Perambulator

“ Another excellent piece of material for obtaining excitement in Germany is the simple domestic perambulator. What you may do with a “kinder-wagen,” as it is called, and what you may not, covers pages of German law; after the reading of which, you conclude that the man who can push a perambulator through a German town without breaking the law was meant for a diplomatist. You must not loiter with a perambulator, and you must not go too fast. You must not get in anybody’s way with a perambulator, and if anybody gets in your way you must get out of their way. ”

“ His little head is bobbing about first on one side and then on the other—at one moment it is dropping on his chest, the next it is forcibly jolted behind: he looks, and doubtless feels, wretched and uncomfortable. Again, these perambulators are dangerous in crowded thoroughfares. They are a public nuisance, inasmuch as they are wheeled against and between people's legs, and are a fruitful source of the breaking of shins, of the spraining of ankles, of the crushing of corns, and of the ruffling of the tempers of the foot-passengers who unfortunately come within their reach ”

“ I do not, for two reasons:—first, because when a child is strong enough, he had better walk as much as he will; and, secondly, the motion is not so good, and the muscles are not so much put into action, and consequently cannot be so well developed, as when he is earned. A perambulator is very apt to make a child stoop, and to make him both crooked and round-shouldered. He is cramped by being so long in one position. It is painful to notice a babe of a few months old in one of these newfangled carriages. ”

“ When I speak of perambulators, I do not mean the old-fashioned and, unfortunately, still very common kind, with a seat and a strap across to keep the baby in; where the head most often hangs over the side of the machine, or the body tends to collapse in a heap on the floor of it. ”

“ After 6 months, perambulators may do very well, provided the child is carefully put in, which is very rarely the case. If seated facing forwards, a cold will be the natural result, without taking such care as is beyond the ordinary nursemaid. ”

“ In the last gleams from a star-shell ahead we see something grey by the side of the road. As we are in the woods I take a quick look with my flash. It is one of our ambulances. My friend and I look at each other, and are mutually glad that it is too dark to see each other’s face. A careful survey of the surroundings yields nothing, and we press on—in silence. We jolt into the poste with racing motor and wheels clogged with mud, and go down into the very welcome abri. Our friends there know nothing about the ambulance, so we hope for the best. ”

“ No sooner had the doors of the ambulance slammed shut than strange things began to happen inside. A physician and a nurse who had been secreted in the car, fell upon the body with feverish haste, stripped it of clothing, dashed alcohol over it from head to foot, began to massage the still warm flesh, chafing the wrists, slapping limbs and torso with smart, stinging thumps. ”

“ In each ambulance between the tiers of stretchers on which the soldiers lie, you may see the figure of a woman silhouetted faintly against the dim light of the railroad station as she bends to smooth a pillow, to adjust a bandage, or now to light a cigarette for a maimed man who never can do that least service for himself again. ”

“ We had a glimpse of the big painted red cross on an ambulance side, and at the rear, where the445 curtains were rolled up for ventilation, of four pairs of soldier boot-soles at the end of four stretchers, which had been slid into place at the estaminet by the sturdy, kindly, experienced medical corps men.
Only one ambulance, dust-covered, of the colour of the road itself came along, clear of any blast of shells; nothing at the front sends the same chill down the spine as the thought of a man wounded by a shell being hit a second time by a shell. ”

“ These ambulances were staffed by a fine set of young women, whose serviceable uniform and alert, well-drilled bearing were a credit to their service. It was a pleasure, when the ambulance turned into the square, to see these active girls, in their navy blue suits of breeches and tunic, swing themselves off the car, throw the doors open, unload and bear the stretcher with its burden to the casualty room. ”

“ A path for the ringing ambulance, hurrying, hurrying, hurrying
To a place where a child has fallen, is wounded nigh unto death,
That the child may be tenderly lifted and skillfully nursed and tended—
Engine and hurrying ambulance screaming, ringing, impatient,
Filling the frightened streets with echoes of old-time wars,
Laden with men of might, skilled and fierce and determined—
Not as of old to maim, to harry and scatter destruction;
Not to take life, but to save it; not to kill, but to rescue the perishing. ”

“ If the patient is in an exceptionally suffering condition he is not placed on the receiving-hall bed; instead—the Medical Officer having given his permission—his stretcher is put on a wheeled trolley and he is taken straight away to his ward, so that he will only undergo one shift of position between the ambulance and his destination. ”

“ To vary the monotony of our life, sometimes, in company with some hospital visitor, we would go in an ambulance to Washington, and, of course, inspected the public buildings while there, as did every nurse and soldier whose time allowed the stroll. ”

“ No wonder that the patient should sink under an operation of such very alarming gravity, by the law of which he comes to the floor with a degree of force commensurate to the weight of his own body. The seat, having released itself from its burden by shooting the "patient" on to the floor, is ready for another victim. ”

“ Of course I was amazed and said no. 'Well,' said he, 'not ten minutes ago a four-mule ambulance drove up the road yonder going full tilt, and I thought something was wrong, but it was far beyond my challenge limit.' You can understand that I went to the stables on the jump, ready to scalp the sentry there, the sergeant of the guard, and everybody else. I sailed into the sentry first and he was utterly astonished; he swore that every horse, mule, and wagon was in its proper place. I routed out the old stable-sergeant and we went through everything with his lantern. ”

“ Have your valet later let the word out that you're very ill, and send word by space-video for an ambulance to meet the ship. Just before landing, let him say you've died. The ambulance can take you wherever it's natural your body would be taken, and you keep under cover for some time, until I notify you. ”

“ At the head of mine was a little lieutenant of the reserves, a young man of twenty, frail and pallid and so weak that after marching a few kilometers he was out of breath, dragged his feet and usually reached his destination in an ambulance wagon. The poor little devil! ”

“ And now the patient—beginning to wake in trance, hearing and answering the questions of the operator, moving each limb, or rising even, as the operator's hand is raised to draw him into obedient following—enters into a new relation with his mesmeriser. He adopts sympathetically every voluntary movement of the other. When the latter rises from his chair, he rises; when he sits down, he sits down; if he bows, he bows; if he make a grimace, he makes the same. ”

“ By the time the realisation of the pain has come into full play the sufferer, in ordinary times, is in the clearing station or, at least, the field ambulance, and has the resources of science at his disposal. ”

“ From the back of the ambulance a wounded man on his stretcher is slid into place as a bread pan is slid into an oven, the feet of the stretcher running on wooden rails. In starting out to collect the wounded an ambulance carries its full quota of stretchers. When a man is picked up from the field of battle one of these is taken out and he is carefully lifted on it; if he is already lying on a stretcher he is not changed but, in order to save unnecessary suffering, put into the ambulance with the one on which he is already resting,—an empty one being left behind in exchange. ”

“ As each ambulance arrived the stretchers, their occupants for the most part silent, were drawn gently out and carried into the reception hall and laid upon the floor. At once each man—the nature of whose wounds permitted it—was given a cup of hot tea or of cold water, and a cigarette. Two by two they were lifted on to the trestles, and examined and dressed by the surgeons. ”

“ Make me the model of an ambulance into which the disabled can be placed safely and comfortably, and which is arranged in such a manner that it may be taken asunder and transported on horseback with the train of the army. ”

“ Here we debarked for the night, making our way, in an ambulance sent for us from the post, a distance of two minutes' ride, to the quarters of General Alvord, the commandant. Under his hospitable roof we experienced, for the first time in several months and many hundred miles, the delicious sensation of a family-dinner, with a refined lady at the head of the table and well-bred children about the sides. ”

“ Long trains of army wagons kept up a perpetual rumble from morning till night; ambulances rattled to and fro with busy surgeons, nurses taking an airing, or convalescents going in parties to be fitted to artificial limbs. ”

