Chapter XI: Part 11

"She's a goner," I heard one of our men say. The German cruiser was a burning wreck, but she kept the two small guns, one at each end, firing away to the last. Then one of our destroyers rushed in to close quarters and gave her the finishing blow with a torpedo.

III--THE WOUNDED ON THE BLOODY DECK

It was not until the latter part of the affair that I was called upon to deal with any wounded, and then a rapid succession of cases were either carried or managed to walk to the main deck after, where, assisted by the first-aid party, I cleansed and dressed their wounds. Two or three returned to duty the same afternoon, the others being placed in the wardroom temporarily after dressings had been applied, a reliable first-aid man being placed in charge. In addition, one case was treated at the forward station, and later on in the day a man who had received a somewhat severe contusion and abrasion of the thigh from a spent fragment of shell reported himself. Seven of the eight cases were wounds due to fragments of shell and splinters of steel or wood from the ship. The exception was a scald of the forearm, sustained by a stoker while investigating a steam pipe burst by an exploding shell.

While I was occupied with the cases mentioned above, we had taken the destroyer _Laertes_ in tow, she being temporarily disabled by gunfire; and the order coming to retire, we proceeded from the scene of action for some considerable distance, when I was ordered to go to the _Laertes_ to attend to some seriously wounded, and tranship them. The _Laertes_ was cast off, and lay some two cables away. Arriving on board I found the worst case was that of a young stoker in a serious condition from shock and loss of blood. He had sustained several shell wounds, one of which involved the left tibia and fibula, some two inches of the tibia being torn away from its middle third.

Around this patient the deck was covered with blood, and so slippery that I had to send for cloths to be put down to enable me to keep a footing. The condition of the deck enabled one to form an idea of how decks were on the _Mainz_, where 200 men were killed. Near by were two others, somewhat less severely wounded, lying on the deck, while just behind me lay two figures covered with the Union Jack. The wounded had all received first aid, the wounds being neatly dressed, but considerable hemorrhage was going on. Returning with these cases to the _Fearless_ I found several other wounded had already been brought on board from other destroyers. The sick bay, which had been prepared to receive the most serious cases, was soon filled, and others were sitting or lying on the mess deck near by.

Owing to the probable proximity of the enemy I had to bear in mind the necessity for all possible speed, which was awkward, as they required very careful handling. However, I hurried up as much as I was able. Sudden manoeuvring or the shock of shells hitting us might make our work impossible. Firstly, iodine was applied to the majority of wounds and their immediate area, and a fresh temporary dressing applied. Then ably assisted by the sick-berth steward and two first-aid men, I spent the next few hours in endeavoring to get these, for the most part, very dirty patients, as clean as possible. It should be added that, at this stage, morphia was administered by hypodermic injection to three or four cases, and again once or twice during the night. It was found to be very beneficial.

Many of the men had lost an arm and a leg, and in some cases both arms and legs. Several poor fellows had their faces almost entirely blown away.

I had prepared masks of lint for the faces, specially medicated, to relieve the terrible burns caused by the picric acid used in shells.

A German seaman, a brawny young fellow, suffered much pain and considerable loss of blood from a wound in his left foot. Examination showed the presence of a piece of metal, embedded in the lower part of the instep, from underneath which steady oozing of blood was occurring. I put the patient under chloroform, and he was kept lightly under, most excellently, by the Paymaster, while I removed the fragment of shell and many pieces of loose bone. The removal proved more difficult than I had anticipated, owing to the numerous "talons" the piece of shell possessed. These pointed in all directions, and were embedded in the bones of the foot so firmly that it was rather like the extraction of a huge molar with a dozen or more distorted fangs. The fragment weighed some six ounces, and its removal gave the patient great relief.

A German seaman had compound comminuated fracture of right radius, ulna, and humerus, due to a huge wound in the neighborhood of the elbow. Multiple wounds of face and body and a scalp wound. This man appeared to be suffering from severe shock, was at times wandering in his mind, but at others quite clear. The wound in the scalp was found later to penetrate the skull in the left frontal region. He died after several days in hospital.

IV--"IT WAS VERY FINE SPORT"

A sub-lieutenant I discovered sitting in the wardroom with his legs upon a chair. He had sustained a "lozenge-shaped" clean cut shell wound in the middle of right thigh, about 5 inches by 2 inches, and passing deeply through the anterior muscles. He was very cheery and was only anxious to get back to his work, which he did after two or three weeks.

A captain-lieutenant of the sunken German destroyer V187 had been struck in the right side by a piece of shell, the force of the blow throwing him overboard just before his ship sank. He was taken out of the water about half an hour later. The wound was situated over the lower right rib, was oval in shape and about one and a half inches in diameter. He was passing blood and had a good deal of pain in the abdomen. It was suspected that a piece of shell had penetrated the abdomen, but X-rays showed nothing.

He was a good type of officer. On asking him what he thought of the affair, he replied, "Ah, it was very fine sport."

