marina Posted 29 November , 2006 Share Posted 29 November , 2006 Artists, poets, storytellers, model makers, photographers - here is your challenge for December: a depiction of A CCS, or of Walking Wounded, or a mixture of the two. And I am hoping for entries of the quality we have for ther November MGWAT which has been superb. Good luck! Marina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spike10764 Posted 30 November , 2006 Share Posted 30 November , 2006 Ok Casualty Clearing Station/ Walking Wounded it is.... I'll do the Nov Poll.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soren Posted 1 December , 2006 Share Posted 1 December , 2006 heres mine and Wilf's effort Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spike10764 Posted 1 December , 2006 Share Posted 1 December , 2006 Very good Soren... Myself, I'll need some time on this topic..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owen D Posted 2 December , 2006 Share Posted 2 December , 2006 just got me pencil out. Based on photos of Gren Gds Battle of Morval Sept 16 I have IWM Q4301. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marina Posted 2 December , 2006 Author Share Posted 2 December , 2006 Two very powerful entries so far...come on, let's have more! Marina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
susanhemmings Posted 3 December , 2006 Share Posted 3 December , 2006 Superb, both of them. Looks like this will be a difficult one again...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alliekiwi Posted 4 December , 2006 Share Posted 4 December , 2006 I'm officially jealous and wish I had an artistic bone in my body to draw something like that! Lovely art, both of you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SFayers Posted 5 December , 2006 Share Posted 5 December , 2006 Ok, here's my fourth penny, based on a couple of photos (one actually from WWII) - never been very good at hands or feet I'm afraid! It's meant to show a couple of 'plough boys' from the Suffolk Yeomanry in Gallipoli, 1915. Hope you like it. cheers Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marina Posted 5 December , 2006 Author Share Posted 5 December , 2006 Another strong entry... Marina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunboat Posted 5 December , 2006 Share Posted 5 December , 2006 Excellent entries! No good at Hands and Feet Steve?....I wish I was that bad! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SFayers Posted 5 December , 2006 Share Posted 5 December , 2006 Excellent entries! No good at Hands and Feet Steve?....I wish I was that bad! Cheers mate - thankfully the scan doesn't show all the eraser marks! :-) Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owen D Posted 5 December , 2006 Share Posted 5 December , 2006 Cheers mate - thankfully the scan doesn't show all the eraser marks! :-) Steve Unfortunately mine does, couldn't get angle of middle soldiers helmet right so gave up. Steve great image. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SFayers Posted 6 December , 2006 Share Posted 6 December , 2006 Unfortunately mine does, couldn't get angle of middle soldiers helmet right so gave up. Steve great image. Still looks darned good though!! cheers Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunboat Posted 6 December , 2006 Share Posted 6 December , 2006 Unfortunately mine does, couldn't get angle of middle soldiers helmet right so gave up. Steve great image. Owen you shouldnt have said anything I had honestly assumed it was a depiction of greyish weather. I would be too scared to use an eraser, my old art teacher "Mrs Bulldog" used to smack our hands with a ruler, paint-brush or basically anything she could get a good swing with if we so much as looked at an eraser So be proud and show your erroneouse lines Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunboat Posted 8 December , 2006 Share Posted 8 December , 2006 Walking wounded In a long tattered line Snaking down the track Come the walking wounded Arm in arm and hands on shoulders, They support each other in sombre procession How long is it? Since Down flag lined streets they swayed Past the cheering, laughing crowds Children running between the ranks, as the band played Them off to war Now they’re silent, (save their stifled gasps of pain) As they limp, stagger and stumble To the whistle and thump of shells And the staccato laughter of the machine guns That taunts their every step Unclean,Unclean! others turn aside No one wants reminders of painful wounds Better a clean death or a blighty one Than the pain, patch up and pitch back into battle That is the lot of the walking wounded Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spike10764 Posted 8 December , 2006 Share Posted 8 December , 2006 Excellent efforts so far, here's mine, a bit of a story..... Walking Wounded " Dont worry chum. I'll not drop you ". I said that more in hope than expectation, but for the poor beggar whose blood was running into my collar and down my back, I was his only hope. Keep going, keep going, not far now, I tell myself, you can make it, ****** it! you will make it.. There had been two of us and a stretcher, but Jack had copped it back there . It was a piece of a big ******* shell, had sliced the top of his head clean off. So now it was me and "Tommy Atkins" here,trying to get back to our lines. Him with half his face missing and me bleading from a few scratches (left arm mainly), from the smaller fragments of the big shell. The day had started OK for me and Jack. At least we didn't have to go over the top at dawn. We waited in supports, stretchers ready, to go over on the cry "Stretcher Bearers!" At first we were kind of lucky, the attack went well and soon the waves were out of sight over the ridge. Then we were sent out. The first few "passengers", as we like to call them were just in front of the trenches, on our side of the ridge. We ferried one or two to the Aid Post, took one on to the CCS and sadly left a couple in "Solong Street" ( as we called the area set aside behind the Aid Post for those beyond help). As twilight approached, we were sent out further afield, over the ridge, to find the poor beggars who had lain unseen all day. Jack and I struggled over shell holes and torn wire, seeing nothing but corpses and bloodstains, taking turn and turn about shouldering the heavy stretcher whilst the other rested. " Shall we go back?" Jack said, rather plaintively I thought, "There's now't here that ain't beyond our help!". "Shh !" says I, "Can you here that?". It sounded like blowing bubbles in the bath when you were kids, only if the bath had been filled with porridge instead. Carefully I followed the sound and in a shell hole partly obscured by wire, about 15 yards away, lay a pitiful sight. It was a tommy, with a chunk of his jaw blown off, struggling to breathe through the side of his shattered teeth. He was sort of gasping and moaning and had lost a lot of blood. We climbed down and checked he was not injured anywhere else, no further damage appeared to be done , but he needed to get help soon or he was a goner.I managed to get a bit of morphine into what was left of his mouth and we loaded him on the stretcher and set off back to our lines. The journey back was harder than the journey out, what with the churned ground, "Tommy's" weight and the increase in shells falling on our side of the ridge, some of which were too close for comfort. Have you ever tried crouching, carrying and running at the same time ? Well, it isn't easy, but we did it... Then CRASH! I was suddenly toppled head over heels, dropping the stretcher and falling head first into a muddy hole. I lay there for a while and then noticed the handles of the stretcher hanging over the edge of the pit and heard "Tommy" moaning and fighting for breath. As I climbed out of the mud, there I saw Jack, or what had been Jack, lying in a pool of blood. His helmet lay 10 yards away, probably containing the top of his head, which was sliced like a can opener. Just as I was about to panic, "Tommy" made a snorting sound and looked at me with wide eyes that begged me not to leave him, begged me to help. That shook me; so much so; that I decided to try. I thought, if I put Tommy over my shoulder, I could carry him; No Scrub That; I WOULD carry him back, for Jack, if you like..... So here I am stumbling along in the dark, witha fully grown man on my back, praying those lines I can see are really ours. Shots ring out and whistle past us. I drop face down with Tommy still on my back, it winds me something rotten, hoping they don't hit the poor ****** who's now exposed more than I am. "British Stretcher Bearer!" I shriek almost hysterical ( wouldn't it have been a downer to have got this far only to be shot by a nervy sentry?) "British Stretcher Bearer with Wounded Man !" The shots stop at least. "Come in slowly, arms raised " a clear voice calls out " Do not go any direction but forward and stand up where you can be seen !"Stand up ! I can't- all I can do is crawl and drop into the trench, pulling "Tommy" down after me. An Officer appears, gun drawn, but as he sees us he calls immediately for stretchers. Four lads appear and after loading "Tommy" onto one, start to put me on the other. I start to object, but they point to my arm dripping blood and my bloody tunic. "It's only a bloody scratch!" I shout and then, nothing.My memories of the next few hours are sparse, apparently the effort and my own shrapnel wounds caused me to pass out. Whatever happened to "Tommy", I do not know. he was sent straight on to the CCS and probably further.... I lay at the Regimental Aid Post, bandaged and sleeping. I tried to find Jack when I was out again the next day, but the Box Barrage the Germans had laid down for their counter attack, had pretty much demolished the area. That and the fact that I had a new partner and wounded to carry, work to do saving other poor blighters, meant I was never able to pinpoint the exact spot on which he had lain. No time for the dead- our Sergeant always says. Tommorrow I have to do the hardest thing. When we all go out of line to billets, I have to write to Jack's wife- tell her what happened. How do I tell her ? Should I say how he died, tell the old lie 'killed instantly by a bullet to the heart'. Then how do I explain the fact his has no grave....... Sometimes the phrase ' Walking Wounded ' describes much more than physical hurt.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunboat Posted 8 December , 2006 Share Posted 8 December , 2006 Brilliant Spike! You have an excellent turn of phrase. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marina Posted 8 December , 2006 Author Share Posted 8 December , 2006 Spike, was there really a 'Solong Street'? Marina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spike10764 Posted 9 December , 2006 Share Posted 9 December , 2006 Spike, was there really a 'Solong Street'? Marina Sorry Marina, I made it up. A bit of old sardonic humour in what I hoped was a Great War style. If there wasn't then perhaps there should have been, certainly that is a Cumberland touch, humour in the face of adversity.( Some say thats the only humour we really have ) Gunboat- thanks for the compliment. I wish I could do poems like you- that really does paint a picture ( all of mine sound like limericks- "there was an old man from....etc, etc) Steve- excellent drawing- am I right in thinking this is your first MGWAT entry? What a start if it is.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozzie Posted 9 December , 2006 Share Posted 9 December , 2006 Steve, I'd give alot to be able to draw like that, well done. Gunboat, short words, big picture, so apt, so sad, so true. Spike, as always, brilliant. Kim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marina Posted 9 December , 2006 Author Share Posted 9 December , 2006 Spike, was there really a 'Solong Street'? Marina Sorry Marina, I made it up. A bit of old sardonic humour in what I hoped was a Great War style. If there wasn't then perhaps there should have been, certainly that is a Cumberland touch, humour in the face of adversity.( Some say thats the only humour we really have ) Spike - if it wasn't real, then it should have been. I Liked that! Marina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Foster Posted 9 December , 2006 Share Posted 9 December , 2006 Hi Here is my atempt on the subject Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Upton Posted 9 December , 2006 Share Posted 9 December , 2006 Thats not Charlie Chaplin, he's got a bowler on, but where's his 'tache and cane? Unless you mean a Chaplain of course... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SFayers Posted 9 December , 2006 Share Posted 9 December , 2006 - am I right in thinking this is your first MGWAT entry? Cheers mate, and yes - hopefully I might get to post a few more in the future! Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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