Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: CAPTAIN R. J. MANION, M.C.]
A SURGEON
IN ARMS
BY
CAPTAIN R. J. MANION, M. C.
OF THE CANADIAN ARMY MEDICAL CORPS
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK LONDON
1918
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Printed in the United States of America
TO
MY WIFE AND BOYS
I AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATE
THIS LITTLE BOOK
FOREWORD
The greater part of _A Surgeon in Arms_ was
written before the United States entered the war in
April, 1917. Therefore, the Americans are not
mentioned in many paragraphs in which the soldiers
of the other allies are spoken of. The Canadian
soldiers on the Western front have won undying fame
for their marvelous feats in many actions, from the
first battle of Ypres in April, 1915, to Vimy Ridge
in April, 1917. As soldiers they take a place second
to none. And, I believe, the American soldiers will,
in the lines, show the same courage, dash, and
initiative, and win the same fighting reputation and honors
as the Canadians; for do not Americans and Canadians
inherit the same blood, literature, history, and
traditions; do they not both live in the same wide
spaces, speak the same mother tongue, aspire to the
same ideals, and enjoy the same free institutions?
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. Life in the Trenches
II. Over the Top
III. Overland
IV. Kelly
V. The Language of the Line
VI. Just Looking About
VII. Gassed!
VIII. Relief
IX. Dugouts
X. The Sick Parade
XI. Caring for the Wounded
XII. Cheerfulness
XIII. Courage--Fear--Cowardice
XIV. Air Fighting
XV. Staff Officers
XVI. The Battle of Vimy Ridge
XVII. A Trip to Arras
XVIII. Ragoût à la Mode de Guerre (Trench Stew)
XIX. Leave
XX. Paris During the War
XXI. Paris in Wartime
XXII. In a Château Hospital
XXIII. On a Transport
XXIV. Decorations
XXV. On a Hill
A SURGEON IN ARMS
CHAPTER I
LIFE IN THE TRENCHES
Life "out there" is so strange, so unique,
so full of hardship and danger, and yet
so intensely interesting that it seems like
another world. It is a different life from any
other that is to be found in our world today.
In it the most extraordinary occurrences take
place and are accepted as a matter of course.
I am sitting in a dugout near Fresnoy.
Heavy shelling by the enemy is taking place
outside, making life in the pitch-dark trenches
rather precarious. A number of soldiers of
different battalions on this front are going to
and fro in the trenches outside. The shelling
gets a bit worse, so some of them crawl down
into the entrance of my dugout to take a few
minutes' rest in its semi-protection. They
cannot see each other in the blackness, but with
that spirit of camaraderie so common out there
two of the men sitting next each other begin to
chat. After exchanging the numbers of their
battalions, which happen to be both Canadian
and in the same brigade, one says,--
"But you're not a Johnny Canuck; you talk
like a Englishman."
"That may be; I was born in England. But
I am a Canadian. I've been out there for
seventeen years," the other returned a little
proudly.
"Hindeed! I was in Canada only three
years. W'ere'd you come from in old England?"
"Faversham, Kent."
"Faversham! Well, I'm blowed! That's
my 'ome! What the 'ell's yer name?"
"Reggie Roberts."
"W'y, blime me, I'm your brother
Bill!" Affectionate greeting followed, then
explanations: The elder brother had gone out to
Alberta seventeen years before while the younger
was still at school. Correspondence had
stopped, as it so often does with men.
Fourteen years later the other boy went out to
Ontario. When the war broke out, they both
enlisted, but in different regiments, and they
meet after seventeen years' separation in the
dark entrance to my dugout.
On the front of our division, an order came
through telling us that information was reaching
the enemy that should not reach him. For
this reason all units were ordered to keep a
sharp lookout for spies since we feared that
some English-speaking Germans were visiting
our lines.
In our battalion at that time was a very
good and careful officer, Lieutenant Weston.
Rather strangely, one of the men of his
platoon was a Corporal Easton. Shortly after
the above order had come forth, Lieutenant
Weston was sent out on a reconnoitering
expedition by night into No Man's Land. He
took as his companion, Corporal Easton. Over
the parapet they crept between flares, and
proceeded to crawl cautiously about among the
barbed wire entanglements, shellholes, and
ghosts of bygone sins and German enemies.
At each flare sent up by us or the enemy,
splitting the thick darkness like a flash of lightning,
they pushed their faces into the mud and lay
perfectly still, in order to avoid becoming the
target of a German sniper, or even possibly of
some over-nervous Tommy. If there is any
place in this war where Napoleon's dictum that
"a soldier travels on his stomach" is lived up to
in a literal and superlative degree, it is in No
Man's Land by night.
Their reconnaissance had lasted some two
hours when they started to return to what they
thought was their own battalion front. But,
as sometimes happens, they had lost their
bearings. While they were correct as to the
direction toward the Canadian lines in general,
they were really crawling to the firing line of
one of the brigades to our right. Suddenly
Weston, who was leading, found his chest
pressing against the sharp point of a bayonet.
