Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 300, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 December 1919 — RED CROSS HEROES [ARTICLE]

RED CROSS HEROES

Correspondent Tells of Deed of Splendid Bravery. Many Glorious Things Have Been Done In the Hot Spirit of Battle, But This Was in a Class by Itself.

- From Hill 212, overlooking Fere-en-Tardenois and the valley of the Ourcq, William Slavens McNutt, Collier’s correspondent, watched the American infantry start the Germans on their final retreat from Reims-Soissons-Cha-teau Thierry pocket. He says: And then I daw the most painfully dramatic thing I have witnessed in all this war. Out from the little atrip of wood that the Americans had just captured, walking slowly out into that open, bullet-swept field over which the charge had passed, I saw two men with the brassard of the Red Cross on their arms bearing a wounded man on a litter. They had perhaps 300 yards to go back across that open field before the curve of the hill would shelter them from the machine gun fire from the hill above. And they could not run, 1 they could not duck, they could not take cover. They must walk upright on their work of mercy, walk upright in that storm of lead, and, walk slowly for the burden they bore I “There go two dead men,” the captain said solemnly. “They haven t got a chance in that field. The machine guns’ll get ’em, sure! Watch!” ' I watched. I have never watched anything so intently in my life. And with all the fervency of reverence and belief that there was in me I prayed for those two men of mercy over there who could not fight back; those men who had made the charge up the hill with their comrades of the gun and bayonet and must now march back •bearing a wounded fighting man to safety; back through that storm of lead thit was sweeping the field from the big wood —march back standing straight and walking slow. So slow! They had made perhaps a hundred yards when one of them slipped to his knees and rolled over. “I told you,” the captain exclaimed. “They’ve got ’em !” > “Only one,” I said. “The other fellow’s not hit.” “They’ll get him,” the captain prophesied gloomily. I saw the unwounded man kneel by his stricken comrade. For the space of a minute he knelt there, I suppose applying first aid. Then he stood erect. And then the man who had been hit, the stretcher bearer on the ground, rose slowly—oh, so very slow-ly_-till he was propped up on one elbow. Then to his knees. Slow I Then very, very slowly he got to his feet. Once up, he -leaned over —and, from where I was, through my glasses, I coulil see by the movement the pain It cost —leaned over, grasped the handles of the litter, and straightened up again. He had been hit, but he was going on! On they went. I have no power to describe how slowly they seemed to be moving across that deadly open field. A hundred yards! Another hundred would mean comparative safety under the slope of the hill. Fifty of that accomplished! Twentyfive more! And then, slowly yet, they vanished from sight under the protective slope. They had made It! I think I shouted. I know I tried to, apd I know that my knees were suddenly too weak to -hold me up and that I abruptly knelt and grasped the slim pole, of the little lone tree near by to steady myself.—Red Cross Bulletin.