The courage and endurance of the patients were admirable. In only one case did I hear any "grousing," as our sailors call any kind of complaining, and this was in one of the less severely injured. A suggestion that many around him were in an infinitely worse plight than he, and were enduring their troubles cheerfully, made a difference, and after a little refreshment he was as good as the rest of them. Some of the Germans were at first rather sullen, but their confidence was soon gained when they found that I could speak to them in their own language, and that we were intent upon doing our best for them.

I found beef tea, brandy, ship's cocoa made with milk, most useful and acceptable for those who could not take solid food. At first one or two of the Germans hesitated about drinking what was offered them, but they soon thawed and took their portion gratefully, and, in fact, their gratitude a little later for what had been done for them was remarkable.

I was able to report to the captain on the bridge, at about 4 A.M., that all cases had been dealt with, had been washed, dressed, fed and made as comfortable as circumstances would allow.

On arrival in harbor about midday on August 29, the more serious cases were transferred to Shotley Sick Quarters, the others to the hospital ship _Liberty_. I accompanied the former cases, and soon after seeing them safely disposed of returned to the ship, had some food and turned in about 5:30 P.M., having been up some thirty-seven hours. Curiously enough, though tired, I could not sleep well owing to a bad cramp in both my calves, but I had passed a very interesting day and a half. (Told in the _New York American_.)

AIRMEN IN THE DESERTS OF EGYPT

_Adventures of the Royal Flying Corps in Sinai_

_Told by F. W. Martindale_

The land has its perils for the aviator, and so has the sea; but
our "fliers" in Egypt have learnt to dread the treacherous desert
more than anything else. Here are two little stories from the
annals of the R. F. C.--one near tragedy, the other real tragedy,
lightened only by the amazing self-sacrifice of a young officer and
the dogged pluck of his mechanic, who posted up his diary while
awaiting death. Recorded in the _Wide World Magazine_.

I--FLYING OVER THE ANCIENT HOLY LANDS

Whatever the professional distinction may be between the two branches of the aviation service, the broad difference in the public mind between the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service is that the former fly over land and the latter over sea. And whatever the relative advantages, and the reverse, of these opposite conditions may be, a certain amount of sympathy inevitably goes out to the naval airman in the supposedly more difficult element from which he starts and on which he has to make his "landing" on return. The mystery and the menace of the sea, which has always made sailors a race apart, is so real and apprehensible a thing, even to the landsman, that instinctively the sea is felt to be a source of greater peril to the airman than the land.

Be this as it may, it has fallen to the lot of the Royal Flying Corps in this war to face an "element"--if one may call it such--as mysterious as the ocean, and not a whit less menacing. This is the desert--a thing which casts a spell upon those who have to dare it as potent and as fearful as any with which the sea holds the mariner in thrall.

Mutable to the eye as the face of the waters, sudden and fickle in mood as the sea itself, there lurks in the desert an even grimmer menace than that which gives the sailor his wary, vigilant eye. The cruelty of the sea is nothing to the cruelty of the desert. Ask the airman who has made trial of both, and he will tell you that better a hundred times the risk of falling into the clutches of the uncertain sea than the chance of finding himself at the mercy of the pitiless desert.

Here is a case in point--a little excerpt from the doings of the Royal Flying Corps, which it would be hard to match even in the records of that adventurous service. Pilot and observer set off in an aeroplane upon a single-handed reconnaissance towards the enemy's lines in Sinai. A long flight was made over the desert, and the machine was a long way from its base when that terrible bugbear known as "engine-trouble" developed. All attempts to right it in the air proved abortive, and a forced descent was made. The aeroplane alighted on the desert waste, and the two occupants worked feverishly to adjust the faulty mechanism. Their dismay can be imagined when they found repair impossible, and realized that between themselves and the Canal lay a stretch of some twenty miles of desert, over which no means of progress was possible to them save their own legs.

It says much for the loyalty to the duty of these two airmen that they carefully dismantled the gun which was mounted on the machine before setting fire to the latter, and that they actually set off on their long tramp across the burning desert carrying the gun between them.

It soon became evident that any idea of saving the gun by taking it all the way with them was hopeless. The weight, not inconsiderable under any condition, was insupportable, and before long there was no course possible but to bury the weapon in the sand, obliterating as best they could all tell-tale traces which might reveal its hidden presence to a chance enemy patrol.

II--OVER THE BURNING DESERT WITH A GUN

Progress was easier when the cumbersome weapon had been disposed of. But it was not long before clothing had to be jettisoned also. The relatively thick and heavy garments of an aviator were intolerable under the savage rays of the sun, and one by one they had to be discarded. Even so, the going was terribly difficult and the journey most exacting. By means of a compass a direction due west was maintained, the one hope of the castaways being to keep on until some point on the Canal should be reached.

The hours went slowly by as mile after mile was laboriously covered. The strength of both men was steadily declining, but it was not until something more than half the estimated distance from their goal had been accomplished that either gave way. Then one collapsed; he could go no farther, he declared. His companion, well aware how fatally seductive a "rest" would inevitably be, bade him keep going, but without effect. The weary man's legs gave way beneath him; he sank down on the sand, and declared that he _preferred_ to stay there rather than attempt to struggle on any longer. Advice, persuasion, cajolery, threats, and even force were of no avail, and nothing remained but for the second man to continue the journey, with waning hope, alone. To stay with his comrade meant that both must inevitably perish miserably; by pressing on there was, at all events, a faint chance, not only of reaching the Canal himself, but of summoning aid to return in time to rescue the other.

