A VISIT FROM THE KING
I was taken from Poizers to Albert in a Ford ambulance, or, as the
Tommies would say, a “tin Lizzie.” The man who drove this vehicle
would make a good chauffeur for an adding machine. Apparently, he was
counting the bumps in the road for he didn’t miss one of them. However,
the trip was only a matter of seven miles, and I was in fair condition
when they lifted me out and carried me to an operating table in the
field dressing station.
A chaplain came along and murmured a little prayer in my ear. I imagine
that would make a man feel very solemn if he thought there was a chance
he was about to pass out, but I knew I merely had a leg pretty badly
smashed up, and, while the chaplain was praying, I was wondering if
they would have to cut it off. I figured, if so, this would handicap my
dancing.
The first formality in a shrapnel case is the administration of an
anti-tetanus inoculation, and, when it is done, you realize that they
are sure trying to save your life. The doctor uses a horse-syringe, and
the injection leaves a lump on your chest as big as a base ball which
stays there for forty-eight hours. After the injection a nurse fills
out a diagnosis blank with a description of your wounds and a record of
your name, age, regiment, regimental number, religion, parentage, and
previous history as far as she can discover it without asking questions
which would be positively indelicate. After all of that, my wounds were
given their first real dressing.
Immediately after this was done, I was bundled into another
ambulance--this time a Cadillac--and driven to Contay where the C.
C. S. (casualty clearing station) and railhead were located. In the
ambulance with me went three other soldiers, an artillery officer and
two privates of infantry. We were all ticketed off as shrapnel cases,
and probable recoveries, which latter detail is remarkable, since the
most slightly injured in the four had twelve wounds, and there were
sixty odd shell fragments or shrapnel balls collectively imbedded in
us. The head nurse told me that I had about twenty wounds. Afterward
her count proved conservative. More accurate and later returns showed
twenty-two bullets and shell fragments in my leg.
We were fairly comfortable in the ambulance, and I, especially, had
great relief from the fact that the nurse had strapped my leg in a
sling attached to the top of the vehicle. We smoked cigarettes and
chatted cheerfully, exchanging congratulations on having got “clean
ones,” that is, wounds probably not fatal. The artillery officer told
me he had been supporting our battalion, that morning, with one of
the “sacrifice batteries.” A sacrifice battery, I might explain, is
one composed of field pieces which are emplaced between the front and
support lines, and which, in case of an attack or counter attack,
are fired at pointblank range. They call them sacrifice batteries
because some of them are wiped out every day. This officer said our
battalion, that morning, had been supported by an entire division of
artillery, and that on our front of four hundred yards the eighteen
pounders, alone, in a curtain fire which lasted thirty-two minutes, had
discharged fifteen thousand rounds of high-explosive shells.
I was impressed by his statement, of course, but I told him that while
this was an astonishing lot of ammunition, it was even more surprising
to have noticed at close range, as I did, the number of Germans they
missed. Toward the end of our trip to Contay, we were much exhausted
and pretty badly shaken up. We were beginning also to realize that we
were by no means out of the woods, surgically. Our wounds had merely
been dressed. Each of us faced an extensive and serious operation. We
arrived at Contay, silent and pretty much depressed. For twenty-four
hours in the Contay casualty clearing station, they did little except
feed us and take our temperatures hourly. Then we were put into a
hospital train for Rouen.
Right here, I would like to tell a little story about a hospital train
leaving Contay for Rouen--not the one we were on, but one which had
left a few days before. The train, when it was just ready to depart
with a full quota of wounded men, was attacked by German aeroplanes
from which bombs were dropped upon it. There is nothing, apparently,
that makes the Germans so fearless and ferocious as the Red Cross
emblem. On the top of each of the cars in this train there was a Red
Cross big enough to be seen from miles in the air. The German aviators
accepted them merely as excellent targets. Their bombs quickly knocked
three or four cars from the rails and killed several of the helpless
wounded men. The rest of the patients, weak and nervous from recent
shock and injury, some of them half delirious, and nearly all of them
in pain, were thrown into near-panic. Two of the nursing sisters in
charge of the train were the coolest individuals present. They walked
calmly up and down its length, urging the patients to remain quiet,
directing the male attendants how to remove the wounded men safely
from the wrecked cars, and paying no attention whatever to the bombs
which were still exploding near the train. I did not have the privilege
of witnessing this scene myself, but I know that I have accurately
described it for the details were told in an official report when the
King decorated the two sisters with the Royal Red Cross, for valor in
the face of the enemy.
