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88 WITH THE GERMAN ARMIES IN THE WEST
they were to proceed to a field hospital or to a collecting
station for wounded, from which they would be sent to a
clearing hospital and finally home.
Badly wounded soldiers are carried past us on hammock
stretchers. Others are placed in ambulance wagons brought
up to a halting-place in some sheltered position. Every
infantry battalion has its surgeon and dressing wagon
—
containing medicines and dressing requisites—and staff of
stretcher bearers. We saw several of these dressing wagons
drive up on side-roads towards the batteries in the south-
west in order to establish a Tnippenverhandsplatz or regi-
mental dressing station.
The " first field dressing," which is applied in the firing line
by the wounded man himself or by some ambulance man, is
merely temporary and intended to prevent exhaustion from
loss of blood until removal can in some way or other be
effected to a safer place where doctors are available. Many
of these emergency dressings are saturated with blood, and
by the evening the road was stained with little red spots of
blood which had dripped from them. No wonder, then, that
now and again I saw a pale face among the wounded.
We were busy scanning the heights opposite with our field-
glasses, when the news came that the Commanding Officer of
one of the battalions deployed in front of us, Lieutenant-
Colonel Machenhauer, had been badly wounded and that a
car was wanted at once to take him to a field hospital. Orders
were immediately given that the nearest car, no matter to
whom it belonged, should immediately proceed to the spot at
full speed and fetch the wounded officer. It was not long
before it returned with the Colonel propped up in the car
between two ambulance men.
Presently Captain Bernhard of the infantry came walking
along without assistance. His whole head was bandaged, but
the bandages were red and the blood was dripping down his
tunic and on to the road. Just as he had turned to give an
order to his men, who were advancing to charge, a buUet had
pierced his cheek obliquely from behind and passed out
through the mouth, taking several teeth with it. It was hoped
that the lower jaw and tongue had not been seriously injured,
but for the moment he was disinclined to talk more than
necessary. He was a plucky fellow and in excellent spirits in
spite of his misfortune. The only thing that annoyed him
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