Page:Ambulance 464 by Julien Bryan.djvu/33

 day for twenty-four hour duty at their different posts. These are little first aid stations, usually eight hundred or a thousand yards behind the first line trenches. In hilly country, however, one can often go in a car to within four or five hundred yards of No Man's Land; but in level stretches like Champagne one seldom gets closer than two miles. The wounded are carried by stretcher bearers from wherever they have fallen to a tiny Poste de Secours, in the second or third line trenches. Here they are given quick treatment in the one-room underground hospital, and are rushed on afterwards through the communication trenches to one of our posts. These are underground, too, and are little better than the posts in the trenches. But they can handle more men here and do emergency work, like amputating, if necessary. Besides, when a big attack is on, blessés are brought in much faster than we can remove them and they take care of them here for a few hours, and sometimes for days if necessary. Our work is to load up the ambulances with the assistance of the brancardiers (stretcher-bearers) and carry them back to an evacuation hospital ten or twelve miles behind the lines. These are rather crude affairs and seldom employ any women nurses. When they become crowded or get cases too difficult to handle, they send the wounded to bigger hospitals further back, usually in a nearby city.