Backwash Of War The Human Wreckage Of The Battlefield As Witnessed By An American Hospital Nurse-Ellen Newbold La Motte

INTRODUCTION this war has been described as months of boredom punctuated by moments of intense fright the writer of these sketches has experienced many months of boredom in a french military field hospital situated ten kilometres behind the lines in belgium during these months the lines have not moved either forward or backward but have remained deadlocked in one position undoubtedly up and down the long-reaching kilometres of front there has been action and moments of intense fright have produced glorious deeds of valour courage devotion and nobility but when there is little or no action there is a stagnant place and in a stagnant place there is much ugliness much ugliness is turned up in the wake of mighty moving forces we are witnessing a phase in the evolution of humanity a phase called war and the slow onward progress stirs up the slime in the shallows and this is the backwash of war it is very ugly there are many little lives foaming up in the backwash they are loosened by the sweeping current and float to the surface detached from their environment and one glimpses them weak hideous repellent after the war they will consolidate again into the condition called peace after this war there will be many other wars and in the intervals there will be peace so it will alternate for many generations by examining the things cast up in the backwash we can gauge the progress of humanity when clean little lives when clean little souls boil up in the backwash they will consolidate after the final war into a peace that shall endure but not till then e n l m chapter one of the backwash of war by ellen newbold lamott chapter i heroes when he could stand it no longer he fired a revolver up through the roof of his mouth but he made a mess of it the ball tore out his left eye and then lodged somewhere under his skull so they bundled him into an ambulance and carried him cursing and screaming to the nearest field hospital the journey was made in double-quick time over rough belgian roads to save his life he must reach the hospital without delay and if he was bounced to death jolting along at breakneck speed it did not matter that was understood he was a deserter and discipline must be maintained since he had failed in the job his life must be saved and he must be nursed back to health until he was well enough to be stood up against a wall and shot this is war things like this also happen in peace time but not so obviously at the hospital he behaved abominably the ambulance men declared that he had tried to throw himself out of the back of the ambulance that he had yelled and hurled himself about and spat blood all over the floor and blankets in short he was very disagreeable upon the operating table he was no more reasonable he shouted and screamed and threw himself from side to side and it took a dozen leather straps and four or five orderlies to hold him in position so that the surgeon could examine him during this commotion his left eye rolled about loosely upon his cheek and from his bleeding mouth he shot great clots of stagnant blood caring not where they fell one fell upon the immaculate white uniform of the directress and stained her from breast to shoes it was disgusting they told him it was la directrice and that he must be careful for an instant he stopped his raving and regarded her fixedly with his remaining eye then took aim afresh and again covered her with his coward blood truly it was disgusting to the medecin maillol it was incomprehensible and he said so to attempt to kill himself when in these days it was so easy to die with honour upon the battlefield was something he could not understand so the medecin maillol stood patiently aside his arms crossed his supple fingers pulling the long black hairs on his bare arms waiting he had long to wait for it was difficult to get the man under the anaesthetic many cans of ether were used which went to prove that the patient was a drinking man whether he had acquired the habit of hard drink before or since the war could not be ascertained the war had lasted a year now and in that time many habits may be formed as the metisamio stood there patiently fingering the hairs on his hairy arms he calculated the amount of ether that was expended five cans of ether at so many francs a can however the ether was a donation from america so it did not matter even so it was wasteful at last they said he was ready he was quiet during his struggles they had broken out two big teeth with the mouth gag and that added a little more blood to the blood already choking him then the medicin meilleur did a very skilful operation he trephoned the skull extracted the bullet that had lodged beneath it and bound back in place that erratic eye after which the man was sent over to the ward while the surgeon returned hungrily to his dinner long overdue in the ward the man was a bad patient he insisted upon tearing off his bandages although they told him that this meant bleeding to death his mind seemed fixed on death he seemed to want to die and was thoroughly unreasonable although quite conscious all of which meant that he required constant watching and was a perfect nuisance he was so different from the other patients who wanted to live it was a joy to nurse them this was the salle of the grands blesses those most seriously wounded by expert surgery by expert nursing some of these were to be returned to their homes again reformes mutilated for life a burden to themselves and to society others were to be nursed back to health to a point at which they could again shoulder eighty pounds of marching kit and be torn to pieces again on the firing line it was a pleasure to nurse such as these it called forth all one's skill all one's humanity but to nurse back to health a man who was to be court-martialled and shot truly that seemed a dead-end occupation they dressed his wounds every day very many yards of gauze were required with gauze at so many francs a bolt very much ether very much iodiform very many bandages it was an expensive business considering all this waste for a man who was to be shot as soon as he was well enough how much better to expend this upon the hopeless cripples or those who were to face death again in the trenches the night nurse was given to reflection one night about midnight she took her candle and went down the ward reflecting tin beds on the right-hand side tin beds on the left-hand side all full how pitiful they were these little soldiers asleep how irritating they were these little soldiers awake yet how sternly they contrasted with the man who had attempted suicide yet did they contrast after all were they finer nobler than he the night nurse given to reflection continued her rounds in bed number two on the right lay alexander asleep he had received the medaille militaire for bravery he was better now and that day had asked the medicin meilleur for permission to smoke the medicin meilleur had refused saying that it would disturb the other patients yet after the doctor had gone alexander had produced a cigarette and lighted it defying them all from behind his medaille the patient in the next bed had become violently nauseated in consequence yet alexander had smoked on secure in his medaille meritaire how much honour lay in that here lay felix asleep poor querulous feeble-minded felix with a foul fistula which filled the whole ward with its odour in one sleeping hand lay his little round mirror in the other he clutched his comb with daylight he would trim and comb his moustache his poor little drooping moustache and twirl the ends of it