First World War Centennial

A VISIT FROM THE KING

CHAPTER VI

A VISIT FROM THE KING

I was taken from Poizers to Albert in a Ford ambulance, or, as the Tommies would say, a "tin Lizzie." The man who drove this vehicle would make a good chauffeur for an adding machine. Apparently, he was counting the bumps in the road for he didn't miss one of them. However, the trip was only a matter of seven miles, and I was in fair condition when they lifted me out and carried me to an operating table in the field dressing station.

A chaplain came along and murmured a little prayer in my ear. I imagine that would make a man feel very solemn if he thought there was a chance he was about to pass out, but I knew I merely had a leg pretty badly smashed up, and, while the chaplain was praying, I was wondering if they would have to cut it off. I figured, if so, this would handicap my dancing.

The first formality in a shrapnel case is the administration of an anti-tetanus inocu­lation, and, when it is done, you realize that they are sure trying to save your life. The doctor uses a horse-syringe, and the injec­tion leaves a lump on your chest as big as a base ball which stays there for forty-eight hours. After the injection a nurse fills out a diagnosis blank with a description of your wounds and a record of your name, age, regiment, regimental number, religion, parentage, and previous history as far as she can discover it without asking questions which would be positively indelicate. After all of that, my wounds were given their first real dressing.

Immediately after this was done, I was bundled into another ambulance—this time a Cadillac—and driven to Contay where the C. C. S. (casualty clearing station) and rail­head were located. In the ambulance with me went three other soldiers, an artillery officer and two privates of infantry. We were all ticketed off as shrapnel cases, and probable recoveries, which latter detail is remarkable, since the most slightly injured in the four had twelve wounds, and there were sixty odd shell fragments or shrapnel balls collectively imbedded in us. The head nurse told me that I had about twenty wounds. Afterward her count proved con­servative. More accurate and later returns showed twenty-two bullets and shell frag­ments in my leg.

We were fairly comfortable in the ambu­lance, and I, especially, had great relief from the fact that the nurse had strapped my leg in a sling attached to the top of the vehi­cle. We smoked cigarettes and chatted cheerfully, exchanging congratulations on having got "clean ones," that is, wounds probably not fatal. The artillery officer told me he had been supporting our bat­talion, that morning, with one of the "sacri­fice batteries." A sacrifice battery, I might explain, is one composed of field pieces which are emplaced between the front and support lines, and which, in case of an at­tack or counter attack, are fired at point-blank range. They call them sacrifice bat­teries because some of them are wiped out every day. This officer said our battalion, that morning, had been supported by an en­tire division of artillery, and that on our front of four hundred yards the eighteen pounders, alone, in a curtain fire which lasted thirty-two minutes, had discharged fifteen thousand rounds of high-explosive shells.

I was impressed by his statement, of course, but I told him that while this was an astonishing lot of ammunition, it was even more surprising to have noticed at close range, as I did, the number of Germans they missed. Toward the end of our trip to Contay, we were much exhausted and pretty badly shaken up. We were beginning also to realize that we were by no means out of the woods, surgically. Our wounds had merely been dressed. Each of us faced an extensive and serious operation. We arrived at Contay, silent and pretty much depressed. For twenty-four hours in the Contay casu­alty clearing station, they did little except feed us and take our temperatures hourly. Then we were put into a hospital train for Rouen.

Right here, I would like to tell a little story about a hospital train leaving Contay for Rouen—not the one we were on, but one which had left a few days before. The train, when it was just ready to depart with a full quota of wounded men, was attacked by German aeroplanes from which bombs were dropped upon it. There is nothing, apparently, that makes the Germans so fear­less and ferocious as the Red Cross emblem. On the top of each of the cars in this train there was a Red Cross big enough to be seen from miles in the air. The German aviators accepted them merely as excellent targets. Their bombs quickly knocked three or four cars from the rails and killed several of the helpless wounded men. The rest of the patients, weak and nervous from recent shock and injury, some of them half delir­ious, and nearly all of them in pain, were thrown into near-panic. Two of

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the nursing sisters in charge of the train were the coolest individuals present. They walked calmly up and down its length, urging the patients to remain quiet, direct­ing the male attendants how to remove the wounded men safely from the wrecked cars, and paying no attention whatever to the bombs which were still exploding near the train. I did not have the privilege of wit­nessing this scene myself, but I know that I have accurately described it for the details were told in an official report when the King decorated the two sisters with the Royal Red Cross, for valor in the face of the enemy.