For some miles the wretched survivor, now tortured by an awful thirst and so weakened that he seemed scarcely able to move his legs, staggered blindly on across the desert. He had consciousness enough to maintain his westerly direction, but as to how long he continued stumbling forward in this almost aimless fashion, or what distance he covered, he can hazard only the wildest guess. His progress became largely automatic. Force of will kept him moving, his reluctant limbs relapsing into semi-mechanical action.

At the moment of his direst extremity, as it seemed, when from sheer lack of power his body threatened to collapse altogether, the hapless wanderer espied a horse before him in the desert!

Now, if this were fiction, no writer, however cynical, would ever dare to introduce a horse at such a point of the narrative. The thing would be too absurd; the long arm of coincidence never reached so far as that! Nobody could be expected to believe it.

Yet the fact is as stated. At the psychological moment, when every new step taken might have proved his last, the wanderer saw before him in the desert the miraculous apparition of a horse. It can be easily supposed that at first he did not believe his eyes. In his half-demented state he feared the creature must be an hallucination--some trick of mirage, or the mere figment of his disordered brain. Only when he came nearer, and could hear as well as see the animal move, did a full realization of his good fortune begin to dawn upon him.

III--TALE OF MODERN ARABIAN NIGHTS

A sail in unfrequented latitudes never seemed more truly a godsend to castaways at sea than this marvellous horse to the exhausted airman. It was but a stray animal belonging to some mounted unit which had drawn the peg of its head-rope and escaped from the horse-lines into the open desert, but to the incredulous eyes which suddenly perceived its presence it might well have been the famous magic steed of the Arabian Nights.

To catch the animal was the immediate thing to be done, and anyone who has tried to catch a shy horse in a paddock can imagine the hideous anxiety on the part of an exhausted man in approaching an animal which has the illimitable desert to manoeuvre in, and has but to kick up its heels to vanish in a trice over the horizon. Fortunately, the creature evinced but little shyness, and suffered itself to be taken without difficulty. It is probable, indeed, that this desert encounter was not less welcome on the one side than on the other.

One wonders how the would-be rider ever managed to get astride his lucky steed. His legs had little enough capacity for a spring left in them. But necessity and hope in combination provide a wonderful incentive and spur, and somehow or other he scrambled up. He himself has hazy recollections only of this stage of his adventures, and beyond the fact that he _did_ mount that horse, and manage to set it going in a westerly direction, his recollections are vague.

The next phase of the story is contained in the narrative of the officer commanding a patrol vessel on the Suez Canal, who relates that while on duty his attention was directed to a strange figure riding on horseback along the eastern bank of the Canal. At first sight he supposed it to be some mounted Arab or other nomad of the desert, but on closer inspection the horse did not seem to be of native type, and the rider's garb appeared unusual. On nearer approach the strange apparition resolved itself into a white man, of wild and haggard demeanor, dressed in a torn shirt and very little else, who bestrode barebacked a troop-horse in distressed condition. Hailed by the patrol boat, the white horseman replied in English, and explained intelligibly, if a trifle incoherently, that he had come out of the desert, that his chum was lying some miles back in dire distress, if not already dead, and would somebody please hurry up and do something.

The conclusion of the story can be told in a sentence. A relief party was sent at once into the desert, the second airman was picked up exhausted but still alive, and at the date when the present writer last heard of them both parties of this strange adventure of the desert were little, if any, the worse for their experiences. As to the gallant troop-horse which played the part of a kind of _equus ex machina_, no peg in all the lines is now more firmly and securely driven in than his!

The story just related ends happily for all concerned; let me deal now with the reverse side of the shield!

IV--SHOT HIMSELF IN SELF-SACRIFICE

About the middle of June last year Second-Lieutenant Stewart Gordon Ridley, of the R.F.C., went out alone in his machine as escort to another pilot, who had with him a pilot named J. A. Garside. "Engine trouble" developed when Lieutenant Ridley had been flying for an hour and a half, and, as they could not put the matter right immediately on alighting, they decided to camp where they were for the night. Next morning, as Ridley's engine still proved obdurate, the second pilot decided to fly back alone to the base, and return on the following day to the assistance of the two men. This programme was duly carried out, but when he got back the pilot found that Ridley and Garside, with the machine, had disappeared.

A search party was immediately organized to scour the desert, and on the Sunday tracks were discovered. It was not until the Tuesday, however, that the missing 'plane was discovered. Beside it lay the dead bodies of Lieutenant Ridley and Garside. A diary was found on the mechanic, and the brief entries therein tell the tragic story of those last hours better than pages of description. The diary reads as follows:--

Friday.--Mr. Gardiner left for Meheriq, and said he would come and
pick one of us up. After he went we tried to get the machine going,
and succeeded in flying for about twenty-five minutes. Engine then
gave out. We tinkered engine up again, succeeded in flying about
five miles next day (Saturday), but engine ran short of petrol.

