A Surgeon in Arms

by R. J. Manion

"I believe this is the last damn walk that I am ever going to take!"

But, fortunately, presentiments seldom materialize. Our trip across that field was without even a narrow escape. The shells obligingly burst not closer to us than two or three hundred yards, and we reached B Company headquarters in safety. There a number of men were in rather a bad condition—as a matter of fact, one was dying—from the effects of a shell which had struck directly into their dugout. It killed one man by impact and gave the others such a concentrated dose of the gas as to put them into a dangerous condition.

As a result of this gas attack many of our men had to go to the hospital, and those of us who escaped that were depressed for several days. Gassing weakens the morale of troops. Men do not fear to stand up and face an enemy whom they have a chance of overcoming, but they do hate dying like so many rats in a trap, when death is due to a gas against which they cannot contend except by keeping out pure air and breathing through masks a mixture of carbon dioxide, poison gas, and air.

Fighting with gas is cowardly and is against the rules of civilized warfare. Only a race which cares for naught but success, no matter how attained, would employ it. True, we now retaliate in kind, but we should never have considered this method of warfare as worthy of civilized man, except in self-defense. If you are fighting a wild beast of the jungle, jungle methods are in order. I, for one, believe that retaliation is the only method to combat an enemy who has shown himself ready to use any means to attain his end.

CHAPTER VIII
RELIEF

When one battalion goes out of the line it is relieved by another, and no section or company of a battalion may go from its point of duty until a corresponding section or company has relieved it. Reliefs, except on very quiet parts of the line, are usually carried out by night to keep the enemy from being aware that they are going on. A severe shelling during a relief is always more likely to cause many casualties than at other times. Battalion H.Q. goes out last. As each company or section is relieved it notifies H.Q., and when all are relieved, H.Q. takes its departure, having handed over all necessary documents and information to the incoming battalion.

Because the human nervous system can stand only a certain amount of abuse battalions can be kept in the line only a certain length of time, which depends upon the activity upon that front, upon the exposure of the lines to the enemy, and so the extra nervous strain, or sometimes upon the urgency of advance or retreat. A relief may be very welcome, or very unwelcome, depending upon the same things, but also to a certain extent upon the quality of the dugouts in the lines, and the kind of accommodation outside. For, strange to say, the dugouts in the lines may be preferable, even with their added danger, because, on arriving at your rest station, your battalion may find, instead of the good billets they hoped for, a few forlorn-looking one-inch board huts, with only one-half the required accommodation, the temperature below freezing, and no stoves; or you may find only tents; or you may find virgin forest in which you are to build your own camp, while the rain comes down with monotonous persistence.

It is midnight in the late winter, and the adjutant, Major P——, and I are just leaving H.Q. dugout on our way to reserve billets. The trenches are very dark, the light from the stars overhead not reaching to their depths. We throw down a glare from a flashlight, and a Tommy's voice angrily cries:

"'Ave a 'eart there, myte; d'ye think ye're the only man in the army? Douse the glim." So we douse it, and decide that the best way to keep peace in the army is to pick our way along. Gradually our eyes become accustomed to the dark, and instinctively our feet keep on the trench mats as we twist and turn along the trenches. An occasional flare or star shell from the front lines aids us for a moment, but plunges us into deeper darkness afterwards. Our feet slip on the semi-frozen mud of the mats, over our heads in both directions shells sing at intervals, and we hear the pounding of the guns and bursting shells before and behind us. In the quieter moments we can hear a quarter of a mile away the rattle of transport wagons on the hard road as they bring their nightly loads of ammunition and food to the dump where we are going and where we expect to find our horses.