The trip from Contay to Rouen was a nightmare—twenty-six hours travelling one hundred and fifty miles on a train, which was forever stopping and starting, its jerky and uncertain progress meaning to us just hours and hours of suffering. I do not know whether this part of the system for the re­moval of the wounded has been improved now. Then, its inconveniences and imper­fections must have been inevitable, for, in every way afterward, the most thoughtful and tender care was shown us. In the long row of huts which compose the British Gen­eral Hospital at Rouen, we found ourselves in what seemed like Paradise.

In the hut, which constituted the special ward for leg wounds, I was lifted from the stretcher on which I had travelled all the way from Poizers into a comfortable bed with fresh, clean sheets, and instantly I found myself surrounded with quiet, trained, efficient care. I forgot the pain of my wounds and the dread of the coming op­eration when a tray of delicious food was placed beside my bed and a nurse prepared me for the enjoyment of it by bathing my face and hands with scented water.

On the following morning my leg was X-rayed and photographed. I told the sur­geon I thought the business of operating could very well be put off until I had had about three more square meals, but he couldn't see it that way. In the afternoon, I got my first sickening dose of ether, and they took the first lot of iron out of me. I suppose these were just the surface deposits, for they only got five or six pieces. How­ever, they continued systematically. I had five more operations, and every time I came out of the ether; the row of bullets and shell scraps at the foot of my bed was a little longer. After the number had reached twenty-two, they told me that perhaps there were a few more in there, but they thought they'd better let them stay. My wounds had become septic, and it was necessary to give all attention to drainage and cure. It was about this time that everything, for a while, seemed to become hazy, and my memories got all queerly mixed up and confused. I recollect I conceived a violent dislike for a black dog that appeared from nowhere, now and then, and began chewing at my leg, and I believe I gave the nurse a severe talking to because she insisted on going to look on at the ball game when she ought to be sitting by to chase that dog away. And I was per­fectly certain about her being at the ball game, because I saw her there when I was playing third base.

It was at this time (on November 28, 1916, ten days after I had been wounded) that my father, in Lexington, received the following cablegram from the officer in charge of the Canadian records, in Eng­land:

"Sincerely regret to inform you that Ser­geant Alexander McClintock is officially reported dangerously ill in No. 5 General Hospital, from gunshot wound in left thigh. Further particulars supplied when re­ceived."

It appears that, during the time of my ad­ventures with the black dog and the inatten­tive nurse, my temperament had ascended to the stage when the doctors begin to admit that another method of treatment might have been successful. But I didn't pass out. The one thing I most regret about my close call is that my parents, in Lexington, were in unrelieved suspense about my condition until I myself sent them a cable from Lon­don, on December 15th. After the first official message, seemingly prepared almost as a preface to the announcement of my de­mise, my father received no news of me whatever. And, as I didn't know that the official message had gone, I cabled nothing to him until I was feeling fairly chipper again. You can't have wars, though, with­out these little misunderstandings.

If it were possible, I should say some­thing here which would be fitting and ade­quate about the English women who nursed the twenty-five hundred wounded men in General Hospital No. 5, at Rouen. But that power isn't given me. All I can do is to fall back upon our most profound Ameri­can expression of respect and say that my hat is off to them. One nurse in the ward in which I lay had been on her feet for fifty-six hours, with hardly time, even to eat. She finally fainted from exhaustion, was carried out of the ward, and was back again in four hours, assisting at an operation. And the doctors were doing their bit, too, in liv­ing up to the obligations which they consid­ered to be theirs. An operating room was in every ward with five tables in each. After the fight on the Somme, in which I was wounded, not a table was vacant any hour in the twenty-four, for days at a time. Out­side of each room was a long line of stretch­ers containing patients next awaiting surgi­cal attention. And in all that stress, I did not hear one word of complaint from the surgeons who stood, hour after hour, using their skill and training for the petty pay of English army medical officers.