Sunday.--After trying to get engine started, but could not
manage it owing to weakness--water running short, only half
a bottle--Mr. Ridley suggested walking up to the hills. Six
P.M. (Sunday): Found it was farther than we thought; got
there eventually; very done up. No luck. Walked back; hardly any
water--about a spoonful. Mr. Ridley shot himself at ten-thirty on
Sunday whilst my back was turned. No water all day; don't know how
to go on; got one Verey light; dozed all day, feeling very weak;
wish someone would come; cannot last much longer.

Monday.--Thought of water in compass, got half bottle; seems to be
some kind of spirit. Can last another day. Fired Lewis gun, about
four rounds; shall fire my Verey light to-night; last hope without
machine comes. Could last days if I had water.

The captain of the Imperial Camel Corps, with which the aviators were co-operating, formed the opinion that Lieutenant Ridley shot himself in the hope of saving the mechanic, the water they had being insufficient to last the two of them till help arrived. The Commanding Officer of the R. F. C. states: "There is no doubt in my mind that he performed this act of self-sacrifice in the hope of saving the other man."

The history of the R. F. C. is a short one, but it is already full of glorious deeds.

HOW SWEENY, OF THE FOREIGN LEGION, GOT HIS "HOT DOGS"

_Told by Private John Joseph Casey of the Foreign Legion_

I--STORY OF AN AMERICAN "WEST-POINTER"

Lieut. Charles Sweeny, of the French Foreign Legion, returned
to New York to recover from a wound received during the French
offensive in Champagne. Sweeny is an American, a graduate of West
Point, and the son of a former president of the Federal Smelting
and Refining Co., of Spokane, Wash. The following story, of a most
unusual "Dutch treat," was told by Lieut. Sweeny to Private Casey,
a New York artist, also fighting in the Foreign Legion, to the _New
York World_.

You have read of the cordial exchanges of tobacco and tidbits between the men of the North and the South, who were facing each other as deadly foes in the rifle pits during the Civil War. These exchanges (the amicable ones, of course) were quaint and peculiar enough between those avowed enemies, even though both were of the same blood and spoke the same tongue. But the one which now interests us took place during the present war, between Lieut. Charlie Sweeny of the French Foreign Legion, and the Germans in the adjacent trenches; by which exchange the Germans got nothing, and Sweeny got a feast of "hot dogs!"

Sweeny, as you may infer from his name, is not a Frenchmen, even though he happens to be in the army service of France. I am also in the same service and my name is Casey. We are both Americans. Sweeny is a West Point graduate, and a native of Spokane, Wash. After his graduation from West Point he married a Belgian girl and settled down in Paris. His wife and two small children are living in that vicinity at the present time.

When the war broke out Sweeny enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. He was promoted for gallantry in action; and last September, after leading us into the Boche lines during the Champagne offensive, he was decorated with the Legion of Honor. Lieut. Sweeny is the first American in fifty years who has held a commission in the French army.

But how Sweeny won his "hot dogs" is a different story.

One day when we were in the front trenches Sweeny handed me a cigarette. It looked like a Turkish cigarette and I duly remarked it.

"No," said he, and he indicated a large tin box filled with the same sort, which he had with him, "these are a present from our friends, the enemy. They were given to me by the Germans."

"Must have been sent over to you inside a 'Jack Johnson' shell," said I.

"I can see you don't believe me," Sweeny replied, "but it's a fact. They came in a hamper, together with two bottles of real Munich beer, an assortment of Westphalian ham, cheese, honey, sandwiches of roast veal and white bread, a few slabs of K bread, some pipe tobacco, and some--what do you think?--hot dogs! As sure as you're born, Casey, and if you'll believe me, I went for those frankfurters first! Oh, how many nights I have sat out here and thought how good one of those hot dogs, with a big gob of mustard on it, would be! But I never thought I'd ever taste any in the trenches. Yet only just now I have demolished four of them."

II--"LET SWEENY TELL IT"

Here was the way of it, as Sweeny told it to me:

"I started out about midnight with a patrol to have a look at a new German bayou between two fortlets beyond our lines. I strung my men out so as to give warning of any German patrol, and then led them past our sentries and the barbed wire. I was some distance ahead of my men, and had got well within the German lines without seeing or hearing anything of the Germans.

"Now this was not the first time that I had ever penetrated that far into the German lines, but it was the first time on such a mission that I had not had to dodge a German patrol; and very often their bullets. These things ran in my head continually and made me think that I had fallen into a very neat trap which the Germans had laid for me. I expected to see them rise from anywhere any minute, and hear the banging of their guns and the whistling of their bullets (if I was lucky enough to hear them, that is), and I began to wish myself well out of my predicament and back again in the comparative safety of our trench.

"This made me more cautious than ever, and presently I began to retreat. As I did so a round German helmet bobbed up out of a ravine not a dozen yards away. An instant later, at the other end of the ravine, another appeared. I squirmed away like a snake and got behind the only shelter in sight, a little scrubby tree, about three yards away.

"As I lay there quaking, wondering why the Germans did not shoot--for they must have seen me--I happened to look up, and there, hanging to a branch of the tree, was a fat, clean-looking basket. I reached up, the limb on which it hung being only a few feet from the ground, and lifted the basket down.

"Then in a flash the explanation of the puzzle was clear to me. The Germans had left that basket there and meant me to have it.

"With the basket on my arm I got up, bowed low to the round hats, and walked back to our trench without ever being fired on.

"Inside the basket was the assortment I have described to you. There was also a note something after this wise:

"'We have been in front of you for over a year, and it is not against our comrades, the French, that we are fighting, but against our enemy, the English. Let us join forces against our common enemy. We are not starving, as you may well see from the little present we send you herewith.'

"Here was something that set me thinking pretty hard. I had escaped death or capture by a miracle so far as I could see, and all in order that I might enjoy a hearty meal at the expense of the Germans.

"I set the basket down in the trench, and fell to with a will; and I give you my word, Casey, of all the good things I have eaten, I never enjoyed anything more than I did that Dutch treat--especially the frankfurters.

"They took me back to the States immediately--hot dogs, the brightness of the sea, the yawping of barkers, crowds passing, the noise of thousands of shuffling feet--not the sort of shuffling we hear now, Casey, when a bugle call or the heavy sound of guns seems the chief attraction. It was a great shame I couldn't save you one.

"The meaning of all this was a puzzle to me until I found out that our boys had left a bundle of American and English newspapers in the spot where I had found the basket, with the paragraphs plainly marked in which it was said the Germans were starving. And the basket was the Germans' reply.

"Now you know how I came to get my hot dogs."

THE DOGS OF WAR ON THE BATTLEGROUNDS

_The "Four-Footed Soldiers" of France_

The "friend of man" has always served his master faithfully and
well in various humble capacities, but the Great War has seen his
sphere of usefulness enlarged to an almost incredible extent. Our
Gallant French allies have mobilized thousands of dogs for war
service, and as scouts, sentries, messengers, ambulance workers,
and beasts of burden these wonderfully-trained animals have
rendered most valuable assistance to the armies in the field. Here
is a soldier's story in the _Wide World Magazine_.

I--TALES OF THE DOGS

My friend, who had just come home on leave from the trenches, placed on the table in front of me a suspicious-looking parcel which left no manner of doubt that, for its size, it was extremely heavy.

"I'm going to leave this with you for a day or two, if you don't mind," he said. "I can't carry it about with me."

"What is it--bombs?" I asked, laughing, and my friend, without a smile, answered:--

"Yes, two bombs--for my dog."

Wondering what murderous intention had suddenly taken possession of the man, I looked my surprise, and then he explained. He was about to buy a dog to take back with him to the trenches, he told me, and to make sure that the animal was absolutely and thoroughly trained he had brought the bombs in order to test him. If, when the bombs exploded in the dog's presence, the latter stood the shock without fear or panic, he would know the animal was trained and would be useful to him. If, on the other hand, he manifested the symptoms of unrest which I, for instance, would show if a bomb exploded just behind my coat-tails, then the animal was not properly trained and would be of no use to a soldier in the trenches.

The use of dogs in warfare is to-day a common matter. The number of dogs with the French army alone can be guessed when it is stated that one society, the Société Nationale du Chien Sanitaire, of 21, Rue de Choiseul, Paris, has trained over fifteen hundred war-dogs.

The training of dogs for warfare showed from the first of the most satisfactory results, and numbers of regiments would now find their operations very difficult indeed if they were suddenly deprived of their sagacious four-footed companions.

The Société du Chien Sanitaire, like most new movements, did not receive much official encouragement at the beginning of the campaign, but nevertheless, thanks to its efforts, under its energetic president, M. A. Lepel-Cointet, aided by private enterprise, suitable animals were soon forthcoming, at any rate for ambulance purposes, and many officers took "mobilized" dogs with them to act as scouts and watchers at night.

Dogs particularly suitable to warlike purposes are to be found in great numbers in the Lower Pyrenees and other mountainous regions of France, and to-day there are societies in different parts of the country--not enough, it is true, but still they have made a good beginning--who are collecting and training the animals and sending them to the Front. Recently a contingent of one hundred dogs was sent to the army by the Department of the Indre, which is a hunting country where dogs are particularly well trained to explore and to act as guardians. People who have given or lent dogs to the army can, by keeping the number given to them on receipt of the animal, have news of their pets and their exploits, and some continue to keep in touch with their humble friends by sending them dainties from time to time.

II--DOGS AS SENTINELS AT THE FRONT

M. Mégnin, an authority on the use of dogs in warfare, says that German attacks by night on small outposts have almost completely failed since dogs have been employed to watch. The animals have a remarkably acute sense of hearing, and are able to detect the enemy at a great distance and prepare the men to receive him. Thousands of sentinels, especially in the Argonne and the Vosges, where it is difficult to see far ahead owing to the nature of the ground, have owed it to their dogs that they have not been surprised and killed or taken prisoners. In many cases they have even turned the tables on the enemy.

