Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 253, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1915 — WORST OF HORRORS [ARTICLE]

WORST OF HORRORS

Visit to War Hospitals Described by Writer. Prooession of the Blind Soldiers Leaves an Impression of the Awful Hideousness of War That Can Never Be Effaced. By GRACE ELLISON. Northern France. —A little town nestling in a wealth of trees —in peace time it is almost unheard of, now it is an important military station —this is my next halting place. Every house Is occupied by soldiers, every building of importance is turned into a hospital. So near the front there are cases which need all the science of the trained nurse to pull them through. Men unnerved almost to madness, men who mistake all the male staff for the enemy—one has only to listen to the ravings of these poor men to know something of the strain of war on them. I was taken to the eye ward to see the operations there. Of nil the horrors of war, is not this the worst? I have seen jaws smashed beyond recognition —human beings who had forgotten their very names —men who can live to a ripe old age and never have anything in common with the great life going on around them; but the procession of blind men, or men who be blind, has left an impression of the hideousness of war that can never be effaced. * Here is a brilliant young lieutenant. His father was only a concierge, but he worked and saved to give his son his chance. The son has gone through with flying colors —now he is blind. He was lying in the officers’ ward when I saw him—the ward was darkened, for there were others suffering, too. He had in his hand a portrait of the little girl he had never seen. “Only take off the bandage an instant, that I may look at my little girl,” he pleaded. “I dare not,” answered the doctor. Who will have the courage to tell him the truth? A poor man has come that day from the trenches —the blood is still on his sac eyes are bandaged. An old man leads him in, and the nurse prepares him for the examination. One sees the answer on the doctor’s sac blind, blind —one after another. One dare not think —the horror of it all seems to numb one’s very soul. We have started early, for we have so far to go and we are stopped; it is another examination of our papers. But ’who is speaking? Voices seem to be beside me in the car! What ii this mystery? I listen carefully, when suddenly two officers pop up from underground and disappear. The horrid, uncanny idea trench war is! It does not somehow seem fair and square. We have to pass along the road which the French soldiers have christened "the Jaws of Death.” A young man on the way tells us the Germans pepper everyone who goes up that road —perhaps we shall be the exception. Up the narrow, stony passage we plow our way—if by any chance the car stops we are finished —yet if we go too quickly we shall make a cloud of dust. As it is we are part and parcel nf the dusty landscape. I keep my erw on the enemy’s lines. And on we go till we have turned the corner and are safe again for a while. On and on we go—more and more distinctly is the firing heard. Where are we? We are on a height, and suddenly we discover an artillery duel is taking place in the trenches near by — the trenches are ablaze, shells are bursting on all sides. They are going to bombard the hill. The tocsin has already sounded, and all the inhabitants are in the cellars. A group of three women rush out from a neighboring house. One is biting her shawl, another is sobbing bitterly, and yet another cries in anguish, “Year in, year oat, how long must this "suffering \*atV ■ We are ordered into the cellars. A

German aeroplane is there to direct the enemy’s firing. We have been seen —this time we have to go through the shells —they will finish us now. Our only hope is speed. One shell has burst 80 yards from the car. Another is sent ahead —it has struck a farm, and the farm blazes up in pillars of smoke and fire. My chauffeur drives right through it —on and on like a flash of lightning. Have they ceased firing? I shall hear those shells for days and days. I am too tired even to be tired. All along the road the troops are moving. They are so covered with dust they might be Asiatics, and the sun has browned them to a manliness a woman cannot fail to admire. It was a curious visit. I was glad I went. But how strange they look, these dwellers in the bowels of the earth. In one trench is a roof of hurdles, covered with leaves, which opens and shuts like the fairy-book trapdoor; there is a mud and hurdle seat, on which letters are being written to those loved ones left behind. And thdy are all so well and happy and confident, these soldiers, and so courteous and so manly. Can it be possible they are the Parisians we knew only a year ago? The ordering out of the pale, undersized males, who lounge along the boulevards; the taking from the cases, drawing rooms and theater wings the idle youth of the country, and turning them into dwellers of the forest and plain, with a sense of danger and duty, is not this the only side of war that is tolerable?