- from 'The War Budget', October 26th, 1916
- 'Heroes of the Healing Army'
- the RAMC
A Story of Victories over Death
photo of an operating room in a French hospital
The term non-combatant has suffered much of late, through its application to the case of men with awkward consciences. But the story of this wholesale heroism called "The Great War," would be half untold if only the fighting men's deeds were written down.
Equally important with the destruction of the enemy's men ranks the salvage of our own - a truism rarely apprehended in former wars. The art of slaughter seems to have reached its zenith after many centuries of practice; the healing art, as an art, is but now coming into its own. Yet in one respect the salvage of broken humanity meets the old, irremediable difficulty with the old, heroically tragic consequence. Indeed, the present conflict has multiplied the dangers of rescue, each battle being more prolonged and desperate than the last. Wounded men may lie untended, except for such mutual help as they can render, for days and nights, under a canopy of perpetual fire.
Where Life Is Cheap
The soldier's extremity is the doctor's opportunity, even in these desperate straits, when they become known, for the R.A.M.C. officers and men count their own life and comfort as nothing if a chance comes to risk them in some enterprise of pity. Thus has the casualty list of this great healing army run into the thousands, and honours hang thickly on its breast. This recognition of unarmed bravery is one of the silver patches lining, the black cloud of war.
it is a singularly silent service in which this great army is engaged. By ancient right the Red Cross of Geneva belongs to the Army Medical Service, though almost exclusively associated in the public mind with the equally wonderful honorary corps of which we wrote three weeks ago. The R.A.M.C. alone is officially responsible for this enormous task of repairing our shattered forces.
When fighting is brisk, as it seems to be far more frequently than the official reports state, the field dressing stations come into play, receiving their suffering burdens from the stretcher bearers, who pass through a warm time in and between the trenches. Often the bearers stand in greater peril than the riflemen, who may crouch under cover while the R.A.M.C. men are threading long communication trenches or venturing across the open with deliberate Care for their charges. Frequently this work has to be pursued in thick darkness, over shell-riven ground, and other things more horrible than shattered clay. Crawling the Gauntlet.
Not only the orderlies, but the field doctors are compelled to run - or crawl - the gauntlet of a thousand deaths on these incessant "rounds." Imagine an urbane family doctor emerging from medical practitionerhood with its cosy little car and transferring his practice to the Somme. Medicos are a brave race; no coward would choose a life-time of war against disease as a hobby. Yet it must require a new sort of courage, an acquired nerve, for even a hardened surgeon to patch up broken men under fire for twenty hours a day. Perhaps the rush of the work keeps their nerves in order, there is no time for sentiment of the contemplative sort.
The dressing stations themselves are liable to be shelled at any moment, since their usefulness depends on accessibility from the firing line. Behind these stations, where cases are hurriedly examined and treated with emergency dressings, lies, also within range of the "heavies," the Casualty Clearing Station. This hasty treatment is one of the most modern and most successful arts of healing. During the turmoil of a great attack we lose heavily because the wounded cannot be recovered quickly enough for this timely aid, and their hurts are far more difficult to cure after exposure. At more ordinary times, doctors and orderlies take the daily or nightly risk of a visit to the firing line and save thousands of lives. They do what is more important from a purely military point df view, they save limbs and so preserve their patients to fight again.
Constant practice has given the surgeons an almost uncanny skill, learned first, of course, of the great specialists who have made a life study of critical cases. Even the brain and the spinal cord are capable of treatment which a few years 'back would not have been attempted. In a time of risk it is expedient to take risks for experience sake.
The clearing stations are served by hundreds of motor ambulances plying to and fro with their helpless passengers, wherever the curtain of darkness covers their tracks. The cars wait at a convenient spot, connected by telephone with the dressing stations. When a call comes the ambulance, with all lights out, slips along to the corner nearest the station which has sent the call. Except for bursting shells, the road is pitch dark, and usually it is full of shell holes. The Huns are specially gifted in the art of hitting our men when they are down. Exposed to any stray fireworks, the car waits until the equally exposed stretcher bearers appear, finding the trysting place as luck, and memory guide them.