The trip from Contay to Rouen was a nightmare--twenty-six hours
travelling one hundred and fifty miles on a train, which was forever
stopping and starting, its jerky and uncertain progress meaning to us
just hours and hours of suffering. I do not know whether this part of
the system for the removal of the wounded has been improved now. Then,
its inconveniences and imperfections must have been inevitable, for, in
every way afterward, the most thoughtful and tender care was shown us.
In the long row of huts which compose the British General Hospital at
Rouen, we found ourselves in what seemed like Paradise.
In the hut, which constituted the special ward for leg wounds, I was
lifted from the stretcher on which I had travelled all the way from
Poizers into a comfortable bed with fresh, clean sheets, and instantly
I found myself surrounded with quiet, trained, efficient care. I forgot
the pain of my wounds and the dread of the coming operation when a tray
of delicious food was placed beside my bed and a nurse prepared me for
the enjoyment of it by bathing my face and hands with scented water.
On the following morning my leg was X-rayed and photographed. I told
the surgeon I thought the business of operating could very well be put
off until I had had about three more square meals, but he couldn’t
see it that way. In the afternoon, I got my first sickening dose of
ether, and they took the first lot of iron out of me. I suppose these
were just the surface deposits, for they only got five or six pieces.
However, they continued systematically. I had five more operations,
and every time I came out of the ether; the row of bullets and shell
scraps at the foot of my bed was a little longer. After the number had
reached twenty-two, they told me that perhaps there were a few more
in there, but they thought they’d better let them stay. My wounds had
become septic, and it was necessary to give all attention to drainage
and cure. It was about this time that everything, for a while, seemed
to become hazy, and my memories got all queerly mixed up and confused.
I recollect I conceived a violent dislike for a black dog that appeared
from nowhere, now and then, and began chewing at my leg, and I believe
I gave the nurse a severe talking to because she insisted on going to
look on at the ball game when she ought to be sitting by to chase that
dog away. And I was perfectly certain about her being at the ball game,
because I saw her there when I was playing third base.
It was at this time (on November 28, 1916, ten days after I had been
wounded) that my father, in Lexington, received the following cablegram
from the officer in charge of the Canadian records, in England:
“Sincerely regret to inform you that Sergeant Alexander McClintock
is officially reported dangerously ill in No. 5 General Hospital,
from gunshot wound in left thigh. Further particulars supplied when
received.”
It appears that, during the time of my adventures with the black dog
and the inattentive nurse, my temperament had ascended to the stage
when the doctors begin to admit that another method of treatment
might have been successful. But I didn’t pass out. The one thing I
most regret about my close call is that my parents, in Lexington,
were in unrelieved suspense about my condition until I myself sent
them a cable from London, on December 15th. After the first official
message, seemingly prepared almost as a preface to the announcement
of my demise, my father received no news of me whatever. And, as I
didn’t know that the official message had gone, I cabled nothing to him
until I was feeling fairly chipper again. You can’t have wars, though,
without these little misunderstandings.
If it were possible, I should say something here which would be fitting
and adequate about the English women who nursed the twenty-five hundred
wounded men in General Hospital No. 5, at Rouen. But that power isn’t
given me. All I can do is to fall back upon our most profound American
expression of respect and say that my hat is off to them. One nurse
in the ward in which I lay had been on her feet for fifty-six hours,
with hardly time even to eat. She finally fainted from exhaustion, was
carried out of the ward, and was back again in four hours, assisting
at an operation. And the doctors were doing their bit, too, in living
up to the obligations which they considered to be theirs. An operating
room was in every ward with five tables in each. After the fight on the
Somme, in which I was wounded, not a table was vacant any hour in the
twenty-four, for days at a time. Outside of each room was a long line
of stretchers containing patients next awaiting surgical attention.
And in all that stress, I did not hear one word of complaint from the
surgeons who stood, hour after hour, using their skill and training for
the petty pay of English army medical officers.
On December 5th, I was told I was well enough to be sent to England
and, on the next day, I went on a hospital train from Rouen to Havre.
