In front of the Medical Officer are the men who hold the line. There are four platoons to a company, four companies to a battalion; and with each platoon is one stretcher bearer, making sixteen bearers to each battalion. These stretcher bearers are trained in first aid, dressings, setting fractures and so forth by the M.O. of their regiment when they are out at rest billets behind the lines. In the lines they accompany their platoons and companies, and when the men go over the top in raids and advances the stretcher bearers go with them, stopping to dress and care for the wounded as they cross the battle area.
No finer set of men serve out there than the stretcher bearers, whether they serve with a battalion, an ambulance, or any other unit. Their work is without the stimulation or excitement the fighting men get, but has the same dangers and hardships. They go over the top as do the others, and it is their duty to carry wounded with all haste through heavily bombarded areas. The fact that, out of thirty-two stretcher bearers used by me in three days, thirteen were hit, well illustrates the dangers that these boys cheerfully go through. A good story is told of one of them, a chap who in civil life had been a "tough" in the slums of one of our large cities, and who had seen the inside of a jail more than once, but who as a stretcher bearer faced coolly, even gayly, any extraordinary danger to get his wounded to the rear.
He was in charge of a squad for Number ---- Canadian Field Ambulance one day. He and his men were taking a stretcher case over a ridge which was under constant and heavy shell fire. Tiring, he commanded his squad to stop and rest. They obeyed, but demurred, saying that it was too dangerous a place to rest.
"Naw," he said, lighting a cigarette after handing one to the wounded man, "there ain't no danger. Sit down an' take it easy."
"But, look here now, Tom," the others argued, "you may be the first to have one of those bally shells blow you into Kingdom Come."
"Not--by--one--damsite," he slowly replied, "I've got a hunch dat I'm goin' to slip me arm round Lizzie once agen before dey get me;" and he lay on the ground and thoughtfully puffed at his cigarette. So the others joined him, for their bravery was unquestioned; and with the philosophy so common out there, one said,--"Well, I guess we can stand it if you can." Tom had puffed at his fag a few moments with the shells dropping dangerously near, when, without changing his position, he asked:
