Part 43 (1/2)

”It is said that out of the 27,000 men who gave their lives in the South African war 7000 only were killed, whilst 20,000 died of enteritis, contracted by drinking impure water.

”In order to save their army from the fatal effects of contaminated water, the Belgian Army medical authorities have, after careful tests, selected the following means of sterilisation--boiling, ozone and violet rays--as the most reliable methods for obtaining large supplies of pure water rapidly.

”Funds are urgently needed to help the work of providing and distributing a pure water supply in the following ways:

”1. By small portable sterilising plants for every company to produce and distribute from twenty to a hundred gallons of pure cold water per hour.

”2. By sterilisers easy of adjustment for all field hospitals, convalescent homes, medical depots, and so forth.

”3. By large sterilising plants, capable of producing from 150 gallons upward per hour, to provide a pure water supply for all the devastated towns through which the army must pa.s.s.

”4. By the sterilisation of contaminated pools and all surface water, under the direction of leading scientific experts who have generously offered their services.

”5. By pocket filters for all who may have to work out of reach of the sterilising plants, and so forth.

”6. By two hundred field kitchens on the battlefield to serve out soup, coffee or other drinks to the men fighting in the trenches or on the march.”

Everywhere, at the front, I found the gravest apprehension as to water supply in case the confronting armies remained in approximately the same position. Sir John French spoke of it, and the British are providing a system of sterilised water for their men. Merely providing so many human beings with water is a tremendous problem. Along part of the line, quite aside from typhoid contamination, the water is now impregnated with salt water from the sea. If even wells contain dead bodies, how about the open water-courses? Wounded men must have water.

It is their first and most insistent cry.

People will read this who have never known the thirst of the battlefield or the parched throat that follows loss of blood; people who, by the turning of a tap, may have all the water they want.

Perhaps among them there are some who will face this problem of water as America has faced Belgium's problem of food. For the Belgian Army has no money at all for sterilisers, for pocket filters; has not the means to inoculate the army against typhoid; has little of anything.

The revenues that would normally support the army are being collected--in addition to a war indemnity--by Germany.

Any hope that conditions would be improved by a general spring movement into uncontaminated territory has been dispelled. The war has become a gigantic siege, varied only by sorties and a.s.saults. As long ago as November, 1914, the situation as to drinking water was intolerable. I quote again from the diary taken from the body of a German officer after the battle of the Yser--a diary published in full in an earlier chapter.

”The water is bad, quite green, indeed; but all the same we drink it--we can get nothing else. Man is brought down to the level of the brute beast.”

There is little or no typhoid among the British troops. They, too, no doubt, have realised the value of conservation, and to inoculation have added careful supervision of wells and of watercourses. But when I was at the front the Belgian Army of fifty thousand trained soldiers and two hundred thousand recruits was dependent on springs oozing from fields that were vast graveyards; on sluggish ca.n.a.ls in which lay the bodies of men and horses; and on a few tank wagons that carried fresh water daily to the front.

A quarter of a million dollars would be needed to install a water supply for the Belgian Army and for the civilians--residents and refugees--gathered behind the lines. To ask the American people to shoulder this additional burden is out of the question. But perhaps, somewhere among the people who will read this, there is one great-hearted and wealthy American who would sleep better of nights for having lifted to the lips of a wounded soldier the cup of pure water that he craves; for having furnished to ten thousand wounds a sterile and soothing wet compress.

Dunkirk was full of hospitals when I was there. Probably the subsequent sh.e.l.ling of the town destroyed some of them. I do not know.

A letter from Calais, dated May 21st, 1915, says:

”I went through Dunkirk again. Last time I was there it was a flouris.h.i.+ng and busy market day. This time the only two living souls I saw were the soldiers who let us in at one gate and out at the other.

In the interval, as you know, the town had been sh.e.l.led by fifteen-inch guns from a distance of twenty-three miles. Many buildings in the main streets had been reduced to ruins, and nearly all the windows in the town had been smashed.”

There is, or was, a converted Channel steamer at Dunkirk that is now a hospital. Men in all stages of mutilation are there. The salt winds of the Channel blow in through the open ports. The boat rises and falls to the swell of the sea. The deck cabins are occupied by wounded officers, and below, in the long saloon, are rows of cots.

I went there on a bright day in February. There was a young officer on the deck. He had lost a leg at the hip, and he was standing supported by a crutch and looking out to sea. He did not even turn his head when we approached.

General M----, the head of the Belgian Army medical service, who had escorted me, touched him on the arm, and he looked round without interest.

”For conspicuous bravery!” said the General, and showed me the medal he wore on his breast.

However, the young officer's face did not lighten, and very soon he turned again to the sea. The time will come, of course, when the tragedy of his mutilation will be less fresh and poignant, when the Order of Leopold on his breast will help to compensate for many things; but that sunny morning, on the deck of the hospital s.h.i.+p, it held small comfort for him.

We went below. At our appearance at the top of the stairs those who were convalescent below rose and stood at attention. They stood in a line at the foot of their beds, boys and grizzled veterans, clad in motley garments, supported by crutches, by sticks, by a hand on the supporting back of a chair. Men without a country, where were they to go when the hospital s.h.i.+p had finished with them? Those who were able would go back to the army, of course. But what of that large percentage who will never be whole again? The machinery of mercy can go so far, and no farther. France cannot support them. Occupied with her own burden, she has persistently discouraged Belgian refugees.

They will go to England probably--a kindly land but of an alien tongue. And there again they will wait.