SURGERY IN A TRENCH.

Colonist, Volume LVII, Issue 13995, 27 January 1916, Page 2

SURGERY IN A TRENCH.

A story whir-h, as the writer puts it, shows the soldier as lie simply and inconceivably is, is told by Mr Prevosl Batter, sby in a message to the "Daily Express" from, the British headquarters. ' '■•■., ;■•■ It happened but a few nights ago, during the long spell of toad weather $ when all the trenches were wet with four days of rain; but these trenches were exceptionally trying, and the men had been standing all the week above their knees in water. The mortars had been firing much later than usual, and it was pitch dark, and rain was pelting down, when one of their bombs fell plumb in the trench with its back to a traverse. The traverse was removed in one direction, and a. sergeant, standing some 10 yards away from it, turned a somersault over the traverse iii front, of it, and landed head first in over 30ft of water. "When ne came to the surface he found a difficulty in standing, and felt that one of his legs was in several pieces. . Bj great fortune a surgeon happened

; to be in a dugout near; by, .and hearing : the explosion and the splashy looked oiit ■ and saw the ■ wounded man struggling in 'the. water. s He ploughed his\ way to I him' through the mud, and seeing 'his condition, determined to, • maJce a dash for his instruments over the exposed morass of n:ire in the rear instead of by the long roundabout communication trenches. He succeeded, having collected his instrument .case, in returning across the open to tire injured man before his senses had left him, and there and I then, while they were both standing up !to their thighs in water, he performed an operation, severing what was left; of the leg—the stump being just clear of the Aviater—-and tying up the arteries with no light in that pouring night ttt help him but the fizzle of the German flares. When at last the wounded man arrived at the dressing station, litt.le hope was entertained of his recovery, and at the clearing hospital his acceptance seemed a mere formality, unconscious as he was and so^near in hue to the colour of the dead. ,At 8 the iK. vxt morning the chaplain found him with a cigarette between his lips, entertaining the entire ward with a humorous account, of the past night's adventure, and he wrote with his own hand a letter to his wife, hoping that it "found her in the pink," as it left him at that present, and warning her that, a portion of him was unfortunately missing, but that he was lucky in bring, ing back what remained to her.