of the rum usually fell to his lot whereupon he always took from his haversack a little tin vessel which held just the right amount for each man thus showing his absolute fairness and impartiality but as he poured the liquor into the little cup he kept his thumb on the inside so that at the end of serving some 30 or 40 of his comrades he had 30 or 40 thumbs of the beverage left as his portion a form of humor no doubt better appreciated by himself than it would have been by the rest of his platoon had they known how absolutely impartial he always was to himself end of chapter 12