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Where we have to fiddle and probe and peer he would just look just half-shut those hawk eyes of his and look, and he'd know exactly what to do and what not to do. . . . That'll do, sergeant; take him off. . . . Where's that bottle of mine? What's this? Hand? Bandage not hurting you? All right. Pass him over there for the anti-tetanus. Now, then! . . .
From this first-aid post, after inoculating me with anti-tetanus serum to prevent lockjaw, I was put into an ambulance and sent to temporary hospital behind the lines. To reach this hospital we had to go along a road about five miles in length. This road was under shell fire, for now and then a flare would light up the sky, a tremendous explosion, and then the road seemed to tremble.
"Be damn good and careful not to scratch yourself on that; if you do, you'll need about a gallon of anti-tetanus shots." "Y'think it might be poisoned?" the man with the dirty neck and the month-old haircut inquired eagerly. "See, Miss Lawrence? What I told you; a real African native sword.
She was starting on a three- hundred-mile automobile run through a half subdued and dangerous country, meaning to visit base hospitals along the German frontier until she found a supply of anti-tetanus serum. Lockjaw, developing from seemingly trivial wounds in foot or hand, had already killed six men at Chimay within a week. Four more were dying of the same disease.
And into this light passed a constant procession of wounded, some halting for no more than the brief seconds necessary for a glance at the placing of a bandage and an injection of an anti-tetanus serum, some waiting for long pain-laden minutes while a bandage was stripped off, an examination made, in certain cases a rapid play made with cruel-looking scissors and knives.
About three o'clock I managed to get a doctor to inject me with anti-tetanus. I confess that I was rather anxious about getting this done, for in crawling back across No Man's Land my wound had been covered with mud and dirt. The orderly, who put on the iodine, told me that the German artillery was sending shrapnel over the ridge.
"Tell me," he said, "may we use your marquee for wounded men?" "Sure thing. It will never be used for a better purpose." Barry returned to the O. C. of the C. C. S. "Why not direct that a part of this stream be sent to the adjoining tent for registration, and for anti-tetanus hypodermics? These poor chaps are standing out in the rain, chilled to the bone and ready to drop."
I had to pay a visit to the nearest large dressing-station to get the anti-tetanus inoculation. This proved more troublesome than the small cut I received, and it made me feel fairly weak for the next ten days. On September 20 I went with Capt. D. Hill to select a place for a dump near High Wood, and we passed over the first captured German trench.
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