The clearing stations are as carefully concealed as possible to keep temptation out of Fritz's way, but whatever the surroundings, within all is order, neatness, and absolute spotlessness. No wounds are poisoned by careless treatment at the hands of the R.A.M.C. In these hygienic matters the British medical service is first and the German last among the great powers. The Hun doctors are very clever, but cleanliness is not one of their strong points.
Casualty Clearing House
In the clearing station the cases are sorted out for dispatch to the base hospitals or through to "Blighty," after the most urgent operations have been performed. Some of the luckiest patients are those sent down by water in special barges provided by the Red Cross Society for use on the canals. These barges are floating hospitals, fully staffed. The trains now in use, however, are luxuriously built and are said to be more comfortable than, hospitals. They are also provided with endless delicacies in the way of food, partly to tempt the patient's appetite and so keep up his strength, and partly as compensation for the hardships of trench and hospital life. Food scarcity is not suffered to extend to the hospital service, nor is rule-of-thumb cookery, tolerated on the trains, which, carrying from 350 to 500 men, require a big larder and a good culinary staff. Like ships in dock, they are unloaded at one side and loaded on the other during their brief stay at the base. So steady are the trains that delicate operations are frequently performed in the travelling "theatre." A complete train costs £20,000, and the staff expenses are naturally heavy, but still it appears to be Reaper to cure a man than to kill him. The latter process costs, on the average, nearly a thousand pounds-the expense of this luxury rising with each leap of "civilisation."
Life Cheaper Than Death
Contrariwise, the healing art has become, if not cheaper, infinitely more successful than in any past war. Beyond all other triumphs has towered the great victory over those epidemics that batten on battlefields in a species of warfare most favourable to infectious disease.
How impossible it seems to pick and choose among these thousands of (unarmed heroes for instances of special valour. The "Linseed Lancers," as they have been nicknamed, might boast, if they cared to boast, of an honour roll to compare with that of any line regiment. One recalls a few of those who have received royal recognition. There was Burns, left for two days in charge of eight wounded in a farm building that -was under shell fire the whole time, and cut off from all outside help. He dressed their wounds, made soup for them, and fed them with his own hands. He also milked the solitary cow stabled there until a shell blew the animal to bits, almost in his presence.
Another R.A.M.C. man, who put even the letter of their law before thoughts of personal safety, is thus immortalised by one of his patients:-
"I came to a road with a small bank, and as the enemy's shells were falling freely I lay down. A first-aid man came up and looked at my wound. I said to him, 'Help me to the wood and then dress my wound.' He replied, 'The regulations prescribe that all wounded must be first dressed in the firing line.' This seemed very funny to me at such a moment, when either of us might be hit by another shell. The gallant fellow then proceeded to dress my arm under heavy fire. Other wounded came up and also wished to reach the wood, but this first-aid man would let none of them go, always prefacing his remarks with 'The regulations prescribe.'"
The Scroll of Fame
Of the doctors themselves, few have won a more enduring fame than the three officers who stuck to their posts at the Wittenberg camp, when typhus had driven the brutal and cowardly German doctors into safety, in the Spring of last year. Four months of overwork under almost intolerable conditions tested their endurance and loyalty, but it did not yield.
"One of our stretcher bearers," wrote a Grenadier, "was wounded and in great pain, but knowing that bearers would be in great demand, he stayed with us all the time until w« were relieved. Then he had to give up."
Shot through both arms and through the side, Captain J. A. Sinton, M.B., V.C., of the Indian Medical Service, remained on duty as long as it was possible to be of any use under heavy fire all day. He is one of the few Medical Service men to reach the pinnacle of military honours, the V.C. being awarded mostly for prowess in the field.
Another R.A.M.C. winner of the coveted cross was Captain J. L. Green, who lost his life in the winning of his fame. His sacrifice was made in a magnificent attempt, while wounded himself, to rescue another officer.
A third was Lieut. George A. Maling, who succoured three hundred wounded men under heavy fire at Fanquissart. Once he was flung down and stunned by a shell which disabled his assistant. Reviving, he continued his work single-handed, flying splinters and debris landing among his instruments as he toiled at his glorious calling.
Of countless acts of heroism, only the Recording Angel knows the full tale. These few are typical of the R.A.M.C.