Captain Tolet, who is in command of the kennels of the Tenth French Army, has narrated some of the brave deeds--the word is not too strong--of dogs under his care, especially during the fighting on the Somme. On August 28th a dog called Médor, although wounded by a shrapnel shell, ran a mile and a half to carry a message from a brigade to a colonel, was again wounded in the last two hundred yards, but dragged himself to the commander's post, where he died a quarter of an hour later. Another dog, Follette, in the same month, ran nearly two miles and was wounded, but nevertheless persisted in his mission, dying five days later. In a part of the Vosges a battalion of Chasseurs which utilized a particularly intelligent animal as a sentinel did not lose a single man, while a battalion which had preceded it, and which had no dog, lost seven sentries in three days.

Another case of a dog's usefulness is recorded in the taking of a farm in the Bois Brûlé (Burnt Wood). Everyone thought Germans were hiding in the farm, and no patrol had ventured to approach it. At last a man went towards it at night with a dog on a leash twenty yards ahead of him. The animal showed no signs of uneasiness, and the farm was found to be empty. Telegraphists and others were thereupon able to instal themselves, and before morning the Germans' position was satisfactorily examined and an enemy redoubt smashed up.

Some of these gallant four-footed soldiers have received decorations just like men--and an extra bone or two as well, one hopes. Why not? The intelligence shown by these animals sometimes approaches very near to that of human beings, and one feels sure they are gratified at the attention drawn to their doings. Recently there was a special public parade at the Trocadéro in Paris, when the Société Protectrice des Animaux presented prizes to soldiers who had distinguished themselves in the training of animals. Collars of honour were also awarded to a large number of dogs exhibited by the soldiers who had trained them. Three of these animals were specially fêted on account of what they had done--Fend l'Air, belonging to Sergeant Jacqemin, whose life he had saved at Roclincourt; Loustic, specially noticed for his intelligence at the Front; and Pyrame, who saved an entire French battalion by detecting the presence of an enemy column. In other cases the War Cross has been awarded to dogs that have performed conspicuous deeds, especially in the saving of life.

It was mainly owing to a number of British dogs that the French army was able to drive the Germans out of Boesinghe Woods in one of the engagements round Ypres. Prusco, a bull-terrier, serving with French motor scouts, who carried him in a side-car, was of great value in carrying messages back to headquarters; while Lutz, a dog that distinguished himself in one of the Verdun engagements, was employed as an advance sentinel last February, and first gave warning of a German attack by repeated growls. The Red Cross Dog League, which began activities early in the war with eight dogs, now has two thousand five hundred animals in the field, and it claims that the lives of at least eight thousand wounded men have been saved by them.

III--HOW DOGS BECOME GOOD SOLDIERS

The training of intelligent animals like these is carried on in five different ways, for various uses.

1.--_As Ambulance Dogs._ The animal seeks for wounded men lost on the battlefield; he searches in holes, ruins, and excavations, and hunts over wooded places or coverts, where the wounded man might lie unnoticed by his comrades or the stretcher-bearer. The dog is especially useful at this work in the night-time, when he can often by his scent discover fallen men who would otherwise be passed over, for at night-time ambulance-men often have to work in the dark, as lights would attract the enemy's fire. Having found a wounded man still alive, the dog brings his master (or the ambulance-man to whom he is attached) some article belonging to the sufferer. This object tells the master, "I have found someone--search!" Usually the object brought is the fallen man's _képi_ (or nowadays his helmet), and the trainers teach the dog to find the man's headgear, but if this is missing some other object must be brought. It is a fatiguing operation for the animal, as he has to return with closed mouth. The ambulance-man who receives the article at once puts the animal on a leash, and is immediately led to his wounded comrade. The leash is about two yards long, so that the movements of the animal shall be hindered as little as possible.

If dogs were utilized in this service long during wartime, their value would be incalculable; and their use is all the greater when fighting takes place over an extended area. The situation of the wounded man overlooked or abandoned on the battlefield is a truly horrible one; he has to wait in the forlorn hope that he will be found, for the army has gone on, and the more victorious it is the farther it will push ahead. In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1 more than twelve thousand men were thus lost to the French alone, while in the Russo-Japanese War the Japanese lost over five thousand in this manner, showing that the methods then used for the exploration of the battlefields were inadequate. In that war three dogs sent by a military dog society found twenty-three wounded men who had been abandoned after the battle of Cha-ho. In the Boer War the collie dogs taken out by the men, it is said, saved hundreds of wounded men who would never have been found by the ambulance-workers in the difficult country where fighting mostly took place.

2.--_As Trench Dogs or Sentinels._ The sentry or trench dog is trained to stay in the trench itself or in a small "listening-post" made for him, either on the edge of the trench, outside it, or at a little distance away. There he remains on the _qui vive_, ready to signal the least suspicion of a noise or the presence of the enemy. In this work both his eyes and his scent help him. He is kept on the leash, and he gives the signal of danger by a slight growl, without barking, which would give the alarm. The greatest difficulty in the training of dogs for this work has been to rid them of the habit of barking, but this has been overcome with care and patience. The training of dogs for this class of work can be--and has been--carried to great lengths. A man crawling on patrol work can take a dog with him, also in a crouching position, on a leash. A little tug at the leash causes the dog to rise, to retire, or to change its direction, and a properly-trained animal will answer to the leash as satisfactorily as a horse does to the reins. Such a dog is of immense help at night, when he can be taken quite close to the enemy.