He heard a voice hissing:
"Who goes there?"
"Two Canadians," he whispered in reply.
"All right; crawl in here, and no funny
tricks or we'll fill ye full o' lead." At the
point of the bayonet he and his corporal
crawled over the parapet. They found
themselves in the enlarged end of a sap that was
being used as a listening post. In the
darkness they could dimly see that they were
surrounded by soldiers with fixed bayonets.
"What's yer name?" hissed the voice, for
out there no one is anxious to attract a hand
grenade from the enemy on the other side of
the line.
"Lieutenant Weston."
"An' yours?" to the corporal.
"Corporal Easton."
"Weston--Easton; that's too damn thin.
Now you fellows march ahead of us to
Headquarters, an' if ye so much as turn yer head
we'll put so many holes through ye, ye'll look
like a sieve. Quick march!" And they
plowed through the deep mud of the trenches
till they were well back, then they came out
and proceeded overland to H.Q.--headquarters.
Here, after a few sharp questions, a little
telephoning, and some hearty laughter, they
were given a runner to show them the shortest
route back to their own battalion.
Trench warfare as it has been carried on
during this great war is different from the
warfare of the past. Here we had--and have
at the time of writing--on the western front
alone, a fighting line five hundred miles long,
with millions of the soldiers of the Allies
occupying trenches, dugouts, huts, tents, and
billets, on one side of the line, and the millions of
the enemy in the same position on the other.
For months at a time there is no move in either
direction.
Trenches are merely long, irregular ditches,
usually, though not always, deep enough to
hide a man from the enemy. Occasionally
they are so shallow that the soldier must travel
on his stomach, during which time any part of
his anatomy which has too prominent a curve
may be exposed to the fire of the enemy. Of
course this all depends on the architectural
configuration of the traveler. Except trenches
far in the rear, they are always zigzag, being
no more than ten to twenty feet in a straight
line, to prevent any shell's doing too much
damage. The front trench is called the firing
line; the next one, fifty yards or so behind, but
running parallel, is a support trench; and other
support trenches exist back to about 1000
yards.
Communicating trenches run from front to
rear, crossing the support trenches. Here and
there a communicating trench runs right back
out of the danger zone, and these long trenches
are at times divided into "in" trenches, and
"out" trenches. Shorter communicating
trenches run from support to firing lines.
These different trenches give the ground, from
above, the appearance of an irregular checker
board.
The front wall of the trench is called the
parapet, and the rear wall, the parados. Above
the trenches, on the intervening ground, is
overland. In the bottom of the trenches, when
the water has not washed them away, are
trench mats, or small, rough board walks.
Sometimes the mud or sand walls of the trench
are supported by revetments of wire or wood.
No Man's Land is the area between the firing
lines of the opponents. It is a barren area
of shellholes, barbed wire, and desolation, and
may be from forty yards to 300 or more yards
wide. Commonly, on standing fronts its width
is about one hundred yards. Saps are trenches
extending out into No Man's Land, and used
for observation purposes or for listening posts.
They may end in craters, or large cavities in
the ground, made by the explosion of mines.
Dugouts are cavities off from the trenches,
connecting with them by narrow passages.
The dugout proper is a cavity, small or large,
used for living in and for protection from shell
fire. They may be superficial, having only
two or three feet of sandbags--more properly,
bags of sand--for a roof; or they may have a
roof ten to forty feet in thickness. But the
term is often used carelessly for any kind of
shelter at the front.
At dusk and dawn the men usually "stand
to," that is they stand, rifle in hand, in the
trenches ready to repel any attack of the
enemy. During the dark hours the men take
part in working parties, or fatigues, to bring
in water, clean the mud from the trenches,
carry rations or ammunition, and dig holes or
dumps in which munitions, flares, or equipment
are stored. Fatigues are rather disliked
by the men, for they are laborious and just as
dangerous as other work in the lines.
In speaking to each other, and often in
official communications, abbreviations are much
employed among officers and men. For example:
O.C., or C.O., is used to signify the officer
commanding any unit, whether it be the
Lieutenant Colonel in charge of a battalion, or the
Major, Captain, or Lieutenant in command
of a company; the M.O., or the Doc., is
commonly the shortened form for the Medical
Officer; and H.Q. signifies headquarters, and
may apply to company, battalion, brigade,
divisional, corps, or army headquarters, any of
which would, generally speaking, be specified,
unless the conversation or communication
made it plain which was meant.
After big advances there are varying periods
during which trench life is more or less
abandoned for open warfare. After an advance the
consolidation of the land taken consists of
again digging trenches and dugouts, preparing
machine-gun emplacements, bringing up the
artillery, and establishing communications.
During this transitory period the losses are
often heavy, because of the poor protection
afforded the men and the fact that the enemy is
well acquainted with the ground which he has
abandoned, willingly or unwillingly.