Here I was placed on a hospital ship which every medical officer in
our army ought to have a chance to inspect. Nothing ingenuity could
contrive for convenience and comfort was missing. Patients were sent
below decks in elevators, and then placed in swinging cradles which
hung level no matter what the ship’s motion might be. As soon as I
had been made comfortable in my particular cradle, I was given a box
which had engraved upon it: “Presented with the compliments of the
Union Castle Line. May you have a speedy and good recovery.” The box
contained cigarettes, tobacco, and a pipe.
When the ship docked at Southampton, after a run of eight hours across
channel, each patient was asked what part of the British Isles he would
like to be taken to for the period of his convalescence. I requested
to be taken to London, where, I thought, there was the best chance of
my seeing Americans who might know me. Say, I sure made a good guess.
I didn’t know many Americans, but I didn’t need to know them. They
found me and made themselves acquainted. They brought things, and then
they went out to get more they had forgotten to bring the first trip.
The second day after I had been installed on a cot in the King George
Hospital, in London, I sent fifteen hundred cigarettes back to the boys
of our battalion in France out of my surplus stock. If I had undertaken
to eat and drink and smoke all the things that were brought to me by
Americans, just because I was an American, I’d be back in that hospital
now, only getting fairly started on the job. It’s some country when
you need it.
The wounded soldier, getting back to England, doesn’t have a chance to
imagine that his services are not appreciated. The welcome he receives
begins at the railroad station. All traffic is stopped by the Bobbies
to give the ambulances a clear way leaving the station. The people
stand in crowds, the men with their hats off, while the ambulances
pass. Women rush out and throw flowers to the wounded men. Sometimes
there is a cheer, but usually only silence and words of sympathy.
The King George Hospital was built to be a government printing office,
and was nearing completion when the war broke out. It has been made a
Paradise for convalescent men. The bareness and the sick suggestion and
characteristic smell of the average hospital are unknown here. There
are soft lights and comfortable beds and pretty women going about as
visitors. The stage beauties and comedians come and entertain us. The
food is delicious, and the chief thought of every one seems to be to
show the inmates what a comfortable and cheery thing it is to be ill
among a lot of real friends. I was there from December until February,
and my recollections of the stay are so pleasant that sometimes I wish
I was back.
On the Friday before Christmas there was a concert in our ward. Among
the artists who entertained us were Fay Compton, Gertrude Elliott
(sister of Maxine Elliott), George Robie, and other stars of the London
stage. After our protracted stay in the trenches and our long absence
from all the civilized forms of amusement, the affair seemed to us
the most wonderful show ever given. And, in some ways, it was. For
instance, in the most entertaining of dramatic exhibitions, did you
ever see the lady artists go around and reward enthusiastic applause
with kisses? Well that’s what we got. And I am proud to say that it was
Miss Compton who conferred this honor upon me.
At about three o’clock on that afternoon, when we were all having a
good time, one of the orderlies threw open the door of the ward and
announced in a loud voice that His Majesty, the King, was coming in. We
could not have been more surprised if some one had thrown in a Mills
bomb. Almost immediately the King walked in, accompanied by a number of
aides. They were all in service uniforms, the King having little in his
attire to distinguish him from the others. He walked around, presenting
each patient with a copy of “Queen Mary’s Gift Book,” an artistic
little volume with pictures and short stories by the most famous of
English artists and writers. When he neared my bed, he turned to one of
the nurses and inquired:
“Is this the one?”
The nurse nodded. He came and sat at the side of the bed and shook
hands with me. He asked as to what part of the United States I had come
from, how I got my wounds, and what the nature of them were, how I was
getting along, and what I particularly wished done for me. I answered
his questions and said that everything I could possibly wish for had
already been done for me.
“I thank you,” he said, “for myself and my people for your services.
Our gratitude cannot be great enough toward men who have served us as
you have.”
He spoke in a very low voice and with no assumption of royal dignity.
There was nothing in the least thrilling about the incident, but there
was much apparent sincerity in the few words.
After he had gone, one of the nurses asked me what he had said.
“Oh,” I said, “George asked me what I thought about the way the war was
being conducted, and I said I’d drop in and talk it over with him as
soon as I was well enough to be up.”
There happened one of the great disappointments of my life. She didn’t
see the joke. She was English. She gasped and glared at me, and I think
she went out and reported that I was delirious again.
