B.F.A. AT WORK.

Timaru Herald, Volume CVI, Issue 16311, 13 August 1917, Page 4

B.F.A. AT WORK.

A TIRELESS UNIT. Headquarters in some shattered villago behind the linos; an advanced dressing station, improvised in a splintered dug-out, under the very muzzle of the guns; frequent sorties into the trenches to return with wounded and dying: incessant energy and unremitting toil, carried on in the thick of enemy artillery lire; a job to every man ain't every man to his job. Such are the conditions imposed upon that tireless unit of the R.A.M.C. — The British Field Ambulance.

The' work of the B.F.A. during tho retreat from. Mous remains one of the mouiorablei incidents of that memorable occasion. Since that time, it has maintained the same noble reputation throughout all tho fighting of the past two years, crowning its efforts with tlio enduring gallantry exhibited in the Somme Push.

A rapid review of the action in which tho B.F.A. is engaged in that greater No Man's Land 'behind tho British trenches, an action which is a fight gainst tho powers of pain and death, will serve to tell, however inadequately, tho meaning and purpose df tho unit which flies the Genera Cross and whose handmaiden at home is the Bed Cross Society. It is impossible to picture tho multifarious duties and deeds of the unit iii anything less than a copious volume. Tins must necessarily bo but a (lashing glance. As tho German line is pushed back, tho B.F.A. moves up with the assault, doso behind the shouting, cheering dashing fighters, as they leap into the enemy trenches. The bearers, wearing stool helmets, separate into parties, each party with its reserve, for they too, are as much in danger of losing a man by a stray bullet or flying shrapnel as any of the bayonet men. Each party is allotted to a specially defined area. The bearers search the ground, tho shell-holes, and the masses of smouldering debris where some helpless wounded man may be lying. Back to the advanced dressing station, they carry him. laying him tenderly down, and return to follow up the advance and to push on beyond the newly captured t.-cut-lies into the latest assault on to the next line.

Tn the advanced station, relief is Sivi:u to the wounded hurriorlly but with the t-e.ndercsfc care, and he is Kuidcd back to headquarters. Here :i, m-.-ro detailed examination of his wounds is conducted: sometimes n.n operation may he. needed immediately, and -,t is; performed with dispatch while tho sheik burst over the place mid the temporary nospital shakes with tho shocK or hattle. I'rom iiere, the wounded arc taken stilt further hack to tic casualty clearing station, where, most -rn,■rally, the operations ;im performed under more equitable conditions, nwav from the enemy's lire and even'out, o( immediate sound of the British guns, ••chose distant thunder is a Jiillabv to the tired, buttered lighters.

As the bearers reach the first captured trench they will find, not only Jiritish hut Prussian wounded. There is no dist'netion between them now. The S'-.-at broiler has brought Uritish and Pre,-Man to an equality. Pain affects a Prus-dar: as ruthlessly as it docs an Irishman. To the bearers thev are still | nmW the rare of the Geneva Cms-. : Kretpienfly, too, what the final assault. ' t I ailed to do in the way «{ dainacins:' li'c Prussian forces, is made up for by the continued shell lire of the Prussian rrttus ; ior the Germans as soon as ; 'ley lose a trench, blaze away at ii. | wiih their biy suns and complete the i work of the liiiti.di upon their own The result is that there arc i i:-i;,,liy many more German wounded | than Priii.-li to be ■ ared for.

The B.F.A. carries on its work, indifferent to kind and oblivious to fire. Hero a Prussian officer lies-with a smashed foot. He is found, half engulfed in the ruins of a fallen parapet. A couple of bearers take him back to the splintered dug-out. The foot is bandaged; he cannot walk, so he is carried down to headquarters. It is the remnant of what was once a mansion, occupied until a few days peviously by the Prussians. It is now back in the hands of thoso to whom it first belonged. The walls are windowed by shell fi.ro but in the cellars is an operating theatre and there it is found that tho Prussian officer's foot must be amputated. _ Quickly and skilfully the operation is performed, and before the Prussian is quite aware of what has happened to him, he lies on a stretcher in a swiftly moving ambulance wagon, driven by a one-time London bus driver. Over the shell riddled roads ho is taken until, now out of the ruck and noise of battle, he is comfortably sheltered in the clearing station, where ho turns over and sleeps in the knowledge that he has been broucht out of hell by the British Field Ambulance.