3.--_As Patrols or Scouts._ The dog accompanies the human scout in his reconnaissance, and helps in finding advance posts or sentinels, and locating small groups of the enemy.

4.--_As Couriers or Messengers._ The animal acts as a messenger, carrying written orders or information, and is used according to circumstances. He can carry messages between groups in the rear and fighting formations in the front--for example, between the artillery and the infantry, and _vice versa_; between two fighting forces, such as battalions, companies, or sections; between the headquarters and the various positions of the army; or between the main body and detached posts, such as patrols, scouts, etc. Taken along by a patrol or scouting party, he can be sent back to the main body with a message fixed to his collar. The note having been removed and read, a reply can be attached to his collar, and the dog sent back to the original body of men, even if they have changed their position, since he finds them again by his scent. A dog is not only much quicker in carrying these messages than a man, and can cover ground where no cycle could go, but he also has an advantage in being almost invisible to the enemy. If on a leash, he can conduct a man in charge of reinforcements or ammunition to the new position of the patrolling party--sometimes over a distance of several miles.

5.--_As Dogs of Communication._ This is the most difficult task to which military dogs are put, and requires very special qualities, so that only a very few animals have been found capable of the work. It consists in sending him after a patrol _en route_ with a message, or even in finding a lost patrol or scouting party and bringing it back to its base. It will readily be understood that an exceptional scent is required in a dog to do work of this sort.

In the two last-named classes of work dogs can pass swiftly backwards and forwards through brisk firing and run much less risk than a man.

IV--DOGS ARE HEROES UNDER FIRE

There are several societies in Paris which choose suitable dogs in order to make soldiers of them. The "Central Society for the Development of the Breeds of Dogs" gave three thousand dogs to the French army last August. After they have been tested, an operation which takes about three weeks, they are sent to special stations in the rear of the armies to be trained, and five or six days are all that are necessary for the training of animals for the simpler kinds of work. For more difficult tasks the training is naturally a longer business. When dogs are to be trained as communication agents the instruction may take several weeks. They are taught to go from one master to another, first by a call, then by a whistle, then simply at a mere gesture. Distances are gradually increased, obstacles are placed in the way, the animal's goal becomes invisible, and so on. Much patience is required in this kind of work; and it is found that the best results are obtained by kindness and giving rewards for good work accomplished. The animals are taught to recognize only two masters, and to obey them alone. Outsiders are not allowed to pet or feed them. When they understand that they have to obey only one or two men, they have to learn to follow one or both of them when marching in a column of infantry, to recognize them when in a group, and so on. They are taught to endure the sound of gun-firing or explosions quite close to them. Above all, they are strictly trained never to pick up articles on their journey and to refuse delicacies offered them by strangers.

Specially-trained dogs only are chosen for this work, and they are mostly sheep-dogs or collies or animals whose business it was in civil life to be guardians or watchers, and always on the alert. These are all the easier to train for the special work--somewhat of the same order--which they are set to do in war.

... When the question of transport through the mountain snow had become a matter of urgent importance, the French authorities conceived the idea of using dog-drawn sleighs for carrying supplies. Some hundred "huskies"--a cross between the Eskimo dog and the wolf--and other trained dogs from Alaska, North-Western Canada, and Labrador were brought over by Lieutenant René Haas, a Frenchman who had spent fourteen years in Alaska. Mr. Warner Allen, the representative of the British Press with the French armies, describing the work of these dogs, says the snow in the neighbourhood of the Schlucht Pass was deep enough until almost the end of April for the dogs to render yeoman service. "They were able," he says, "to draw heavy loads over almost inaccessible country, and to supplement to a valuable extent the wheeled transport. But their utility has not ceased with the disappearance of the snow. They are now being harnessed to trucks on small two-foot-gauge light railways, which run everywhere behind the Front, and they are capable of drawing the heaviest load up the steepest gradient. Eleven dogs, with a couple of men, can haul a ton up some of the most precipitous slopes in the mountains, and I was assured that two teams of seven dogs each could do the work of five horses in this difficult country, with a very great economy of men."

This correspondent adds that the best of these imported breeds of dogs is the Alaskan, as "his courage never fails, and he will work until he drops, though he is perhaps the weakest of them. They are all shaggy dogs, with prick ears and bushy tails, their colour ranging from black to white, between greys and browns. Their chest development, so necessary for hauling, is remarkable. They are mainly fed on rice, horse-flesh, and waste military biscuits, and this fare appears to suit them admirably, as they are always in splendid condition, and disease is practically unknown. The experiment of transporting these dogs to France has shown that they can be of real service in mountainous country, and represent a real economy."

Dogs that are specially adapted or have been trained for hunting or sporting purposes are of little use in war, as they have acquired habits incompatible with the work now demanded of them. Certain breeds, such as the Great Dane, and others of limited intelligence, are of no value at all. Some of these have the habit of rushing forward at the slightest alarm, which is of more danger than advantage to the soldiers to whom they might belong.

