MEDICAL WORK AT THE FRONT

Grey River Argus, 22 October 1915, Page 2

MEDICAL WORK AT THE FRONT

CARE OP THE WOUNDED

MA G NIFICENT WORK

DOCTORS WORK UNDER SHOT

AND SHELL

(From the special Representative of the Melbourne "Age.")

GABA TEPE, August 14. Whatever charges may have been cited against the handling and treatment of the wounded at the base hospitals and along the lines of eommuniuivrion, from a month's observation on shore with the Ist Australian Djvision, ;uid having seen the medical staff and organisation tested under the stress of a desperate battle. I am convinced of the celerity and care with which the wounded am taken from the midst of shot and shell down to the clearing" stations on the bench at AVizac. In order that some idea may be gajned of the bravery, the resource and coolness of the medical units, in which I include all stretcher-bearers. I will describe the means adopted to evacuate wounded. My experiences I gathered, not from the ordinary times when the ■patients are coming hi a few at a tjrao, but when in the heat of a general engagement, there is, unfortunately, a continuous line of wounded and dying i being slowly k drafted down to the beach. It is only comparatively slowly, for the way is arduous up and down to the gullies and hills. It must r>u , noted, however, that there is a dis : ( 1 tinct line where the responsibility of , the Australian doctors cease, ' and events on the left flank have no con- , nexion with the Australian Division, j Yet jt must always be borne in mind', that in "the midst of a struggle against . a foe fighting for the very existence of the Fatherland, many hardships have ! to be endured and sacrifices made, so ' that nothing shall stop the progress of the army, nothing hinder it being fed, or ibeing supplied wjth ample water ; and ammunition. Too often this aspect i is forgotten in the cry that goes up _ for the treatment of the wounded. How ! far it is possible, for the treatment of the wounded to proceed smoothly and uninterrupted depends on the forethought of the medical officers the preparations and the efficient carrying, out of duties under a strain. THE CONDITIONS ' Dressing stations have to be as near ' to the firing line as is consistent .with safety.. As there i no place quite nf e, ' and as space is a matter for some consideration, there are dressing stations just abutting the trenches., "Sometimes a communication trench widened and j hollowed out has formed a place whore the doctors can give first aid and put a ' dressing on a wound that will enable ! the man to get down to the beach. In plain language therefore, the wounded j have to be treated in dressing- stations j that are right jn the firing line. Other ! stations were just bchjnd the crest of | •the ridges in any little dip or hollow j that presented reasonable protection ; from the shells. Now when the shelling . commenced on the afternoon of the lith ! — I give this specific occasion though "it ! is always the same — there were bullets ' streaming down in front of the little roofed t\ng-out and occasionally they came through* Shells whined round the hil and fell a few feet away. Somehow they never burst right on top, which would have meant the wrecking of the station. Into this zone of death, of bursting Sin and lOin shells? of spluttering shrapnel in broad daylight, the stretcher-bearers had to go and work They went right into the jaws of the battle into the places where the shells were tearing down the trenches, and the doctors and some of the padres went with them and commenced in the trenches the binding up of limbs. From the trenches the men had to* be carried in blankets and waterproof sheets, taken at a run down to the dressing station, where at once they were placed on a stretcher, and lifted on. to the dressing stand. A doctor bent over the case, skilfully wrapped the wound in antiseptic dressings, and called to the strecher-bearers. They at once lifted down the stretchers, fixed the straps over their shoulders, and without a second's hesitation faced again the tornado of shell and bullets going on their way down to the beach, more than a mile away, round the foot of the hills, down into the gullies. Those were the badly wounded cases. MEN'S GREAT DEgIRE TO HELP THEMSELVES. . It wanted many minutes till the battle reached its height, when, standing behind the firing-line, I saw two stretcher-bearers carrying a man away themselves struck with shrapnel — one in the foQt, who limped away as if he had received a kick at football; the other needed help himself. Other S.B. men came at a double through the dust of the burst shell and bore on the wounded man. Past me, one after another in an almost continuous line, came men holding their hands streaming with blood, men 'limping, men with their, lips cut: "Where's the_ dresing station, mate?" They receive the direction, and have to go on again through the shell fire. "Oh, only a few teeth gone, I think." "Winged me in the arm." "Got it in the shoulder." So the wounded explain n s they wait for a- minute for breath in sliclter 'of sandbags, having hurried from the firing line. They all go on. WORK AT THE DOUBLE "Stretcher bearers! Stretcher bearers! Here, here, stretcher-bearers!" There seemed no end to the cry. The men, braver than can be imagined or pictured, with one thought, tjie reaching the wounded man, run up tit • -a double. They take the nearest case in all probability.. The doctor may come .with them with his medical chest. Under a hail' of bullets he performs a few hasty dexterous dressings, and moving as fast as is consistent with safety for the wounded, the stretcherbearer go off at a jog trot to the dressing station lower down, further from the infenal regions above, but none the less in a danger zone. Along the trenches where the men are fighting all- that can be done for the moment

