"Frank," I asked, "what do you think about the President of the United States?"
He seemed to be considering for a minute, or maybe he was only waiting to gather sufficient breath to make an answer. He had been lying with his eyes directed steadfastly toward the ceiling. Now he turned his face slowly toward me. His eyes, sunken slightly in their sockets, shone feverishly. His pinched, hollow cheeks were still swarthy, but the background of the white pillow made them look wan. Slowly he moistened his lips, and then he said:
"Say--say--that guy--that guy"s--got hair--on his chest."
That was the opinion of the "dying Wop."
After Frank"s removal from our ward, the rest of us frequently sent messages of cheer down to him. These messages were usually carried by a young American woman who had a particular interest in our ward. Not strange to say, she had donned a Red Cross nursing uniform on the same day that most of us arrived in that ward. She was one of the American women who brought us fruit, ice cream, candy and cigarettes. She wrote letters for us to our mothers. She worked long hours, night and day, for us. In her absence, one day, the ward went into session and voted her its guardian angel. Out of modesty, I was forced to answer "Present"
instead of "Aye" to the roll-call. The Angel was and is my wife.
As Official Ward Angel it was among the wife"s duties to handle the matter of visitors, of which there were many. It seemed, during those early days in June, that every American woman in France dropped whatever war work she was doing and rushed to the American hospitals to be of whatever service she could. And it was not easy work these women accomplished. There was very little "forehead-rubbing" or "moving picture nursing." Much of it was tile corridor scrubbing and pan cleaning. They stopped at no tasks they were called upon to perform.
Many of them worked themselves sick during the long hours of that rush period.
Sometimes the willingness, eagerness and sympathy of some of the visitors produced humourous little incidents in our hospital life.
Nearly all of the women entering our ward would stop at the foot of "Big Boy"s" bed. They would learn of his paralysed condition from the chart attached to the foot of the bed. Then they would mournfully shake their heads and slowly p.r.o.nounce the words "Poor boy."
And above all things in the world distasteful to Big Boy was that one expression "Poor boy" because as soon as the kindly intentioned women would leave the room, the rest of the ward would take up the "Poor boy"
chorus until Big Boy got sick of it. Usually, however, before leaving the ward the woman visitor would take from a cl.u.s.ter of flowers on her arm, one large red rose and this she would solemnly deposit on Big Boy"s defenceless chest.
Big Boy would smile up to her a look which she would accept and interpret as one of deep, undying grat.i.tude. The kindly-intentioned one surrounding herself with that benediction that is derived from a sacred duty well performed, would walk slowly from the room and as the door would close behind her, Big Boy"s gruff drawling voice would sing out in a call for the orderly.
"Dan, remove the funeral decorations," he would order.
Dan Sullivan, our orderly, was the busiest man in the hospital. Big Boy liked to smoke, but, being paralysed, he required a.s.sistance. At regular intervals during the day the ward room door, which was close to Big Boy"s bed, would open slowly and through the gap four or six inches wide the rest of the ward would get a glimpse of Dan standing in the opening with his arms piled high with pots and utensils, and a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NEWS FROM THE STATES]
[Ill.u.s.tration: SMILING WOUNDED AMERICAN SOLDIERS]
With one hand he would extract the cigarette, insert hand and arm through the opening in the door until it hovered above Big Boy"s face.
Then the hand would descend and the cigarette would be inserted in Big Boy"s mouth just as you would stick a pin in a pin-cushion. Big Boy would lie back comfortably and puff away like a Mississippi steamboat for four or five minutes and then the door would open just a crack again, the mysterious hand and arm would reach in once more and the cigarette would be plucked out. That was the way Big Boy got his "smokes."
If Big Boy"s voice was gruff, there was still a gruffer voice that used to come from a man in the corner of the ward to the left of my bed.
During the first four or five days I was an inmate of the ward, I was most interested in all the voices I heard because I lay in total darkness. The bandages extended down from the top of my head to my upper lip, and I did not know whether or not I ever would see again. I would listen carefully to all remarks within ear-shot, whether they be from doctors, nurses or patients. I listened in the hope that from them I might learn whether or not there was a possibility of my regaining vision. But all of their remarks with regard to my condition were ambiguous and unsatisfactory. But from this I gained a listening habit and that was how I became particularly interested in the very gruff voice that came from the corner on my left.
Other patients directing remarks into that corner would address them to a man whom they would call by name "Red Shannahan." I was quick to connect the gruff voice and the name "Red Shannahan," and as I had lots of time and nothing else to do, I built up in my mind"s eye a picture of a tall, husky, rough and ready, tough Irishman, with red hair--a man of whom it would be conceivable that he had wiped out some two or three German regiments before they got him. To find out more about this character, I called over to him one day.
"Red Shannahan, are you there?" I said.
"Yes, Mr. Gibbons, I"m here," came the reply, and I was immensely surprised because it was not the gruff voice at all. It was the mild, unchanged voice of a boy, a boy whose tones were still in the upper register. The reply seemed almost girlish in comparison with the gruffer tones of the other patients and I marvelled that the owner of this polite, mannerly, high-pitched voice could be known by any such name as "Red Shannahan." I determined upon further investigation.
"Red Shannahan, what work did you do before you became a United States soldier?" I asked.
"Mr. Gibbons," came the reply, almost girlishly, "I am from Baltimore. I drove the wagon for Mr. Bishop, the canary bird and gold fish man."
All that had happened to this canary bird fancier and gold fish tamer was that he had killed two Germans and captured three before they got him.
Among those who came to visit us in that ward, there appeared one day a man I had not seen in many years. When I knew him last he had been a sport-loving fellow-student of mine at college and one of the fastest, hardest-fighting ends our "Varsity football squad ever had. Knowing this disposition of the man, I was quite surprised to see on the sleeve of his khaki service uniform the red shield and insignia of the Knights of Columbus.
