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Show BRINGING IN THE WOUNDED Lowering Men on Stretchers Without Jarring Requires an Expert Hand. A hospital train had come in. a British Brit-ish train. The twilight had deepened Into night. Under the flickering arc lamps, in that cold and dismal place (Boulogne), the train came to a quiet stop. Almost immediately it began to unload. Half way down the car a wide window win-dow was opened and two tall lieuten ants, with four orderlies, took their place outside. It was very silent. Orders Or-ders were given in low tones. One by one the stretchers came; one by one .they were added to the lengthening line that lay prone on the stone flooring beside the train. There was not a jar, not an unnecessary motion. mo-tion. One great officer, very young, took the weight of the end as it came toward him, and lowered it with marvelous gentleness as the others took hold. He had a trick of the wrist that enabled him to reach up, take hold and lower the stretcher, without freeing his hands. He was marvel-ously marvel-ously strong, marvelously tender. Tlfe stretchers were laid out side by aide. Their occupants did not speak or move. ' It was as if they had reached their limit of endurance. They lay with closed eyes or with impassive, impas-sive, upturned faces, swathed In their brown blankets against the chill. Her and there a knitted neck scarf had been loosely wrapped about a head. All over America women were knitting knit-ting just such scarfs. And still the line grew. The car seemed inexhaustible of horrors. And still the young lieutenant with the tender ten-der hands and the strong wrists took the onus of the burdens, the muscles of his back swelling under his khaki tunic. If I were asked to typify the attitude of the British army and of the British people toward their wounded, wound-ed, I should point to that boy.. Nothing Noth-ing that I know of in history can equal the care the English are'taking of their wounded in this, the great war. Mary Roberts Rinehart in the Saturday Evening Post. |
