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The moon had gone down, leaving the muddy, deserted streets in darkness, but the body on the stretcher appeared to be luminous, so dazzlingly white was the silk, and it was a weird sight to see, passing along through the night, the semi-luminous form of this corpse, borne by those men, the dusky skin of whose faces and hands could scarcely be distinguished from their clothing in the darkness.
Glancing up the alley beyond the figures of two policemen who had arrived and were holding the people back, I saw the hood of the conveyance as it came to a halt, and immediately a hospital doctor and two assistants carrying a stretcher hurried towards us, and we made way for them to enter. After a brief interval, they were heard coming slowly down the steps inside.
"We all need practice," said Don. There were no further objections to hard work. The talk became eager as details were planned. The patrol would practice Wednesday afternoon at troop headquarters. Don would work with Ritter on splints, and Tim and Andy and Bobbie would form a team for artificial respiration, fireman's lift and stretcher work.
The stretcher bearer in behind had been killed instantaneously, but fortunately I did not know of this till some time later, nor did I even know he had jumped in behind. The car rattled to such an extent I had not heard the answer to my query, if anyone was coming with me to unload the stretchers. I tried to move and found it impossible.
The mail boat, which had arrived an hour after the Mission boat, was ready to continue its run when, just as it blew a warning blast, down the street of the camp came a procession so strange for this land that men stopped, eyed it curiously, and whispered among themselves. It was a blanketed man upon a stretcher, carried by a doctor and a priest.
The people on the rock helped them out of the water. There were several negroes, a few of whom were women, and three white men. One of the white men held a black infant in his arms, and as the light increased, I recognised my friend Jack Stretcher.
On one side of the room stood the colonel's bed, a camp stretcher covered with army blankets. In a corner stood a washhand-stand, with a real earthenware basin on it. A basin of this sort was a luxury among us. I had a galvanised iron pot and was lucky. Many of us washed in folding canvas buckets. But that colonel did himself well.
They went there, carrying their stretcher, going, going up to the last minute, in delight, in the undying thrill of the danger. The wounded man was not in the plantation. As they looked for him the tram from Lokeren slid in, Red Cross men on the steps, clinging. The doors were flung open and the wounded men came out, stumbling, falling, pushing each other. Somebody cried, "No stretchers!
Steadfast until death, just the men that Australians at home know them to be; into the place with a joke, a dry, cynical, Australian joke as often as not; holding fast through anything that man can imagine; stretcher bearers, fatigue parties, messengers, chaplains, doing their job all the time, both new-joined youngsters and old hands, without fuss, but steadily, because it is their work.
I feel sure that many a poor fellow that I saw carried away upon a stretcher, a lifeless corpse, had given up all hope of recovery and died, for the want of a few cheering words and kindly sympathy from sonic one, instead of the constant abuse and brutality he was subjected to.
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