I was well aware of the very valuable work done by this inst.i.tution wherever American soldiers are in France, but I could not imagine this former college chum of mine being engaged in such work instead of being in the service. He noticed my silence and he said, "Gib, do you remember that game with the Indians on Thanksgiving Day?"
"Yes," I replied, "they hurt your leg that day."
"Yes," replied my old college mate, whom we might as well call MacDougal inasmuch as that was not his name. "Yes, they took that leg away from me three years later."
I knew then why MacDougal was with the K. C. and I wondered what service he would perform in our ward in the name of his organisation. I soon found out. Without introduction, MacDougal proceeded to the bedside of Dan Bailey, the Infantryman with one leg off, who was lying in a bed on my right. MacDougal walked back and forth two or three times past the foot of Bailey"s bed.
"How does that look?" he said to Bailey. "Do I walk all right?"
"Looks all right to me," replied Bailey; "what"s the matter with you?"
MacDougal then began jumping, skipping and hopping up and down and across the floor at the foot of Bailey"s bed. Finishing these exercises breathlessly, he again addressed himself to the sufferer with one leg.
"How did that look?" he said. "Did that look all right?"
"I don"t see anything the matter with you," replied Bailey, "unless it is that you"re in the wrong ward."
Then MacDougal stood close by Bailey"s bedside where the boy with one leg could watch him closely. MacDougal took his cane and struck his own right leg a resounding whack. And we all knew by the sound of the blow that the leg he struck was wooden.
In that peculiar way did MacDougal bring into the life of Dan Bailey new interest and new prospects. He proved to Dan Bailey that for the rest of his life Dan Bailey with an artificial limb could walk about and jump and skip and hop almost as well as people with two good legs. That was the service performed by the Knights of Columbus in our ward.
There was one other organisation in that hospital that deserves mention.
It was the most exclusive little clique and rather inclined towards sn.o.bbishness. I was a member of it. We used to look down on the ordinary wounded cases that had two eyes. We enjoyed, either rightly or wrongly, a feeling of superiority. Death comes mighty close when it nicks an eye out of your head. All of the one-eyed cases and some of the no-eyed cases received attention in one certain ward, and it was to this ward after my release from the hospital that I used to go every day for fresh dressings for my wounds. Every time I entered the ward a delegation of one-eyed would greet me as a comrade and present me with a pet.i.tion. In this pet.i.tion I was asked and urged to betake myself to the hospital library, to probe the depths of the encyclopaedias and from their wordy innards tear out one name for the organisation of the one-eyed. This was to be our life long club, they said, and the insistence was that the name above all should be a "cla.s.sy" name. So it came to pa.s.s that after much research and debate one name was accepted and from that time on we became known as the Cyclops Club.
A wonderful Philadelphia surgeon was in charge of the work in that ward.
Hundreds of American soldiers for long years after the war will thank him for seeing. I thank him for my sight now. His name is Dr. Fewell.
The greatest excitement in the ward prevailed one day when one of the doctor"s a.s.sistants entered carrying several flat, hard wood cases, each of them about a yard square. The cases opened like a book and were laid flat on the table. Their interiors were lined with green velvet and there on the shallow receptacles in the green velvet were just dozens of eyes, gleaming unblinkingly up at us.
A shout went up and down the ward and the Cyclopians gathered around the table. There was a grand grab right and left. Everybody tried to get a handful. There was some difficulty rea.s.sorting the grabs. Of course, it happened, that fellows that really needed blue or grey ones, managed to get hold of black ones or brown ones, and some confusion existed while they traded back and forth to match up proper colours, shades and sizes.
One Cyclopian was not in on the grab. In addition to having lost one eye, he had received about a pound and a half of a.s.sorted hardware in his back, and these flesh wounds confined him to his bed. He had been sleeping and he suddenly awoke during the distribution of the gla.s.sware.
He apparently became alarmed with the thought that he was going to be left out of consideration. I saw him sit bolt upright in bed as he shouted clear across the ward:
"Hey, Doc, pa.s.s the grapes."
When it became possible for me to leave that hospital, I went to another one three blocks away. This was a remarkable inst.i.tution that had been maintained by wealthy Americans living in France before the war. I was a.s.signed to a room on the third floor--a room adjoining a sun parlour, overlooking a beautiful Old World garden with a lagoon, rustic bridges, trees and shrubbery.
In early June, when that flood of American wounded had come back from the Marne, it had become necessary to erect hospital ward tents in the garden and there a number of our wounded were cared for. I used to notice that every day two orderlies would carry out from one of the small tents a small white cot on which there lay an American soldier.
They would place the cot on the green gra.s.s where the sunlight, finding its way through the leafy branches of the tree, would shine down upon the form of this young--this very young--fighter from the U. S. A.
He was just two months over seventeen years of age. He had deliberately and patriotically lied one year on his age in order that he might go to France and fight beneath our flag.
He was wounded, but his appearance did not indicate how badly. There were no bandages about his head, arms or body. There was nothing to suggest the severity of his injuries--nothing save his small round spot on the side of his head where the surgeons had shaved away the hair--just a small round spot that marked the place where a piece of German hand-grenade had touched the skull.
This little fellow had forgotten everything. He could not remember--all had slipped his mind save for the three or four lines of one little song, which was the sole remaining memory that bridged the gap of four thousand miles between him and his home across the sea.
Over and over again he would sing it all day long as he lay there on the cot with the sunlight streaming all over him. His sweet boyish voice would come up through the leafy branches to the windows of my room.
I frequently noticed my nurse standing there at the window listening to him. Then I would notice that her shoulders would shake convulsively and she would walk out of the room, wet eyed but silent. And the song the little fellow sang was this: