Their stiffened clothing must frequently be cut off
to reveal, beneath, vermin-covered bodies. When the problem of
transportation is a serious one, as after a great battle, men must lie
in sheds or railway stations, waiting their turn. Wounds turn green
and hideous. Their first-aid dressing, originally surgically clean,
becomes infected. Lucky the man who has had a small vial of iodine to
pour over the gaping surface of his wound. For the time, at least, he
is well off.
The very soil of Flanders seems polluted. British surgeons are sighing
for the clean dust of the Boer war of South Africa, although they
cursed it at the time. That it is not the army occupation which is
causing the grave infections of Flanders and France is shown by the
fact that the trouble dates from the beginning of the war. It is not
that living in a trench undermines the vitality of the men and lays
them open to infection. On the contrary, with the exception of frost
bite, there is a curious absence of such troubles as would ordinarily
result from exposure, cold and constant wetting.
The open-air life has apparently built up the men. Again and again the
extraordinary power of resistance shown has astonished the surgeons.
It is as if, in forcing men to face overwhelming hardships, a watchful
Providence had granted them overwhelming vitality.
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