Dated:
Warsaw, Poland,
May 3, 1915.
It is a far cry from the city of Seattle in the State of Washington, U.S.A., to the little village of Sejny in the Polish government of Suwalki, but this is the jump that one must make to follow the career of Dr. Eugene Hurd, the only American surgeon attached to the Russian Red Cross working in the field in this war. Inasmuch as the story of the Doctor is a good one in itself, and as from him one learns not a little about the Field Hospital service of the Russians, it seems quite worth while to devote a chapter to this very interesting and useful individual.
Up to August last Dr. Hurd was a practising surgeon in Seattle, a member of the State Legislature and spoken of as coming Mayor of the town. When he strolled casually into my room at Warsaw in the uniform of a Russian Colonel, who spoke not a word of any language except English, I was naturally somewhat surprised. “How on earth,” I asked him, “do you happen to be in the Russian Army?” Unbuckling his sword and sprawling his six feet three of brawn and sinew in an armchair he began his story.
“Well, it was this way. I’ve never had much time to follow politics in Europe, as my time’s been pretty much occupied cutting off legs and arms and such, out on the Pacific Coast. But my people have always been regular Americans, and some of us have been in every war the U.S.A. ever pulled off. My great-grandfather fought in the revolution; my grandfather in the Mexican war, and my father in the Civil and Spanish-American wars. Well, I was raised in an army post, and ever since I was a kid I’ve heard my father talk about how Russia stuck with us during the Civil war. When things looked blue and bad for the North she sent her old fleet over, and let it set right there in New York Harbour until required, if needed. During the war in Manchuria we were all for Russia on just this account, and when she got licked Dad and I both felt bad. All right. Well one day out in Seattle I read in the paper that Germany had declared war on Russia. I remembered that business, back in the ‘60’s,’ and what the Russians did for us, and I just said to myself, ‘Well, I’m for Russia anyhow,’ and I sat down that very day and wrote to the head of the medical department at Petrograd, and just told them straight that we had always been for Russia ever since that business of her fleet, and that if I could serve her in this war I’d come over even if I had to throw up my own practice, which by the way is a pretty good one.
“Well, a couple of months went by and I had forgotten all about it when one day the Russian Consul blew into my office with a cable from Petrograd, a bunch of money in one hand and a ticket over the Siberian in the other. So I just locked up my office and came right over. In Petrograd they ran me around in an auto. for two days, and then shipped me down to Grodno, where I got a Colonel’s uniform and went right out to the ‘Front’ in charge of a Field Hospital, where I’ve been now for three solid months, and you’re the first American I’ve seen and you certainly look good to me,” and the Doctor smiled genially.
I have got more information about the Russian wounded from Hurd than any man I have met since I came to Russia, and though he does not speak the language he sees everything. He was at once placed in charge of an outfit of sixty-one men and five wagons which formed a Field Hospital. “I have my bunch well organized,” the doctor said. “You see I handled it this way. I divided all my outfit, medicine chest, instruments, etc., so that they went into the five wagons. Each wagon was painted a certain colour and every box that went into that wagon had a band of the same colour around it and a number. I had a man for each box and each knew exactly what to do. I can halt on the march and my men are so well trained now that I can commence operating in ten minutes after we make a stop. I can quit work and be packed up and on the march again in twenty. I like these fellows over here fine, and when I once get them properly broken in, they work splendidly.” [The Field Hospital to which he was attached was up in the rear of the Russian lines all during the recent fighting in East Prussia.] “I never worked so hard in my life,” he continued. “One day I had 375 men come to my table between sunset and morning and I was working steadily until the next night, making twenty-three hours without intermission. It was a tough job because every little while we had to pull up stakes and move off to the rear with our wounded. That made it hard for us and difficult to do real good work.”
The Emperor with his Staff.
Russian nurses attend to the feeding of the soldiers.