We had to detour on account of the repair of sewers. Red lanterns warned the traveler of danger, but it seemed as if they spoke not of the dangers of the present but of those graver dangers that once had been. We spent the night at the Eagle Hotel. The rain continued to fall and by its soothing patter on the leaves and roof above us we were ushered into the land of dreams.
The next morning we met the father of Lieutenant Ira Ellsworth
Lady who was one of the first of Pennsylvania's loyal sons from
Adams county to offer the supreme sacrifice in the World War.
The Post of the American Legion at Arendtsville is named in his
honor.
Alas! How poor, how futile are words to express the nobleness of those young men, the fairest and purest our land could offer. In cases like this there is not much to be said. As we picked up the hat that dropped from trembling hands unnoticed to the floor, we thought what a sad Christmas the year 1918 brought to this home. Then we thought, too, how in the last moments of his earthly sojourn Lieut. Lady had wandered back to the lovely hills and the old homestead with its dear remembered faces in his native county.
Our first meeting was in the Evacuation Hospital at Glorenx; almost within the shadows of the frowning citadel of Verdun. How well we remember the first day of his arrival in Ward E! The litter bearers came and went on their ceaseless journeys, bringing new patients still under the influence of ether or transferring others who were sent by ambulance to base hospitals. It was during those terrible days of the Meuse- Argonne drive, while the air overhead hummed with those cruel messengers of fate—coming from no one knew where—that the litter bearers slowly and carefully lowered a patient to the newly-made cot we had just prepared. Looking at the diagnosis card that we found, we learned that the patient, Lieut. Ira Ellsworth Lady, had had an amputation of his limb above the knee, and that he also had been gassed.
The first question that he asked as we stood by his cot, when he again regained consciousness was: "How am I wounded?" When we told him the misfortune which had befallen him, a shudder ran through his frame as he repeated: "It is bad enough, but it might have been worse." A shade of sadness spread over those noble features but it was only for a moment, and he appeared utterly resigned to his cruel fate.
Always there was that smile of appreciation as we moved among the numerous cots of the suffering and dying. Whether in the morning upon inquiring how he had spent the night, or after the thick curtains were lowered at the windows, that no gleam of light might reveal our location to hostile planes, or when we paused at his bedside to wish him a painless night and restful slumber, we were always greeted by kind words of hope and cheer and a pleasant smile. How those cheery good-nights softened the roaring cannon, and screaming shells into a mere echo, and that smiling countenance made radiant the grim halls of indescribable suffering and death!
Well do we remember that Lieut. Lady's concern was not for himself but only for the welfare of others. As he looked across the way where Private Everson of Company A, in the 26th Division, who had been wounded in such a manner as to make it impossible for him to lie down, sat propped up with blankets, he exclaimed, "I pity that poor fellow so! Oh, how I wish I could help him!" How self vanished like a blighted thing as we heard those words of pity coming from one whose suffering was beyond human words to express. Truly, a life like this had caught a glow of that redeeming light which radiates from the cross itself.
Again, we recalled that awful night in November when we moved with hurried yet silent tread among the cots on which lay figures in many uneasy attitudes, some brokenly slumbering and muttering through helpless delirium; others uttering suppressed moans as they lay tossing upon their cots.
Just as we were preparing to leave the ward to the night men, after the temperatures and pulse rates of all the patients had been taken and registered, the gas alarm sounded. Instantly we made ready to put onto the patients the gas masks which were in readiness at the head of each cot. Just then the cry of fire was whispered to the ward men, who at once began preparations for the removal of the patients to the opposite side of the hospital grounds. All out of doors was intense blackness—a blackness only relieved by the flashes of guns that made the eastern sky blaze with their crimson light.
Suddenly the flames leaped from the operating room, in the end containing the sterilizer. Soon they cast a lurid glow upon the dark clouds. Hurriedly, yet quietly, we removed the patients to a place in which they would be safe. Two of the wards had already caught fire on their sides nearest the operating room. The many patients in this room along with those undergoing operations on the thirteen operating tables were rushed into another building where the work was immediately resumed. Each patient who caught sight of the bright light that streamed in through the open doors, was busy with many eager questions on his perturbed mind. Yet no one spoke a word but watched in suspense that was almost pain, the fiery glow that spread around, until horror distorted many a face.