A soldier's mother in France

by Rheta Childe Dorr

I had not heard directly from my son since the beginning of this great second battle of the Somme. I was very near his division for a time, and was never much farther away than Paris until I sailed for home, but no letters came through. I was like hundreds of thousands of other women here in America in not knowing whether my soldier was in action or out of danger in the rear.

Now that I know I am glad, for I sympathized with his intense desire to have a first-hand share in this war of liberation. When we entered the war my son was too young for the draft, and in fact he would only this spring have been called upon to register. Knowing that he might have to wait a year and a half before going over, he enlisted in the old army and went to France in one of the earliest units. He had to take service in a working contingent, and like all those valuable but usually non-combatant soldiers he feared that he would never be given a chance to fight. I am very grateful that they gave him his chance, and so soon. I have seen something of the work of the unspeakable Hun. Since then I have never been sorry for our fighting men. The only men I am sorry for are those who live in these times and never have a chance to join the allied armies.

I am thankful that my son lived through his first battle, and I am especially relieved to hear that he went to an American hospital. I have visited many of those hospitals in France, and I am going to devote this chapter to telling other women who have wounded men over there how our soldiers are cared for when German gun-fire strikes them down. I can not think of anything else to-day, nor write of anything else.

The wounded are picked up as quickly as possible, the stretcher bearers and ambulance men working bravely under fire, and often in great danger. All musicians, military bandsmen, are stretcher bearers, and the same service is part of the work of the medical corps. They bring the wounded to what are called advance dressing stations or regimental aid posts, directly behind the lines. These stations indeed are in the trenches, and the doctors work to the noise of bursting shells and exploding shrapnel. In these trench dressing stations minor wounds are dressed, and first aid is given to the seriously injured.

One very important thing is done in the first aid posts. Every wounded man is inoculated against tetanus. Lockjaw—that most horrible of all wound complications—is now practically a thing of the past. Our hospitals will possibly never see a case, because our surgeons take immediate precautions against it.

In these advanced aid posts they also take precautions against wound shock, the mysterious cause of many deaths in this war. One of the first symptoms of wound shock is cold and the surgeons and dressers have hot, sweet tea on hand and many blankets. Patients are given cups of hot tea as soon as they come in, and if the weather is cold they are wrapped up like Eskimos before they are sent on.

About wounded men in general, I want to say that the great majority are only slightly injured. They are all conscientiously treated, even small scratches being dressed carefully, because every wound is an infected wound and if neglected might cause death. But most of the casualties are able to walk back to their next base, the field or evacuation hospital. Those who are seriously wounded are transported in ambulances.

The field hospital is located near the battle line, but out of range of the guns. They are near enough, however, to be vulnerable to the gentlemanly boches, who make a specialty of dropping aerial bombs on wounded soldiers and women nurses. We have had tendered us by the French government a number of fine buildings in various towns of northern France, in which we have established our field hospitals. In these operations are performed, and very sick men are kept for treatment.

Because of their nearness to the danger line many field hospitals have no women nurses at all. The work of caring for the wounded is done by enlisted men of the medical corps under the direction of ward masters, non-commissioned officers as a general rule. Army surgeons, of course, are in command, and the men receive good care.

Possibly because of the absence of women these field hospitals are apt to be rather bare and unattractive places. Men have complained to me that they had nothing to read. Some said they thought there ought to be a few posters or pictures on the wall. To lie all day staring at a blank expanse of whitewash gets on the nerves of the sensitive. This is, however, a temporary condition. The Library War Service of the American Library Association is now working in France, and every hospital will soon be well supplied with books.