A Surgeon in Arms

by R. J. Manion

"Oi wouldn't do too much of that if Oi was you, docthor," he said respectfully, though at the time I thought there was also a trace of pity in his brogue, "fer out here it's not considered healthy. Me poor ould father, Lord have mercy on him, always tould me to curb me curiosity. An' a padre who had been here a long toime tould me whin first Oi come that his one bit of advoice to me was, don't be curious." I always encouraged him to carry on with his philosophizing, except when the dull look in his eye and his exaggerated stand-at-attention told me that he had somehow obtained my rum ration as well as his own. "Oi notice, sor, that thim that are here longest peep the laist; that's why they are here longest."

"Do you dodge when you hear a shell coming, Kelly?"

"It's always woise to duck, sor, fer with very big shells, which come slower, ye may be quick enough to get aginst the soide of the trinch and have the pieces miss ye; an', whin it's a whizz-bang er bullet, if ye're able to duck ye know ye're not hit!"

Just at dusk of a warm spring evening as we crossed an open field, we had the misfortune to find ourselves bracketed by German gas shells. That is, some of the shells were falling just short of us, and others were passing a little over us. We recognized that they were gas shells by the whirring noise they make going through the air and by the soft thudding sound of their explosion. But, had we had any doubt, that sweetish, though well hated, pineapple odor of the gas was reaching our nostrils. The previous evening we had had for some hours a heavy gas shelling about our aid post, during much of which we were either strangling from the gas fumes, which made some of the men dreadfully ill, or we were smothering to death with our gas masks on, doing dressings for wounded men. So, taking all this into consideration, we had no desire for a repetition of the dose.

The shells were thudding into the earth about seventy or eighty yards on either side of us, and our dangers were two: a straight hit by one of the shells, the result of which would be mutilation or death; or the bursting of one at our feet, as the inhalation by us of such concentrated fumes might mean a little wooden cross above us.

Behind the lines the gas masks or respirators are worn flung over the shoulder. In the lines the rule is to wear them in the "alert" position, that is, on the front of the chest with the flap open, ready for instant use. We had them in this position and were carrying the apparatus in our hands, so as to be able to insert the tube into the mouth rapidly if need be. Had we adjusted them at once we should have found it difficult to avoid falling into the numerous shellholes, for seeing through the goggles on a dusky evening is most unsatisfactory. My companion's practiced eye noted that the shells, while bracketing us, were falling much more thickly on our right than on our left. After he had drawn my attention to this we turned quickly to the left, and we had the good fortune soon to be well away from the explosions—it need hardly be remarked, to our intense relief.

"That was a happy observation of yours, Kelly," I remarked when we were out of danger, and were literally breathing easily again.

"Dunno but what it was, sor. Course a man shouldn't need a wall to fall on him to know that somethin's comin' his way." I could almost see his sly squint in my direction. He dearly loved to display his hard-earned knowledge, and, as he was too valuable a man to get angry with except for good reason, his remarks were generally accepted good naturedly.

Kelly is a strict disciplinarian, at least so far as others are concerned. While he takes liberties in passing his own opinions to me, he resents any other private doing likewise. In his presence one day at a sick parade a soldier who had been marked by me, M & D—medicine and duty, that is, given medicine but fit for duty—muttered something to the effect that one never gets a fair deal from a military doctor anyway. Before I could reprimand him Kelly hustled him out of the room, saying angrily:

"Begobs, ye may have been exposed to discipline, but it niver took." In his insistence on everyone else's carrying out all the laws of military discipline, while breaking most of them himself, he is the equal of almost any officer.