On December 5th, I was told I was well enough to be sent to England and, on the next day, I went on a hospital train from Rouen to Havre. Here I was placed on a hospital ship which every medical officer in our army ought to have a chance to inspect. Nothing ingenu­ity could contrive for convenience and com­fort was missing. Patients were sent below decks in elevators, and then placed in swing­ing cradles which hung level no matter what the ship's motion might be. As soon as I had been made comfortable in my particu­lar cradle, I was given a box which had engraved upon it: "Presented with the com­pliments of the Union Castle Line. May you have a speedy and good recovery." The box contained cigarettes, tobacco, and a pipe.

When the ship docked at Southampton, after a run of eight hours across channel, each patient was asked what part of the British Isles he would like to be taken to for the period of his convalescence. I re­quested to be taken to London, where, I thought, there was the best chance of my see­ing Americans who might know me. Say, I sure made a good guess. I didn't know many Americans, but I didn't need to know them. They found me and made themselves acquainted. They brought things, and then they went out to get more they had forgotten to bring the first trip. The second day after I had been installed on a cot in the King George Hospital, in London, I sent fifteen hundred cigarettes back to the boys of our battalion in France out of my surplus stock. If I had undertaken to eat and drink and smoke all the things that were brought to me by Americans, just because I was an American, I'd be back in that hospital now, only getting fairly started on the job. It's some country when you need it.

The wounded soldier, getting back to England, doesn't have a chance to imagine that his services are not appreciated. The welcome he receives begins at the railroad station. All traffic is stopped by the Bob­bies to give the ambulances a clear way leaving the station. The people stand in crowds, the men with their hats off, while the ambulances pass. Women rush out and throw flowers to the wounded men. Some­times there is a cheer, but usually only silence and words of sympathy.

The King George Hospital was built to be a government printing office, and was nearing completion when the war broke out. It has been made a Paradise for convales­cent men. The bareness and the sick sug­gestion and characteristic smell of the average hospital are unknown here. There are soft lights and comfortable beds and pretty women going about as visitors. The stage beauties and comedians come and entertain us. The food is delicious, and the chief thought of every one seems to be to show the inmates what a comfortable and cheery thing it is to be ill among a lot of real friends. I was there from December until February, and my recollections of the stay are so pleasant that sometimes I wish I was back.

On the Friday before Christmas there was a concert in our ward. Among the ar­tists who entertained us were Fay Compton, Gertrude Elliott (sister of Maxine Elliott), George Robie, and other stars of the Lon­don stage. After our protracted stay in the trenches and our long absence from all the civilized forms of amusement, the affair seemed to us the most wonderful show ever given. And, in some ways, it was. For in­stance, in the most entertaining of dramatic exhibitions, did you ever see the lady artists go around and reward enthusiastic applause with kisses? Well that's what we got. And I am proud to say that it was Miss Comp­ton who conferred this honor upon me.

At about three o'clock on that afternoon, when we were all having a good time, one of the orderlies threw open the door of the ward and announced in a loud voice that His Majesty, the King, was coming in. We could not have been more surprised if some one had thrown in a Mills bomb. Almost immediately the King walked in, accompan­ied by a number of aides. They were all in service uniforms, the King having little in his attire to distinguish him from the others. He walked around, pre­senting each patient with a copy of "Queen Mary's Gift Book," an artistic little volume with pictures and short stories by the most famous of English artists and writers. When he neared my bed, he turned to one of the nurses and inquired:

"Is this the one?"

The nurse nodded. He came and sat at the side of the bed and shook hands with me. He asked as to what part of the United States I had come from, how I got my wounds, and what the nature of them were, how I was getting along, and what I par­ticularly wished done for me. I answered his questions and said that everything I could possibly wish for had already been done for me.

"I thank you," he said, "for myself and my people for your services. Our gratitude cannot be great enough toward men who have served us as you have."

