The method of caring for the wounded at the front depends a great deal upon whether a battalion is holding a set of trenches on a standing front, or advancing, either in a big push, or in a raid. The medical officer to a fighting battalion is the member of the Army Medical Corps who is closer to the firing line than any of the other officers of that corps in the whole theater of war. He is served by the nearest field ambulance, whose stretcher bearers not only evacuate the wounded from his R.A.P.—regimental aid post—but also keep him supplied with medicines, dressings, splints, and other medical and surgical necessities. His food is sent up with that of the remainder of his battalion from his own battalion transport.

The field ambulance evacuates the severe cases to the nearest C.C.S.—casualty clearing station—which is the closest hospital to the lines. It is at the C.C.S. that the necessary operations are performed. Here the real surgical work of the medical corps begins, for up to that station it is much a matter of first aid. From the casualty clearing station cases that look as if they will require protracted attention are transferred to ambulance trains, which convey the cases fifty, sixty, or more miles to the base hospitals at the rear, perhaps about Boulogne, Havre and other towns reasonably well out of danger. And from these hospitals the wounded or sick may be transferred again, this time to hospital ships which cross the channel to one of our channel ports. At these points they are once more put aboard ambulance trains and distributed to hospitals in London, Manchester, Canterbury, Edinburgh or any of the other large hospital centers.

Suppose that a battalion is holding a part of the entrenched front, roughly one thousand yards square. The medical officer always travels with his battalion. In an area such as this his R.A.P. would be in a dugout somewhere in the vicinity of the one which is used as headquarters for the battalion. A medical officer\'s position is toward the rear of his battalion whether the men are on the march, in an advance, or holding the lines, for the reason that the wounded and sick are naturally sent toward the rear. Very commonly the R.A.P. is about half way from the rear support trench to the firing line.

The dugout of the M.O. is generally of the superficial variety. It has a roof made up of two or three layers of bags of sand piled on top of a layer of boards, just sufficient to give one a feeling of security in a most insecure position. A straight hit from a shell on the roof of this type of dugout means that a new medical officer will be required for that battalion at once. I have a vivid recollection of my first experience in such a dugout, long before I had become accustomed to living in them by the week. It was on a fairly active front near Bully Grenay. I had been sent from a field ambulance to relieve the regular M.O. while he took a well earned leave. His palatial residence was only about two hundred yards from the front line, its ceiling was less than six feet from the floor, for my head hit it whenever I stood up, and the rain which poured for days trickled down our necks as it filtered through the roof in many places. The shells kept dropping most annoyingly that first day, hitting everywhere except exactly on the center of the roof, and I knew it was only a matter of minutes till one landed there. Then to add to my uneasiness the sergeant lit a fire with wet wood which made a black smoke that poured from the bit of tin which was used for a pipe in the roof. This was the finishing touch, for I felt certain that every gunner on that front was using that smoke for a target. Turning to the sergeant, I asked with as cool a manner as I could command:

"How close do those shells have to come before you would consider it advisable to move out?"

"To move out? Oh, coming through the roof, I guess," he answered, with a blank stare. I did not dare to ask any more questions, but I thought to myself,—"what a nice, healthy time to move!" It took some time for me to become accustomed to that billet, but out there one learns to become accustomed to anything.

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:

"Did you mugs ever hear de story of de two specials wot met in Lon\'on de oder day? Naw? Well, I\'ll tell yez. Two special constables met, an\' one o\' dem had no hat, coat all torn to rags, bot\' eyes black, an\' some hair gone. \'Hello, Brown,\' says de oder, \'wot-a-hell\'s wrong wid yez?\' An\' de first answers: \'Ye know dat purty little Missus Smit wot lives behind de Lion an\' Dragon whose husban\'s gone to de front? Well, he ain\'t gone!\'"

Even the wounded man joined the laugh. They all finished their smoke without even glancing in the direction of the shells bursting nearby, when the stretcher was picked up and carried safely to the rear. His officers all say that they would as quickly trust Tom in a ticklish job as any other man in the world. But he is just an example of the thousands of loyal, life-risking stretcher bearers—some, like Tom, rough, uneducated, uncouth; many others with the culture acquired in college halls and drawing rooms—who are daily and nightly giving of their blood and their service to the men in the lines.

These bearers wear a red cross on the arm, are non-combatant troops and carry no rifles. Each two of them carry a stretcher, and all of them carry a little haversack slung over the shoulder and filled with large and small surgical dressings, bandages, scissors, splints, and perhaps a bottle of iodine. Being non-combatant troops they are supposed to be allowed to carry out their work in comparative safety, but they really run the same risks as the combatants. This is to be expected in severe actions, for a machine-gunner or artilleryman cannot even try to avoid the stretcher bearers when they are mixed up, as they always are, with the fighting troops.

But, at any rate, the Germans get the reputation of caring as little for red crosses or white flags as they do for scraps of paper. One afternoon I stood in a trench one-quarter mile from Willerval which was held by our troops, and in the ruins of which there was an advanced dressing station of a field ambulance. For some reason two ambulances came over the crest of Vimy Ridge in broad daylight, in plain view of the Germans, and ran rapidly down into Willerval. They arrived without mishap, but one-half hour later I saw them start back over the ridge a few minutes apart. The first one had got one-half way up the steep side of the ridge when a heavy German shell lit thirty feet behind it. And then shell after shell dropped behind it all the way up the steep slope. Fortunately the gunner\'s aim was short, for the car disappeared from view over the crest. Then the second car made the trip, the German shells falling behind it just as they had with the first one. They both got out in safety, but no thanks were due to the Huns who had done their best to get them with heavy shells. That was one instance in which I saw the Germans shell two ambulances which could not have been mistaken for any other type of vehicle.

Suppose a soldier is hit by a piec............