Really, I wasn’t much impressed by the English King. He seemed a
pleasant, tired little man, with a great burden to bear, and not much
of an idea about how to bear it. He struck me as an individual who
would conscientiously do his best in any situation, but would never
do or say anything with the slightest suspicion of a punch about it.
A few days after his visit to the hospital, I saw in the _Official
London Gazette_ that I had been awarded the Distinguished Conduct
Medal. Official letters from the Canadian headquarters amplified this
information, and a notice from the British War Office informed me that
the medal awaited me there. I was told the King knew that the medal
had been awarded to me, when he spoke to me in the hospital. Despite
glowing reports in the Kentucky press, he didn’t pin it on me. Probably
he didn’t have it with him. Or, perhaps, he didn’t consider it good
form to hang a D. C. M. on a suit of striped, presentation pajamas with
a prevailing tone of baby blue.[A]
[Footnote A: EDITOR’S NOTE.--The medal was formally presented to Sergt.
McClintock by the British Consul General, in New York City, on August
15, 1917.]
While I was in the King George Hospital I witnessed one of the most
wonderful examples of courage and pluck I had ever seen. A young Scot,
only nineteen years old, McAuley by name, had had the greater part of
his face blown away. The surgeons had patched him up in some fashion,
but he was horribly disfigured. He was the brightest, merriest man
in the ward, always joking and never depressed. His own terrible
misfortune was merely the topic for humorous comment with him. He
seemed to get positive amusement out of the fact that the surgeons were
always sending for him to do something more with his face. One day he
was going into the operating room and a fellow patient asked him what
the new operation was to be.
“Oh,” he said, “I’m going to have a cabbage put on in place of a head.
It’ll grow better than the one I have now.”
Once in a fortnight he would manage to get leave to absent himself from
the hospital for an hour or two. He never came back alone. It took a
couple of men to bring him back. On the next morning, he would say:
“Well, it was my birthday. A man must have a few drinks on his
birthday.”
I was discharged from the hospital in the middle of February and
sent to a comfortable place at Hastings, Sussex, where I lived until
my furlough papers came through. I had a fine time in London at the
theatres and clubs pending my departure for home. When my furlough had
arrived, I went to Buxton, Derbyshire, where the Canadian Discharge
Depot was located and was provided with transportation to Montreal.
I came back to America on the Canadian Pacific Royal Mail steamer,
_Metagama_, and the trip was without incident of any sort. We lay for a
time in the Mersey, awaiting word that our convoy was ready to see us
out of the danger zone, and a destroyer escorted us four hundred miles
on our way.
I was informed, before my departure, that a commission as lieutenant in
the Canadian forces awaited my return from furlough, and I had every
intention of going back to accept it. But, since I got to America,
things have happened. Now, it’s the army of Uncle Sam, for mine. I’ve
written these stories to show what we are up against. It’s going to be
a tough game, and a bloody one, and a sorrowful one for many. But it’s
up to us to save the issue where it’s mostly right on one side, and
all wrong on the other--and I’m glad we’re in. I’m not willing to quit
soldiering now, but I will be when we get through with this. When we
finish up with this, there won’t be any necessity for soldiering. The
world will be free of war for a long, long time--and a God’s mercy,
that. Let me take another man’s eloquent words for my last ones:
Oh! spacious days of glory and of grieving!
Oh! sounding hours of lustre and of loss;
Let us be glad we lived, you still believing
The God who gave the Cannon gave the Cross.
Let us doubt not, amid these seething passions,
The lusts of blood and hate our souls abhor:
The Power that Order out of Chaos fashions
Smites fiercest in the wrath-red forge of War.
Have faith! Fight on! Amid the battle-hell,
Love triumphs, Freedom beacons, All is well.
(Robert W. Service, “Rhymes of a Red Cross Man.”)
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
On page 43, Dinkeibusch has been changed to Dinkiebusch.
On pages 46 and 135, casualities has been changed casualties.
On page 75, through has been changed to though.
On page 76, smybols has been changed to symbols.
On page 93, denouments has been changed to denouements.
On page 122, distinguising has been changed to distinguishing.
On pages 84, 124, 126, 135 and 146 dugout has been changed to dug-out.
On page 135, descendents has been changed to descendants.
On page 135, continous has been changed to continuous.
Minor silent changes have been made to regularize punctuation; all
other spelling, hyphenation and punctuation have been retained as
typeset.