Bedside to wish him a painless night and restful
slumber, we were always greeted by kind words of hope and cheer
and a pleasant smile. How those cheery good-nights softened the
roaring cannon, and screaming shells into a mere echo, and that
smiling countenance made radiant the grim halls of indescribable
suffering and death!
Well do we remember that Lieut. Lady's concern was not for
himself but only for the welfare of others. As he looked across
the way where Private Everson of Company A, in the 26th
Division, who had been wounded in such a manner as to make it
impossible for him to lie down, sat propped up with blankets, he
exclaimed, "I pity that poor fellow so! Oh, how I wish I could
help him!" How self vanished like a blighted thing as we heard
those words of pity coming from one whose suffering was beyond
human words to express. Truly, a life like this had caught a
glow of that redeeming light which radiates from the cross
itself.
Again, we recalled that awful night in November when we moved
with hurried yet silent tread among the cots on which lay
figures in many uneasy attitudes, some brokenly slumbering and
muttering through helpless delirium; others uttering suppressed
moans as they lay tossing upon their cots.
Just as we were preparing to leave the ward to the night men,
after the temperatures and pulse rates of all the patients had
been taken and registered, the gas alarm sounded. Instantly we
made ready to put onto the patients the gas masks which were in
readiness at the head of each cot. Just then the cry of fire was
whispered to the ward men, who at once began preparations for
the removal of the patients to the opposite side of the hospital
grounds. All out of doors was intense blackness - a blackness
only relieved by the flashes of guns that made the eastern sky
blaze with their crimson light.
Suddenly the flames leaped from the operating room, in the end
containing the sterilizer. Soon they cast a lurid glow upon the
dark clouds. Hurriedly, yet quietly, we removed the patients to
a place in which they would be safe. Two of the wards had
already caught fire on their sides nearest the operating room.
The many patients in this room along with those undergoing
operations on the thirteen operating tables were rushed into
another building where the work was immediately resumed. Each
patient who caught sight of the bright light that streamed in
through the open doors, was busy with many eager questions on
his perturbed mind. Yet no one spoke a word but watched in
suspense that was almost pain, the fiery glow that spread
around, until horror distorted many a face.
