Their training was as complete as any infantry, even the regimental stretcher-bearers being taught the use of Lewis guns, and on more than one occasion the bearers went for the enemy with Mills bombs till a position was captured and they were required to tend the wounded.

[Illustration: A divisional headquarters on the British front in France during the progress of a battle, showing troops in reserve, German prisoners, and stretcher-bearers at work.

If I had my way, I would staff the newspaper offices, as far as possible, with wounded soldiers, and I would give some of the present staff a holiday as stretcher-bearers.

We picked up two more stretcher-bearers in Ostend and a queer little middle-aged lady out for a job at the front.

He addressed a few words to the stretcher-bearers and then turned to me, saying: "The regiment of my son is fighting on the hill.

Our losses had been very considerable too, stretcher-bearers being busy administering first aid and carrying the wounded back to the nearest field hospital, while many a brave man lay stark and still.

During these times when the stretcher-bearers were busy, no shot would be fired on either side.

It is a city of the sickof healing, ratherand on a bright day, with crowds of convalescents sitting about in their linen pajamas in the sun, stretcher-bearers going back and forth, the capable-looking surgeons with their strong, kind faces, pretty nurses in nun-like white, it all has the brisk, rather jolly air of any vigorous organism, going full blast ahead.

Two rows were reserved for the nurses, and in the others slept our chauffeurs and stretcher-bearers, with a few of the priests.

"The stretcher-bearers have their job, and they've got to do it.

But the heavy fire drove the stretcher-bearers off the open ground, while there still remained some dead and wounded to be brought in.

He spent a good deal of time and innumerable yards of bandages on him, so that when the stretcher-bearers brought him into the dressing station there was little but bandages to be seen of him.

We must have lost a lot of men, since the whole place was clotted up with casualties that kept coming in quicker than the stretcher-bearers could move them.

To do so only meant exposing them to almost a certainty of another wound and of further casualties amongst the stretcher-bearers.

Casualties became very heavy, and the doctor and stretcher-bearers were kept busy the whole time.

Not one of them ever got out again, but they did a good deal of damage, and during the lull that followed the stretcher-bearers were busy.

[Illustration: THE FINAL TOMMY;(ex-footballer): "We was just wipin' them off the face of the earth when Foch blows his whistle and shouts 'Temps!'"] These are only some of the heroes who have added to the glories of our blood and State, but the roll is endlesswonderful gunners and sappers and airmen and dispatch riders, devoted surgeons and heroic nurses, stretcher-bearers and ambulance drivers.

When a man falls, or men fall, the automobile is telephoned for, and it arrives at the appointed rendezvous generally before the stretcher-bearers, who may have to walk for twenty or thirty minutes over rough ground.

A few beds were made ready for them and they were brought in by the stretcher-bearers and dressers.

I lent a hand to one of the stretcher-bearers.

" Then would follow a silence or a whispering of stretcher-bearers, telling their adventures to a girl in khaki breeches, standing with one hand in her jacket pocket, and with the little flare of a cigarette glowing upon her cheek and hair.

The most heroic courage which came into the courtyard at Furnes was not that of the stretcher-bearers who went out under fire, but that of the doctors and nurses who tended the wounded, toiling ceaselessly in the muck of blood, amidst all those sights and sounds.

The sink was used as a wash-place by surgeons, chauffeurs, and stretcher-bearers.

"Pardon, mon capitaine," said one of the stretcher-bearers, as the door banged to, with a frightful clap.

Doctors and nurses were attentive and always busy, and the stretcher-bearers moved back and forth until their faces grew red with exertion.