Once again, it was on the blood-soaked fields of Poland where our hospital train was loaded with the wounded.¹ Each of these trips to the front brings a new experience; this one also. A badly wounded Polish boy, possibly eight or nine years old, is being delivered to our train. He is literally wrapped in bandages and looks like an embalmed mummy. Only a pair of dim eyes, portions of sallow cheeks, a pale nose, and the fever-blistered lips are visible. With great heed the stretcher with its light burden is lifted into my car. Carefully I take the youngster into my arms, and he eyes me with confidence, as if I had cared for him for weeks. He moans continuously, but hardly audibly. Aside from this he has not spoken a single word.

The train is loaded and commences its journey eastward, possibly to Moscow, our usual destination. The doctor and a nurse reach my car by the time the train makes its first stop. While the doctor unravels the boy’s bandages, and as I turn the frail body in response to the doctor’s directions, the nurse relates the few details she had been given at the station of how this youngster had come to grief. The village in which he lived with his parents had been shelled by our side in attempts to flush out suspected enemy patrols hiding in it. The Polish family, including the children, had sought cover behind the walls of their dwelling. Shell fragments had killed all members of the family except for this boy, who escaped the fate of the others with a degree of life.

As the unwrapping proceeds, the doctor shakes his head more frequently, for shell splinters have mutilated the whole front portion of the boy’s body. The uncovered face, but especially the chest and belly, seem to be one continuous wound, which, though not too deep, is already heavily pus-infected. The youngster has kept quiet during the entire process. Only when a doctor reaches a spot where the bandage is dried to the wound does he emit an audible groan, which seemed to say, “It hurts so.”

“Won’t pull through,” the doctor says laconically, as he leaves the car.

Until evening he lies, still moaning quietly. At times I have the impression that he sleeps. Then, either in delirium or while dreaming, he talks at length in his Polish tongue. At dusk he grows more restless. “Panie, na dwir” (Sir, I must go out). I hold him over the toilet bucket and feel the high temperature of his body. He is quiet for a few brief minutes. Then, writhing in pain and cramps, he cries heartrendingly: “Panie, oh Panie!!” (Sir, oh sir!!), a prolonged and loud emphasis upon the last syllable. “What do you wish, little boy?” “Panie,” is all he utters, and looks at me with his feverish eyes, which seemed to be full of a thousand wishes, so sadly and imploringly.

I light the lantern and distribute the evening meal among the rest of the wounded. The boy declines each offer of food with a slight shake of his head. But I insist that he must have some tea, and he obediently sips half a cup while I lift his head. Then he grows quiet. The dim light of the lantern gives him the appearance of death.

“Panie, Panie,” he breaks out again.

“Why does the kid cry so much? One can’t sleep,” comes the complaint from one of the wounded men. It seems to me too that he could be somewhat quieter, and with some firmness in my voice I tell him, “Please be quiet. What good does it do to cry?” But immediately I regret the use of harsh words, and inquire in as sympathetic a voice as I am able to muster, “Do you want something, boy?”

“In your arm,” I make out from his haltingly uttered words of pleading. I take him in my arms and pace up and down the aisle of the car. This seems to have a calming effect upon the little patient. He gathers what little strength he has and occasionally strokes my left cheek with his right hand, and blissfully sounds the words “Panie, Panie.” Then his tired arm drops, and I place it ever so lightly against his limp body. I carry him up and down the aisle, until my arms are numb.

I assume that he will not make it until the morning, and therefore resolve to be with him until the end comes. Midnight is nearing. I sit next to his bed, with my back against the wall, and doze off for brief spells. A loud “Panie” startles me, and I ask what he wants. “Mama!” “But you no longer have a mama.” “Papa!” comes the pleading. “Papa too is gone. They’re up there.” I point to the ceiling. “You will soon meet them there.”

Toward dawn, the temperature in the car has gotten low, and I am for some time preoccupied with rekindling the fire in the stove. When finally I return to the boy, I notice that his eyes have a glazed look, and his mouth is partly open.

He certainly is dead, I mutter to myself. My hand touches his, and he responds with a slight movement of the head. A bit of life seems to return to his eyes. “Panie, Panie,” he whimpers. His look expresses an obvious plea for something. What favour could I possibly still do for this little patient? I search the small medical chest in my compartment, and all I see is mercuric chloride, some pills, and a few similar things. Dejectedly I close it. Then I spot a few lumps of sugar on a nearby table left over from the evening tea. I show him a piece, and his eyes seem to smile ever so faintly. He wiggles the fingers of one hand, which gesture I interpret to mean that he wishes me to place a lump near him.

In the morning the doctor inquires about the boy. “Is he still alive?”

“Yes, sir, but can’t we deliver him somewhere soon?”

“Yes, yes. I have received word that in an hour or so we will unload all patients.”

At last the train arrives at the designated station and is being switched to an unloading platform. When the first stretcher is brought to my car, I see to it that the boy is the first patient to be loaded onto it. Yesterday’s bandages are soaked with blood and in many places soiled with pus. He says not a word as he is being lifted out of the car, nor while being placed on a stretcher. No groans are heard, and his eyes are dim and lifeless. His heart still beats faintly, and the verdict is that he is being discharged as living. And yet I know that he is a corpse.

Adult men who have never met, who have never heard of one another, face each other as bitter enemies, tear each other to pieces with bayonets and bombs. Why must innocent children pay so heavily for men’s supreme folly?

Johann G. Rempel, a teacher, minister, and elder, was born in 1890 in Nieder-Chortitza, Chortitza colony. He migrated with his family to Canada in the 1920s. David G. Rempel was a distinguished historian of Mennonites in imperial Russia and the brother of Johann.

1. Originally published in a series titled “Aus der Kriegszeit” in Der Bote. J. R., “Warum die Kinder?,” Der Bote, Feb. 3, 1926, 6-7. ↩︎