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Some of the German prisoners were impressed as stretcher-bearers, and one, "Jock," had compelled four Germans to carry him in, while he lay talking to them in broadest Scots, grinning despite his blood and wounds. A London lieutenant called out to a stretcher-bearer helping to carry down a German officer, and was astounded to be greeted by the wounded man.
On this stretcher a German was lying with a white bandage around his knee, near to him lay one of the stretcher-bearers, the red cross on his arm covered with mud and his helmet filled with blood and brains. Close by, sitting up against the wall of the trench, with head resting on his chest, was the other stretcher-bearer.
He was not a soldier, but a hospital-orderly or stretcher-bearer, as you could tell by the white bandage with a red cross on his arm. He had been shot through the shoulder, and someone had plugged up the wound and left him; so now the French soldiers helped him to his feet and started to lead him back.
When the stretcher-bearer came, he could find nothing but a scratch on his cheek, and all of us who were not too scared had a laugh, including the boy himself. I think it was about one o'clock in the afternoon that the Germans broke through the trench on our right, where Major Bing-Hall was in command; and some of the survivors from that trench came over to ours.
Soon I got to know the sound of the battery that was dropping the shells on us, and so knew when to take cover. One of our boys to my left was hit by a pebble on the cheek, and, thinking he was wounded, he fell on the ground and called for a stretcher-bearer.
"Halt! who are you?" called a voice down below. "Friend! stretcher-bearer!" I shouted. "Come here this way!" answered the voice. I went down to a clump of bushes, and a man with a rifle slung over his shoulder stepped forward, and we both glared at each other for a second. "Do yer know where the 45th Company is?" "No idea," said I. "Any water?" "Not a drop left."
Our first bit of news arrived from a curious quarter. In the general excitement, Stretcher-Bearer Chester of "C" Company had not been noticed for some time, although he had not been missed, and now while the arrangements were being made he arrived at the Company Headquarters.
Tim had driven starving, rickety sheep across his native plains when the earth's surface had been powdered to red sand and driven by shrivelling westerlies in travelling sandhills from mirage to summer mirage. Tim was used to hot places. That is why he became a stretcher-bearer for his company in Gallipoli, and transferred to the regimental bombers when they reached France.
This happened near Liège. Trust a boy to use his wits in emergency! Here is another lad, aged fifteen, who found himself in Liège after its surrender, and who wanted to get back to the Belgian Army. He offered his services as stretcher-bearer in the German Army, and was given a German Red Cross pass.
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