V--DOGS AS LOYAL COMRADES--FELLOW-WORKERS

The "dog soldier," like his master on special missions, has to see and hear without being seen or heard. It is amusing, but nevertheless true, that the dogs of smugglers and poachers, as well as those of coastguardsmen, have been found to be most useful animals in the army. A well-trained dog, acting with a sentinel or scouting party may be the means of preserving numbers of lives by saving them from unpleasant surprises.

The use of dogs in warfare was, of course, not invented in the present war, though their utility had been systematized and given more scientific scope than was ever the case before. In no previous campaign have men understood the full use that could be made of these highly-intelligent creatures.

It was the Belgians who first turned their attention to the subject of employing dogs more extensively. Everybody who has visited Belgium knows the use that is made of dogs for traction purposes all over the country. Nearly all the peasants who bring agricultural or dairy produce to market employ dogs to draw their small carts, sometimes harnessing whole teams to heavy loads. The dog is also greatly used in Belgium for sport, and from the sporting dog to the police dog is but a step. The dog in war--as sentinel, courier, scout, or ambulance worker--followed, and was the idea of Professor Reul, of the Veterinary School of Cureghem, and two journalists named Van der Snick and Sodenkampf. In 1885-6 the first dogs trained to some of these purposes were shown at a dog show at Ostend, and shortly afterwards societies were started at Brussels, Liège, Lierre, Ghent and other places, not merely for the training of dogs, but to improve the breeds. Lieutenant van der Putte, of the Belgian army, started the Société du Chien Sanitaire for the express purpose of training dogs for ambulance work and soon afterwards similar societies were organized in Paris and Berlin.

It was quite natural that the Belgians should also think of using these draught-dogs for small machine-guns, thus providing an inexpensive but efficient light artillery. The Germans wished to imitate them, but it is related that when they tried to buy dogs from the Belgians, as they had no indigenous animals suited to the purpose, the Belgians refused to sell. In other ways, however, the Germans were at the beginning of the war well provided with dogs for various purposes, including the ambulance service.

Since then the use of dogs in the German army has assumed considerable proportions. The animals used are mostly of the German sheep-dog variety, and a register of these, numbering several thousands, is kept for mobilization purposes by the German Sheep-Dog Club. Other breeds used by the enemy are terriers, red-haired griffons, Doberman _pinchers_, Airedale terries, and a sort of bull-terrier known as a "Boxer." Dogs, it appears, have been used by the German army chiefly on the Eastern Front, where the fighting was of a more open description than on the Western Front.... The German papers published appeals from the authorities asking dog owners to offer their pets for war purposes, and many thousands were obtained as a result.

TRUE STORY ABOUT KILLING THE WOUNDED

_Told by A. Pankratoff_

Translated from the Russian for _Current History_

I--GERMANS HANGED COSSACKS ON TREES

The other day, quite unexpectedly, I ran into Lieutenant X., better known as the Junior Subaltern.

This was the fourth time I had run across him since the beginning of the war--at Insterburg, where the Junior Subaltern was leading his company toward Königsberg; then in the trenches beyond Tarnovo; then in the vicinity of Lublin, during the great retreat; and now, the fourth time.

"I am stationed twelve versts from Czernowitz," he went on to explain. The Junior Subaltern is really so young that you can't help envying him. His face shines with health. His eyes are always laughing. His speech is very simple, but impressive; but he does not like to talk; he would rather listen, and laugh responsively with his eyes.

Fortune had brought us together; several men sitting down to a common meal. We talked freely about everything. The conversation turned to the German habit of finishing all the wounded enemies they find after a successful battle. During the forest fighting last August one of us had come across sixty Cossacks who had been but slightly wounded, and whom the Germans had hanged on the trees.

"We avenged them, however; the Germans got something to remember!" said the narrator.

Lieutenant X.'s eyes sparkled with animation.

"Well," he said, "of course they deserved it! Of course it is a crime to kill the wounded. But, gentlemen, there are cases when it is impossible not to kill the wounded!"

"What on earth do you mean?"

"Just what I said! There is such a thing as rightful killing of the wounded!"

We insisted, and the Junior Subaltern narrated a recent experience of his, "somewhere in Bukowina." He had been in command of a party of scouts. His regiment had just arrived to take the place of another infantry regiment. And the first thing to do was to become acquainted with the locality and to learn the dispositions and intentions of the enemy. The Junior Subaltern was sent out with his company. At one place the opposing armies were separated by a ravine, which forked out toward our trenches. Lieutenant X. knew that the men of the regiment his was replacing had become acquainted with the Austrians, and that the enemies by day came together at the bottom of the ravine by night, entertained one another, and gossiped.

"War is burdensome, gentlemen!" explained the Junior Subaltern, "and we all longed for even the semblance of human intercourse with the other chaps. * * * And there happened to be a prolonged and tiresome spell of calm between battles, and so the men of the regiment we were replacing and the Austrians had long smokes together, exchanging pipes. But every one remembered--and nobody held it against any one--that the course of cigarettes must be closely interwoven with the course of bullets on the morrow. * * * Yet, yet--oh, if we were only chivalrous knights, conducting a picturesque tournament, instead of common Russian cannon fodder fighting common Austrian cannon fodder. * * *"