“ An ambulance carries you somewhere so that you can get some rest; a traveling tooth-yankery doesn't give you a chance to rest. It's white, is the outside of the car, just like a baby's hearse, and just about as cheerful to contemplate. ”

“ They gladly acceded to the proposition to accompany the troops. I then inquired of them in which mode they preferred to travel, mounted upon ponies, as was their custom, or in an ambulance. Much to my surprise, remembering how loath the Indian is to adopt any contrivance of the white man, they chose the ambulance, and wisely too, as the season was that of midwinter, and the interior of a closely covered ambulance was a much less exposed position than that to be found on the back of a pony. ”

“ And that rug, the very mainspring of the startling things which followed, was thus carelessly thrown on to the carriage, and off we went.
Well, to be brief, I handed in that stark old traveller from nowhere at the hospital, and as a matter of curiosity sat in the waiting-room while they examined him. In five minutes the house-surgeon on duty came in to see me, and with a shake of his head said briefly—
"Gone, sir—clean gone! Broke his neck like a pipe-stem. Most strange-looking man, and none of us can even guess at his age. Not a friend of yours, I suppose?" ”

“ Extreme cases are sent off on stretchers. The men generally make little or no ado, whatever their sufferings,—a few groans that cannot be repressed, and occasionally a scream of pain, as they lift a man into the ambulance. ”

“ The dust swirled around her—when had she breathed anything but dust! The ground swam like water under her feet. She swayed, and seemed to be falling,—perhaps she did fall. But she was up and on her feet, the blanket cast from her head, when the ambulance drove straight towards her, and she saw him—
She had seen it coming, the ambulance, down the long, dizzy rise. The hills above were white as death; a crooked gash of color rent the sky; the toothed pines stood black against that gleam, and through the ringing in her ears, loud and sweet, she heard the trumpets call. ”

“ Humanity had at last asserted itself.
It was about eleven o'clock, I suppose, when the "padré" came up again to my stretcher and asked me if I should like to get on, as there was a berth vacant in an ambulance. The stretcher was hoisted up and slid into the bottom berth of the car. [91] The berth above was occupied by an unconscious man. On the other side of the ambulance were four sitting cases—a private, a sergeant, a corporal, and a rifleman, the last almost unconscious. Those of us who could talk were very pleased with life, and I remember saying: "Thank God, we're out of that hell, boys!" ”

“ The doctor, bound and bruised, lay on the floor; beside him, a man rapidly regaining consciousness and sitting up in a dazed condition; a young girl, with brutal red marks about her throat; and on the floor at her feet a man with a boy clinging to his back like a barnacle to a boat, his young arms and bare legs binding the fellow like ropes. ”

“ If he is wounded, it is an India-rubber stretcher, or an ambulance provided with India-rubber springs, that gives him least pain on his way to the hospital, where, if his wound is serious, a water-bed of India-rubber gives ease to his mangled frame, and enables him to endure the wearing tedium of an unchanged posture. ”

“ The Probationer smiled and brightened. After all, she must be doing fairly well; and if she were not in the battle she was of it. Glimpses she had of the battle—stretchers going up and down in the slow elevator; sheeted figures on their way to the operating room; the clang of the ambulance bell in the courtyard; the occasional cry of a new life ushered in; the impressive silence of an old life going out. She surveyed the bandages on the bed.
"I'll put away the bandages first," she said. "That's what you said, I think—never to leave the emergency bed with anything on it?" ”

“ It is no easy task in the dark or in a fading light to find the khaki-clad figures lying prone upon the brown sand. But when the wounded are discovered the ambulance man finds out as quickly as he can the position and nature of the wound, and a "first aid" bandage or a rough splint is applied. ”

“ From there to where I am now has been a series of more or less painful transfers through first aid posts, dressing stations and French hospitals, with a Red Cross train and a ninety kilometer ride in an ambulance. I don’t think you have ever known the joy of a ninety K. ride on the upper deck of a pitching [117] ambulance. It’s an experience. I appreciated the sensations of a pup with a tin can tied to his tail. ”