.dt The White Road of Mystery, by Philip Dana Orcutt--A Project Gutenberg eBook
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THE WHITE ROAD OF MYSTERY
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THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN
AMERICAN AMBULANCIER
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AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE, SECTION XXXI
at 21 rue Raynouard, Paris
The author is standing the seventh from the right
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[Illustration: AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE, SECTION XXXI
at 21 rue Raynouard, Paris
The author is standing the seventh from the right]
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THE WHITE ROAD
OF MYSTERY
THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN
AMERICAN AMBULANCIER
BY
PHILIP DANA ORCUTT
AMERICAN AMBULANCE FIELD SERVICE
Section XXXI
Illustrated with Photographs
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
1918
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COPYRIGHT, 1918
BY JOHN LANE COMPANY
THE·PLIMPTON·PRESS
NORWOOD·MASS·U·S·A
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To
SECTION THIRTY-ONE
TO ALL OTHER SECTIONS OF THE
American Field Service
AND TO THOSE WHO HAVE
MADE THEM POSSIBLE
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Preface
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.ni
THE position of the ambulance driver
at the front is much the same as that
of the grouse in open season: every
one has a chance to take a shot at him
and he has no opportunity for retaliation.
That is why so many drivers
entered aviation or artillery at the expiration
of their term of enlistment of six
months.
.pi
This transferring came to an end when
the American Government took over the
Ambulance Service. From then on, all
drivers have been of necessity enlisted
men. The old American Ambulance, later
called the American Field Service, was
a purely volunteer organization, and
had no connection with any government.
It was made up of American
citizens who left civil life, paying their
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own expenses and furnishing their own
equipment, and in many cases their
ambulances. These men, feeling that
America owed a debt to France, banded
together to form the original American
Ambulance Service, which they laid on
the altar of their devotion to a true and
great cause.
By virtue of the nature of his work
the ambulance driver must always be in
the warmest places, and has a really unusual
opportunity to observe by moving
from sector to sector and battle to battle
what few other branches of the service
can see.
I had the honor to be associated with
Section XXXI of the American Field Service,
and have endeavored to weave my
simple tapestry from the swiftly-moving
pictures of life “in the zone” and out
of it, as they passed before me.
.rj
P. D. O.
Boston, June, 1918
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Contents
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CHAPTER || PAGE
I. | THE WHITE ROAD OF MYSTERY | #19:ch01#
II. |IN ACTION | #41:ch02#
III. |EN REPOS | #87:ch03#
IV. |AT THE FRONT | #117:ch04#
V. | L’ENVOI | #151:ch05#
| GLOSSARY | #171:glos#
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Illustrations
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| PAGE
AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE, SECTION XXXI | #4:frontis#
A SAUCISSE | #33:i033#
BRANCARDIERS LOADING AN AMBULANCE | #57:i057#
AN ABRI | #77:i077#
A DIVISION EN REPOS | #95:i095#
NORMAL TRAFFIC AT THE FRONT | #131:i131#
TAKING A LOAD FROM THE ABRI | #147:i147#
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.h2
Prelude
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.ni
THE sweet, clear notes of a bugle come
faintly up to me through the cool air of
morning, and as the sound dies away I hear
the great guns begin their bombardment, the
rumbling echoes merging into the matin
chimes wafted across the valley from some
small church as yet unscarred by Mars.
.pi
Reveille, the summons, calls man from
his peaceful, prenatal slumber, rouses him
and bids him prepare for what the world
will send him. Man goes forth to meet the
world, and struggles through his allotted
time until the bells of God ring for him to
fold himself in his soul and sleep.
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I||THE WHITE ROAD OF MYSTERY
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.ni
A SHARP whistle cuts the tense silence.
It is the signal to start. It marks the line
which breaks the past from the future;
it is the boundary between the Known
and the Unknown, and the frontier where
duty and service merge. For a second,
as the motors race, there is commotion—quickly
settling into a rhythmic whir.
The men are in their seats with somewhat
of an echo of that whir in their
hearts. The lieutenant’s car rolls slowly
out of the gate, followed by the chef’s,
and in turn by the others of the section,
and as the last car crosses the threshold
there is a cheer from the friends gathered
to bid us Godspeed,—for Section XXXI is
born.
