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                    _By Ellen N. La Motte_


                    The Tuberculosis Nurse

                      The Backwash of War




                             The
                        Backwash of War

            The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield
                  as Witnessed by an American
                        Hospital Nurse

                              By
                       Ellen N. La Motte


                      G. P. Putnam's Sons
                      New York and London
                    The Knickerbocker Press
                             1916




                        Copyright, 1916
                              BY
                       ELLEN N. LA MOTTE

                The Knickerbocker Press, New York




                              To
                       MARY BORDEN-TURNER

                       "The Little Boss"

                 TO WHOM I OWE MY EXPERIENCE IN
                     THE ZONE OF THE ARMIES




INTRODUCTION


This war has been described as "Months of boredom, punctuated by moments
of intense fright." The writer of these sketches has experienced many
"months of boredom," in a French military field hospital, situated ten
kilometres behind the lines, in Belgium. During these months, the
lines have not moved, either forward or backward, but have remained
dead-locked, in one position. Undoubtedly, up and down the long-reaching
kilometres of "Front" there has been action, and "moments of intense
fright" have produced glorious deeds of valour, courage, devotion, and
nobility. But when there is little or no action, there is a stagnant
place, and in a stagnant place there is much ugliness. Much ugliness is
churned up in the wake of mighty, moving forces. We are witnessing a
phase in the evolution of humanity, a phase called War--and the slow,
onward progress stirs up the slime in the shallows, and this is the
Backwash of War. It is very ugly. There are many little lives foaming up
in the backwash. They are loosened by the sweeping current, and float to
the surface, detached from their environment, and one glimpses them,
weak, hideous, repellent. After the war, they will consolidate again
into the condition called Peace.

After this war, there will be many other wars, and in the intervals
there will be peace. So it will alternate for many generations. By
examining the things cast up in the backwash, we can gauge the progress
of humanity. When clean little lives, when clean little souls boil up in
the backwash, they will consolidate, after the final war, into a peace
that shall endure. But not till then.

                                                  E. N. L. M.




CONTENTS

                                       PAGE

HEROES                                   3

LA PATRIE RECONNAISSANTE                17

THE HOLE IN THE HEDGE                   35

ALONE                                   49

A BELGIAN CIVILIAN                      63

THE INTERVAL                            77

WOMEN AND WIVES                         95

POUR LA PATRIE                         115

LOCOMOTOR ATAXIA                       129

A SURGICAL TRIUMPH                     143

AT THE TELEPHONE                       159

A CITATION                             167

AN INCIDENT                            181




HEROES


When he could stand it no longer, he fired a revolver up through the
roof of his mouth, but he made a mess of it. The ball tore out his left
eye, and then lodged somewhere under his skull, so they bundled him into
an ambulance and carried him, cursing and screaming, to the nearest
field hospital. The journey was made in double-quick time, over rough
Belgian roads. To save his life, he must reach the hospital without
delay, and if he was bounced to death jolting along at breakneck speed,
it did not matter. That was understood. He was a deserter, and
discipline must be maintained. Since he had failed in the job, his life
must be saved, he must be nursed back to health, until he was well
enough to be stood up against a wall and shot. This is War. Things like
this also happen in peace time, but not so obviously.

At the hospital, he behaved abominably. The ambulance men declared that
he had tried to throw himself out of the back of the ambulance, that he
had yelled and hurled himself about, and spat blood all over the floor
and blankets--in short, he was very disagreeable. Upon the operating
table, he was no more reasonable. He shouted and screamed and threw
himself from side to side, and it took a dozen leather straps and four
or five orderlies to hold him in position, so that the surgeon could
examine him. During this commotion, his left eye rolled about loosely
upon his cheek, and from his bleeding mouth he shot great clots of
stagnant blood, caring not where they fell. One fell upon the immaculate
white uniform of the Directrice, and stained her, from breast to shoes.
It was disgusting. They told him it was _La Directrice_, and that he
must be careful. For an instant he stopped his raving, and regarded her
fixedly with his remaining eye, then took aim afresh, and again covered
her with his coward blood. Truly it was disgusting.

To the _Medecin Major_ it was incomprehensible, and he said so. To
attempt to kill oneself, when, in these days, it was so easy to die with
honour upon the battlefield, was something he could not understand. So
the _Medecin Major_ stood patiently aside, his arms crossed, his supple
fingers pulling the long black hairs on his bare arms, waiting. He had
long to wait, for it was difficult to get the man under the anaesthetic.
Many cans of ether were used, which went to prove that the patient was a
drinking man. Whether he had acquired the habit of hard drink before or
since the war could not be ascertained; the war had lasted a year now,
and in that time many habits may be formed. As the _Medecin Major_
stood there, patiently fingering the hairs on his hairy arms, he
calculated the amount of ether that was expended--five cans of ether, at
so many francs a can--however, the ether was a donation from America, so
it did not matter. Even so, it was wasteful.

At last they said he was ready. He was quiet. During his struggles, they
had broken out two big teeth with the mouth gag, and that added a little
more blood to the blood already choking him. Then the _Medecin Major_
did a very skilful operation. He trephined the skull, extracted the
bullet that had lodged beneath it, and bound back in place that erratic
eye. After which the man was sent over to the ward, while the surgeon
returned hungrily to his dinner, long overdue.

In the ward, the man was a bad patient.