is to lift, some' poor- lad on to a lodge and moisten his lips with water. As soon as the press is cleared he will be attended to. It may be worthily recorded here that amongst those first men who dashed across to the captured Turkish trenches was a doctor. No words I can write can ever picture the relief that noble act alone gave. DOWN TO THE BEACH CLEARING .STATIONS A the ero\y "flies it is just over 1000 yards from the firing line down to the beach. To the place where the wounded are dressed and sent off to the hospital ships H might be a mile if one could go direct. But the paths wind round the hills and along the sides of steep banks. The way is stony, it is full of abrupt turnings. The • air is filled with shells and bullets., imagine the wounded '.being carried or making their way along these routes 'down to the beach. On the way they may pass severeal clearing stations t and receive hcJp. I have watched the men just doing ordinary duties struck with bullets and -shell seek medical attention in these half-way stations the doctors sometimes _ resting on the scooped,Vmt platforms before their dug-outs waiting for the wounded. Extra doctors luu'l been stationed all along the routes, and it was by this means that j the pressure on the station on the , beach was relieved.. Men came to the beach all ready treated and ticketed, only wtiting a. means of being placed on one or other of the hospital ships as the white or red tickets they received indicated. The check came in the supply of barges and pinnaces. But it was only a matter of a few hours, and the beach stations that had perhaps 300 men, lying closely, packed between the high piles of boxes of stores ; used for protection against shell, were , clearing a s quickly as they filled. Jt j was dusk when I first saw ttic Avounded coining in, and in the fierce light of acetylene lamps, the bloody faces of the- men, their torn reddened clothes, i clothes, made a picture of dreadful ' gruesome ness. All along an alleyway j the men were lying or standing in groups sipping coffee or cocoa or a lir- . tie spirit. NEVER A SINGLE GROAN Since that night I h«vc many iimes visited the clearing station on the beach when the doctors have been working for long hours as the wounded came pouring in from the right and .left flank. In all that time there hus .been scarcely a groan.. Those men faced death with a cheer, and they bore their wounds without a sigh. You. found them discussing details of the fight, linking up events for themselves with i the little centre which they had been j able to see, and had taken part in. In I this way do the wounded quickly learn j what has happened all along the line. It keeps them occupied. They even j argue about everyday topics, treating ] the whole thing as a matter of course. ! fcVune are silent and still. They may stop a doctor and ask for relief. "This j bullet, is crush ing my throat, doctor: 'can't you do anything?" (The por lad had a fly net '.over his face to stop the itrementing insects). The surgeon bent down, shifted the blanket that served as a pillow and saul: "They will fix you up on a hospital ship in a very 1 short time better than we can here." . Satisfied, the wounded lad rolled over a little way and turned his face to a bundle of hay. It was fortunate that no block occurred in getting " the stretchers cleared pn to the barges. There were ample men to help; the doctors riskeds their lives from the shells that came streaming over the pier to put the men on the barges, and as quickly as possible sent them to the hospital ships.. So it went on day after day, and still it is the sixth day, and the wounded are coming in from the left flank. They come to. the shelter of the tarpaulins to cool water to nourishment, and speedy despatch, to proper comfort. They come after a thirty., forty sixty hours' journey getting from the firing line. DIFFICULTIES'. ON THE LEFT FLANK It was nearly three miles that the wounded had to drag themselves back, or the stretcher-bearers had to carry them miles over rough, untrodden paths in the beds of dried-up mountain torrents, past the decaying dead that had fallen as the battle. advanced. Stretcher bearers worked till they dropped, and from sheer exhaustion had to be sent away themselves. The men reached the few dressing stations only to find that they were already crowded with scri ous cases that were lying in rows in the sun, or in a few vacated dug-outs, and they had but to turn to the sap tha* led to the main Australian station. It meant another mile in a hot breezeless sap, traversed by scores of mules, to avoid which you had to press against the wall. The doctor did what they

1 could wilh the materials at hand. Tlir&e [ days after the light began they had erected a tent, and then a tarpaulin stretched over a rough framework gave the suffering men some small degee of comfort. Yet they bore their .hurts silently. They aeeptecd the dictum of tbe doctors to lie still (perhaps another half day), until the stretcher-bearers could take them through to the clonring station on the beach. Home hundreds, nay, thousands, were sent off from the shore, risking the Turkish shrapnel and bullets from the hills.. The dead lay in lines, covered with a blanket. Wounded mules whinnied and whined for water. I watched the doctors, and surely their nerves could stand but little more than the unending lines day and night of the wounded, who filed by, some too tried to move almost, others anxious only to get away from the surroundings. The doctors looked haggard and worn. But the faces of the men were coated with yellow sand, their eyes were rimmed Avitli dirt. Their cheeks were bloodstained. But they were not complaining and in that the work of the medical men and stretcher-bearers was made a hundred times lighter. The worst cases even tried to tell the stretcher-bearers tales of their fight, of the battle that the Turk put up, of his bravery, of the bravery of their own men. Only noAv, on the. seventh day, are matters being smoothed out, and the doctors see a way to evacuate steadily the new cases that hourly are arriving. Help has been sent them, for once again the tolT of medical men and the stretcher-bear-ers has been heavy. They merit the unbounded praise that is given them irom all sides.

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