Here the army surgeons are ready to begin work at once upon the most urgent cases.  They are assisted by members of the corps, who remove the temporary bandages, and put on dressings which will last until the soldier reaches a hospital.  Then from this first gathering point the wounded soldiers are put on stretchers in Red Cross wagons and carried to the field hospitals a few miles farther back, where doctors and nurses are at work.

HOSPITALS IN VILLAGE CHURCHES

These hospitals are usually established in village churches or town halls.  One room is cleared and arranged for an operating room, where bullets and pieces of shell are removed and amputations are made if necessary.

“I have just visited such a field hospital,” said a correspondent with the right wing of the German army in France, writing on September 28.  “It was in a little whitewashed village church heated by a stove.  Everywhere were white beds made of straw and covered with sheets.  Perhaps twenty wounded were here, including two captured Irishmen.  They lay quite still when the army doctor ushered us in, for they were too seriously wounded to pay much attention to anything.

“Near this hospital was another in a town hall.  While we were there a consulting surgeon arrived to investigate the condition of a seriously wounded lieutenant, whose leg might need amputation.  Two orderlies put the patient on a stretcher, and he was taken into the next room for examination.  Later in the day the amputation was performed.

MOVED TO HOSPITALS IN CITIES

“From these little field hospitals, as soon as the men can be moved, they are taken to some general hospital in the nearest large city, where several thousands can be cared for.  Such a hospital exists in this neighborhood in the building of a normal college, where every corner is used in housing wounded men.

“I made a quick trip through this building and the memory of it is one of the most heartrending pictures I have of the war.  Room after room was filled with the victims of the conflict.  Every man was seriously wounded.  Some had suffered amputations and the heads of others were so bandaged that no feature could be seen, only a tube to the nose permitting breathing.

HORROR IN HOSPITAL SIGHTS

“In one room a surgeon had a soldier on the operating table and was pulling pieces of shell from a huge hole in the inner side of one of his legs.  On a stretcher on the floor, waiting for his turn to come under the surgeon’s care, was an officer.  His face was covered with blood, he was waving his arms wildly and gasping for air.  This scene left an impression of the utmost horror upon me.

“Slightly wounded soldiers, whom it is not necessary to leave for a while in the field hospitals, are sent directly to these larger hospitals and thence, after a short convalescence, are loaded into Red Cross trains and sent home for recovery.  Later they return to take their places in the regiments.  Such trains can be seen daily along any main line of railroad.  In some cases freight cars with straw bedding are used.