He spoke in a very low voice and with no assumption of royal dignity. There was nothing in the least thrilling about the inci­dent, but there was much apparent sincerity in the few words.

After he had gone, one of the nurses asked me what he had said.

"Oh," I said, "George asked me what I thought about the way the war was being conducted, and I said I'd drop in and talk it over with him as soon as I was well enough to be up."

There happened one of the great disap­pointments of my life. She didn't see the joke. She was English. She gasped and glared at me, and I think she went out and reported that I was delirious again.

Really, I wasn't much impressed by the English King. He seemed a pleasant, tired little man, with a great burden to bear, and not much of an idea about how to bear it. He struck me as an individual who would conscientiously do his best in any situation, but would never do or say anything with the slightest suspicion of a punch about it. A few days after his visit to the hospital, I saw in the Official London Gazette that I had been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal. Official letters from the Canadian headquar­ters amplified this information, and a notice from the British War Office informed me that the medal awaited me there. I was told the King knew that the medal had been awarded to me, when he spoke to me in the hospital. Despite glowing reports in the Kentucky press, he didn't pin it on me. Probably he didn't have it with him. Or, perhaps, he didn't consider it good form to hang a D. C. M. on a suit of striped, pre­sentation pajamas with a prevailing tone of baby blue.^{* *}Editor's Note.—The medal was formally presented to Sergt. McClintock by the British Consul General, in New York City, on August 15, 1917. While I was in the King George Hos­pital I witnessed one of the most wonderful examples of courage and pluck I had ever seen. A young Scot, only nineteen years old, McAuley by name, had had the greater part of his face blown away. The surgeons had patched him up in some fashion, but he was horribly disfigured. He was the bright­est, merriest man in the ward, always jok­ing and never depressed. His own terrible misfortune was merely the topic for humor­ous comment with him. He seemed to get positive amusement out of the fact that the surgeons were always sending for him to do something more with his face. One day he was going into the operating room and a fellow patient asked him what the new op­eration was to be.

"Oh," he said, "I'm going to have a cab­bage put on in place of a head. It'll grow better than the one I have now."

Once in a fortnight he would manage to get leave to absent himself from the hos­pital for an hour or two. He never came back alone. It took a couple of men to bring him back. On the next morning, he would say:

"Well, it was my birthday. A man must have a few drinks on his birthday."

I was discharged from the hospital in the middle of February and sent to a comfort­able place at Hastings, Sussex, where I lived until my furlough papers came through. I had a fine time in London at the theatres and clubs pending my depart­ure for home. When my furlough had ar­rived, I went to Buxton, Derbyshire, where the Canadian Discharge Depot was located and was provided with transportation to Montreal. I came back to America on the Canadian Pacific Royal Mail steamer, Metagama, and the trip was without inci­dent of any sort. We lay for a time in the Mersey, awaiting word that our convoy was ready to see us out of the danger zone, and a destroyer escorted us four hundred miles on our way.

I was informed, before my departure, that a commission as lieutenant in the Canadian forces awaited my return from furlough, and I had every intention of going back to accept it. But, since I got to America, things have happened. Now, it's the army of Uncle Sam, for mine. I've written these stories to show what we are up against. It's going to be a tough game, and a bloody one, and a sorrowful one for many. But it's up to us to save the issue where it's mostly right on one side, and all wrong on the other and I'm glad we're in. I'm not willing to quit soldiering now, but I will be when we get through with this. When we finish up with this, there won't be any necessity for soldiering. The world will be free of war for a long, long time—and a God's mercy, that. Let me take another man's eloquent words for my last ones:

Oh! spacious days of glory and of grieving!

Oh! sounding hours of lustre and of loss;

Let us be glad we lived, you still believing

The God who gave the Cannon gave the Cross.

Let us doubt not, amid these seething passions,

The lusts of blood and hate our souls abhor:

The Power that Order out of Chaos fashions

Smites fiercest in the wrath-red forge of War.

Have faith! Fight on! Amid the battle-hell,

Love triumphs, Freedom beacons, All is well.

(Robert W. Service, "Rhymes of a Red Cross Man.")

THE END.