Here, of course, you meet all kinds of men, from everywhere. They were
not forced to come, except by duty, in their country's need. They were
willing in the day of sacrifice, and theirs is that glory deathless.
One has been burned severely. How he escaped at all is a miracle. But
they are all children of miracle. Death's pursuing hand seems just to
have slipped off some as he clutched at them. This man looks through
eye-holes in his bandages. He is an Irishman, and the Irish do take
heavy hurts with a patient optimism wonderful to see.
There is also a fine little Welshman, quite a lad, who has lost his
leg. He has been suffering continually in the limb that is not there.
To-day he was lying out in the sun, and he looked up cheerily at me.
"Last night," he said, "for about half an hour I had no pain. I tell
you I lay still and held my breath. It was so good I scarcely could
believe it. I thought my heart would never beat again, at the wonder of
it."
The usual picture postcard of the family is always close at hand.
One North of Ireland man, up out of bed for the first time, was very
full-hearted about his "missis and the childer." Said he with pride,
"She's doin' extra well. She's as brave as the best of them, and good
as the red gold--that's what she is."
Another poor fellow, in terrible pain, asked me to search in a little
cotton bag which was beside him for the photograph of his wife and
himself and the little baby. "It was took just when I joined," he
whispered. "Baby's only two months old there."
One day those who were able were outside, and a gramophone was
throatily grinding the melody out of familiar tunes, with a peculiarly
mesmeric effect. Suddenly the record was changed to "Mary of Argyle."
The Scotsman by whose bed I was standing said: "Wheesht! D'ye hear
thot? Man, is it no fine?" And the tears ran down his cheeks as he
listened. It was a poor enough record. In ordinary times he would have
shouted his condemnation of it. But he was now in a foreign land--a
stricken, suffering man. And it made him think of some woman far away
beside the Forth, where he came from. And his heart asked no further
question.
At the head of the bed of some of them you will see a blue paper.
"You're looking grand to-day," said I to a young fellow. And he
replied, "Is there anny wonder, Sir, wid that scrap o' paper there?"
For it was the order for home on the first available opportunity.
"Sure, won't the ould mother be glad to see me?" he continued. "The
sunshine here is beautiful, but sunshine in the ould country is worth
the world."
"Good-bye, Sir!" they sometimes cry. "I'll be away when you come round
again." But perhaps next time a sad face looks up at you, for the day
so eagerly anticipated has been again postponed.
It is always home, and what the dear ones there are like, and what
they will be thinking yonder, that fills up the quiet hours toward
restoration, as it strengthened the heart and arm of the brave in the
hour of terrible conflict.
The endurance, patience, and courage of the men are beyond praise--as
marvelous as their sufferings. I can never forget one who lay moaning
a kind of chant of pain--to prevent himself screaming, as he said.