File:"Ladies from hell, (1918) (14761006224).jpg

Identifier: ladiesfromhell00pink (find matches)
Title: "Ladies from hell,"
Year: 1918 (1910s)
Authors: Pinkerton, Robert Douglas
Subjects: World War, 1914-1918
Publisher: New York, The Century co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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Text Appearing Before Image:
ering, crawling,
dragging themselves as best they may to the haven
of a first-line dressing-station! You pity them,
yes, and you envy them. Their duty is done, their
waiting is over, they are going back; your duty is
ahead, your fate is uncertain.
They say that the first wounded man you see
remains with you throughout your life, and to this
day I remember mine with an awful vividness.
He was just a kid, and was sitting propped up
against the sand-bagged parapet, by the side of
a shell-hole filled with slimy water. Off to the
left a frog croaked tirelessly, heedless of the hell
about him. The wounded man's eyes were closed,
and his breath was coming in labored gasps. His
tunic was thrown back, and his chest was as white
as a babes; but just over his heart was an ugly
red smudge. Clean through the lung he had it,
and as we passed by he went west, quietly and
peacefully, like a little child moving in its sleep.
There was none of the glory of a dying hero abou
this passing over the great divide. He had merely
Text Appearing After Image:

THE BATTLE FOR LILLE 69

done his duty, having been shot on his return
from delivering a despatch. Through will power
only he held consciousness long enough to crawl
back to his superior's dugout to report his duty
finished, and then he had passed on.
I was still struggling to throw this picture out
of my mind when another chap came limping
back, sweat streaming from his face and both
hands held to his groin.
"Got a fag, boys ?" were his first words. The
fag was instantly forthcoming, but some one had
to light it for him, for he refused to take his hands
from his injured side.
"I got a pretty 'package' here," said he—
"shrapnel". That single word "shrapnel" told
the entire story, the story of a big gaping wound,
and I looked at him curiously.
"I' m getting awfully tired, lads," were his
next words; "I guess I' ll sit down. We helped
him to a comfortable corner, where he puffed con-
tentedly for a moment upon his borrowed ciga-
rette, and then gasped and died.
Crowding by us in that narrow trench, came an
endless line of blood-soaked stretcher cases, some
writhing in awful agony, others white and still
with head wounds. And down on the quick and
the dead alike beat the heat of a noonday sun.

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