This brings the war home to us! This and the suffering and torments of the wounded make me sick at heart. I have seen them suffer particularly since this last attack, as I am a blessé myself—and am in a French hospital. It is only a slight arm wound; the bone is cracked a little, but not broken. I am here to have the piece of shell drawn out and am assisting these poor wounded all I can. I was sent to the poste we have nearest the lines, on the other side of the mountain and hidden in the woods. The trenches begin at this poste. The poste itself is an abri, a bomb-proof dug-out in the ground. The roof and supports are made of timbers a foot or more thick, over these are placed two feet of heavy rock and again two feet of earth. When I got there the Germans began bombarding, and fired shells into these woods and into this poste for almost five hours. I never want to see another such bombardment; it was frightful. I saw shells land among horses, smash big trees in half within ten and twenty yards. I saw three men hit; one had his face shot away. The poste became so full of wounded we had to stand near the doorway, which is partly protected by a bomb-proof door. It was not exactly safe inside, for the shells, if big enough, when they hit such an abri often loosen the supports, and the roof, weighing tons, falls in and buries people alive. A man in the same room with me in the hospital here was in an abri not far from where we were when it was struck; the roof fell and killed three men who were with him and he was buried for an hour. A shell struck a tree not eight feet off from where we were standing and smashed it in half; it fell and almost killed one of two brancardiers (stretcher-bearers) who were carrying a dead man past the door. A piece of the éclat hit the other brancardier in the head and killed him. The man standing beside me had his hand shot off, and I got hit in the elbow. Three pieces went through my coat, but only one went into the arm. If I had not been standing against the door I might have fared worse. I was carried with two other wounded by one of our fellows up the steep mountain road to our second poste. They were bombarding that road as well as the poste. We could see the sky redden from the flash of the guns below and we could hear the shells shriek as they came toward us, and the éclat not too far away. Twice we started the Ford on the way up; it stalled and took five precious minutes to get it going again. The force of one explosion knocked the fellow with me over when he walked ahead to try and make out the road. We stuck in the road twice, not daring to pass a wagon conveying munitions. We could not make the hill, it was so steep, and we had to seek men to push us. It was pitch-black and we could not use our lights. This with two gravely wounded men on our hands rather took the nerve out of us. We finally got back to headquarters and found them bombarding there, one shell having struck not far from the hospital.
January 20
I am still in the hospital, but am glad to say my arm is almost quite well again. It does take time. The bombardment by the Germans of all our former postes has become pretty nerve-racking. The house we took for the attack has been hit twice. We had moved out only the day before. They struck a schoolhouse close by and killed a nun and wounded three harmless children. Our cars have been hit by scraps of shell, but fortunately when none of the men were in them.
The suffering of the men in this hospital and the cries in the night make it an inferno. Though I am glad I can help a little, I must say it is on my nerves.
In this hospital—which is one of the best—they need very badly beds for men who have had their vertebræ broken. These men live from two to six months in a frame on their backs all the time. This is the way they spend the last months of their lives. We have three men in this condition now, and each time they are moved it takes at least four men to change them and they suffer terribly. The special beds I speak of are made on pulleys with bottom and sides which can be opened for washing and service purposes. They cost forty dollars and France cannot afford to buy them, as she has so many needs. If you could raise some money for this purpose, you would be doing these poor fellows the last favors they will have on this earth and help them in their suffering.
L. C. D.
