AS one man remarked, “Our life out here is just one d— brancardier after another.” The brancardiers, or stretcher-bearers, include the musicians—for the band does not play at the front,—the exchanged prisoners who are pledged to do no combatant work, and others who volunteer for or are assigned to this work. These men are in the front-line trenches, where they bandage wounded men as they are hit, and carry them to the front abri, where the major, army doctor, gives them more careful attention. At the front abri are other brancardiers, who then take charge of these men and load them into our cars. We arrive at the hospital, and brancardiers there unload the ambulances and carry in the wounded. Inside the hospital other brancardiers nurse the wounded, as no women nurses are allowed in the triage hospitals.
BRANCARDIERS LOADING AN AMBULANCE
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A callous, hardened, dulled class of men, absolutely lacking in sentiment, yet doing a noble and heroic work. Who could do their work without becoming callous—or insane? We curse them often when they put a man in the car upside down or drop him, but we forget that when the infantry goes en repos, the brancardiers stay at their posts, going out into No Man’s Land every hour to bring in a countryman or an enemy. When, standing by the car at P 3, I see two brancardiers carrying a man up from the abri and, after noticing that both his arms are broken, one in two places, that both legs are broken, that a bloody bandage covers his chest, and that the white band around his head is staining red, I see them drop him when a shell screams overhead, I curse them. But I forget that for the past two nights, with their abri filled with chlorine gas, these same men have toiled faithfully in suffocating gasmasks, bringing in the wounded, caring for them, and loading them on our cars. I forget that these men have probably not had an hour’s consecutive sleep for weeks and that it may be weeks before they have again; that it is months since they last saw a dry foot of ground, or felt that for a moment they were free of the ever present expectation of sudden death. It is something to remember, and it is to wonder rather how they do these things at all than why they seem at times a little careless or a bit tired.
Would the brancardier tell you this? When he sees you he asks after your comrades. He takes you in and gives you a cigarette and some Pinard in a battered cup, and tries to find you a place to rest, all the time telling you cheerful stories and amusing incidents.
The Staff is the brains of the army; Aviation, the eyes; the Artillery, the voice; the Infantry and Cavalry, the arms; the Engineers, the hands; the Transportation, the legs; the People behind it, the body; but the Brancardier is the soul.
THERE are sounds outside of a klaxon being worked vigorously. However, we have several dozing Frenchmen inside the abri who are making similar noises, so nothing dawns upon our sleepy senses for some minutes while the owner of the klaxon searches for the abri. This is dangerous business, because on all sides are barbed wire, shell-holes, and other abris. Also, as this one is located in the corner of a graveyard, there is danger that the searcher will wander on and uproot a dozen or more wooden crosses in the search. At last he discovers the right one by falling down the pit we called stairs before the rain set in. A violent monologue arouses us from our dozing comfortlessness, and we learn that a car is wanted at P 2. I am next on call, so I slowly and painfully unwind myself from a support and two pairs of legs, and, with the man who rides with me, make my way into the outer darkness.
We get the car and start off down the road with no lights anywhere, and pray that everything coming the other way keeps to its side of the road and goes slowly. There is always something coming the other way—and your way, a steady succession of camions in the centre of the road, and of artillery trains on the side. The camions are mostly very heavy and very powerful, and have no compunction at all about what they run into, as they know that it cannot harm them. The ammunition trains consist of batteries of 75’s, little framework teams with torpilles fitting in small compartments like eggs, and other such vehicles in tow of a number of mules, with the driver invariably asleep. The traffic, however, in spite of the pitch darkness, would be endurable if it were not for the mud which often comes up to the hubs. It is a slimy mud, and if spread thinly is extremely slippery. On the roads it is rarely spread thinly, and when one gets out to push he often sinks in up to the knee. Then of course there is always the whine of arrivées and départs passing overhead, and the occasional crump of a German 77 or 150 landing near at hand.
The French and the German gunners play a little game every night with supply trains and shells. The shells are trumps. The object is to see who can play the more “cards” without being trumped. An artillery train counts one, a camionnette two, a camion five—because it blocks the road for some time when hit, and gives the enemy time to trump more cards—two ambulances give a win, and if a gun is hit the enemy is disqualified. The game is very interesting—for the artillery.