Memoirs of 2dLt W. B. Jackson, USMC
ANOTHER HOSPITAL, PERIQUEAUX
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Well, after another week or so another train came through going where I was to go and I was again bundled up, put aboard and sent on down to Periqueaux. Base #30 had been in a beautiful stone and brick building of several stories, a former resort hotel. Periqueaux was in an old wooden troop barracks building of one story, rather long and heated only by a stove at the end of the building. Ambulatories could wander down and sit around the stove but bed patients had to make out the best they could. When we unloaded from the train our transport was a dump truck with side panels perhaps 3 feet high. The stretchers were place across the truck body with the handles resting on the side panels. The occupant of the stretcher was clear above every thing , exposed to the chill of a winter's day. I was assigned to a bed three quarters of the way down the building from the stove. The nurse gave me many blankets and to prevent weight on my game leg she put a metal frame under the blankets over my feet. The frame was about 15 to 18 inches high. This was fine for weight relief by it didn't get any blankets near my feet for warmth in the cold night hours.
In the bed next to me was a young German officer with a wound similar to mine, his on the front of his leg, mine on the side. We got to be quite friendly which was not true of many of the American officers in the ward towards him. In talking it turned out that he had been wounded at Blanc Mont and apparently as near as we could tell one of the group I was with had shot him. He had been in college when the war broke out, so had I. His Dad had been in the Prussian Guards and had got him a sort of cadet-ship leading to a commission. He had been a bank clerk, so had I. We were about the same age etc. He told me he did not believe me when I told him that the Marine Brigade numbered around 10,000 men. He said he had been on seven fronts and had been opposed by Marines on all of them. No 10,000 men could have spread over that much territory. Little did he know of our truck camions or trains running
from one front to the other. He finally received a box from home via the Red Cross and to my surprise insisted on splitting it with me. While I was a stranger to some of the items they were all good.
We had some odd ball characters in the ward. One had been a student at Amherst College. There was a record running something like " Oh my Lord Jeffry Amherst was a soldier of the king and he came from across the sea and he said show me any damned old thing that might scare the life out of me." This poor ward mate insisted on playing that record every time he left the ward and came back. Pretty soon everybody was calling him Lord Jeffry or just plain Amherst. I never did know what his real name was.
We had another character, a Major, with a broken leg who was on crutches. He insisted he could and did dance on his crutches. One morning they had just swabbed the deck when somebody turned the Victrola on. The old Major was exercising by walking up and down the ward on his crutches. When the music started he had to put on his dancing act. Unfortunately, the scrubbed floor was not fully dry and one of the Major's crutches slipped. He fell breaking his game leg again and his good one too. That ended the dancing.
There were a number of really fine fellows in that ward but due to the length of the building and the fact that we were there less than three weeks, we did not get really acquainted. The ward doctor's visits were very perfunctory. He personally did not dress my leg once while I was there but would tell the nurse to do this or that. She was wonderful, doing her best to take care of ;us although she, herself, admitted that the doctor was neglecting the ward. When I left Base #30, Doctor Richards told me that the opening in the wound in my leg should be kept open for drainage and not to let any other doctor close it. At Perigueaux the doctor told the nurse to treat the wound with Balsam of Peru which I understood was a healing agent. So the opening closed over. Some 19 days later we were entrained again and moved down to a Big hospital cluster called something like "Bass End," but I doubt if it was spelled that way. About my first experience there was to have my wound lanced open as it was abscessing ;under the surface. They re-established keeping it open for drainage purposes. Very little happened in the routine at the hospital. Chow, dressings, reading, letter receipts and writing was about all. Among others in the ward was the Captain Frank Smith of Ft. Collins, Colorado, who had been my room-mate at base #30. A big fellow about 6 ft. 4 and built accordingly. One night quite a storm was on and the wind was blowing terrifically. In a nearby ward they got too enthusiastic with their heating stove and the stove pipe through the wooden roof caught it on fire. The wind did the rest. Several of the ward buildings, including ours, caught. The hospital personnel at our building tried to take us patients out by picking up our beds and staring down the short corridor that led to a cross hall leading to the doors. When the bed s got to the hall they could not negotiate the right angle turn required. So there we were, a line of beds back ;up the corridor and which could go no further. Meantime our roof was on fire and burning merrily. I began to wonder if I could roll out of my bed and drag myself to the exit. Then, old combat Captain Smith took over. He went over to the side wall which was wooden panels maybe 12 inches wide and by main strength kicked a hole through the wall big enough for a bed to pass through lengthwise. Then he ordered the doctors, orderlies, nurses and available patient personnel to take us out that way. They did and no one was hurt although the burning roof finally fell in. They carried us, beds and all, to a building With a large open arena kind of room like a gym, and placed us bed patients all close together. The nurses were magnificent, circulating among the beds trying to calm us and keep everybody from getting too excited. The next day we were transferred to another hospital barracks wards that had not been damaged by the fire.
One of my ward-mates in the burned building was in a sort of private room, separated from the ward proper. I never knew just what his injuries were but he was in a complete body cast that extended from his shoulders to his knees. It must have weighed a lot, but they got him, bed, cast and all out of the fire and into a new ward without injuring him in any way. He was a very cheerful individual always belittling his condition.
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