Knickerbocker Waiter
“It was a trip which was not without incident. Every now and then we would hear the shriek of an approaching ‘coal-box,’ and then my prisoner stretcher-bearers and I would tumble in one indiscriminate heap into the nearest shell-hole. If we did that once, we did it a half-dozen times. After each dive, the four would patiently reorganize and arrange the improvised stretcher again, and we would proceed. Following every tumble, however, I would have to tighten my tourniquets, and despite all I could do the hemorrhage from my wound continued so profuse that I was beginning to feel very dizzy and weak. On the way in I sighted our regimental dressing station and signed to my four bearers to carry me toward it. The station was in an old German dugout. Major Gilday was at the door. He laughed when he saw me with my own special ambulance detail.
“‘Well, what do you want?’ he asked.
“‘Most of all,’ I said, ‘I think I want a drink of rum.’
“He produced it for me instantly.
“‘Now,’ said he, ‘my advice to you is to keep on traveling. You’ve got a fine special detail there to look after you. Make ’em carry you to Poizers. It’s only five miles, and you’ll make it all right. I’ve got this place loaded up full, no stretcher-bearers, no assistants, no adequate supply of bandages and medicines, and a lot of very bad cases. If you want to get out of here in a week, just keep right on going now.’
“As we continued toward the rear we were the targets for a number of humorous remarks from men coming up to go into the fight.
“‘Give my regards to Blighty, you lucky beggar,’ was the most frequent saying.
“‘Bli’ me,’ said one cockney Tommy, ‘there goes one o’ th’ Canadians with an escort from the Kaiser.’
“Another man stopped and asked about my wound.
“‘Good work,’ he said. ‘I’d like to have a nice clean one like that myself.’
“I noticed one of the prisoners grinning at some remark and asked him if he understood English. He hadn’t spoken to me, though he had shown the greatest readiness to help me.
“‘Certainly I understand English,’ he replied. ‘I used to be a waiter at the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York.’ That sounded like a voice from home, and I wanted to hug him. I didn’t. However, I can say for him he must have been a good waiter. He gave me good service.”