.pi
.tb
.ni
WE are off. We do not know where
we are going. After a number of interminable
delays and halts we pass
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through the gates of the city, and leave
behind the last vestige of the Known.
Ahead of us the road stretches white in
the sunlight—the white road of mystery
leading on to adventure and redemption.
We have ceased to be our own
masters. We are units, cogs in the
machine, infinitesimal pawns in the giant
game, and move as the dust which rises
from the car ahead—where we know
not, why we know not,—and how we
often wonder!
.pi
.tb
.ni
CONVOY formation allows, by the
book, for an interval of twenty feet between
cars when passing through cities,
and for one hundred feet when in the
country. The flesh, however, is weak.
In cities it is rare indeed to see cars
separated by more than a nose except in
spasms, while in the country a matter of
miles is unimportant. A convoy is like a
pack of dogs on the hunt, racing pell mell
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up hill and down dale one minute, and
crawling the next, with an occasional dog
straying off and losing itself for an indefinite
length of time.
For example, we come to some small
town where we are to have lunch. We
arrive in a hurry and with much dust, the
first few cars in close formation, nose to
tail, the last a few miles in the rear.
Suddenly the driver of the leading car,
who has been admiring the scenery on the
right of the road, sees the chef standing on
the left making frantic motions for him
to stop. Perhaps the driver puts out his
hand, perhaps he does not. At any rate,
he applies the brakes and comes to a dead
stop—for an instant. The driver of the
second car may have been adjusting his
carburetor or observing an aeroplane, or a
peasant girl, or a map—the exact object is
beside the question. He suddenly comes
to earth when he finds his charge valiantly
trying to climb over the car in front—more
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brakes. Of course there is a third
car, and possibly a fourth, or more, which
demand attention. The final result advances
the leading car some feet, decreases
the supply of spare radiators, and as a
rule does not contribute to the general
harmony.
One or more cars must always have
taken the wrong road, and lead a hare
and hound chase for some minutes before
the final roundup, leaving for clues
numerous peasants who, when queried,
always know just where it went. Of
course, by the law of chance, some one
of these has undoubtedly seen it, and the
lost is eventually found.
There was one particular member of
our section who was a rover at soul, and
led several interesting hunts. A little
later in the season this same rover took
a by-road and started through the Hesse
Forest for Germany. Our whole pack
was called out, and after an exciting
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chase he was finally caught and convinced
of his error. Fortunately for
both him and us the chef has a sense of
humor, and the section, in spite of our
many innocent attempts to disintegrate
it and take individual excursions to different
parts of France, continues to be
a unit.
For five days we proceed thus, with
the white road stretching out in front
and the brown dust trailing behind.
We stop to get gasoline, to eat, and to
sleep. We begin to near the front, and
pass through town after town of roofless
houses, shattered churches, and scattered
homes. Through fields dotted with
wooden crosses with the tricolored ribbon,
and pock-marked with shell-holes.
We pass aeroplane hangars and batteries
of guns. We see more saucisses in the
sky and soldiers on the ground. The
hand of the Hun lies heavy on the land,
and his poison breath scorches the grass
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of the fields. We see fewer civilians and
more steel helmets, and yet the rumble
of the guns is no louder. But there is
a certain breath of power and energy in
the air, and one feels himself waiting for
something to happen.
Something does—an infuriated bull
charges Rover’s car and picks off one of
his headlights. Rover reverses hastily
and unhesitatingly into the car behind,
while the farmer’s wife makes her appearance,
drives off the bull, and saves
Rover from extermination.
Then, one afternoon, we arrive at our
point of embarkation, so to speak. It is
Bar-le-Duc, sixty kilometres from Verdun,
and by virtue of its being the one city in
many miles, the meeting place of the
world, which is to say, of course, our
sector of front—when en repos.
.tb
.ni
BAR-LE-DUC, the old stronghold of
the feudal dukes of Bar, nestling in the
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valley on the banks of the slow-moving
Ornain, tributary to the River Marne,
and with la ville haute trespassing far
onto one ridge, and the ruined castle
frowning down from the other, is a town
of memories and traditions which greets
this war as but another chapter in the
never-ending book of its history. It has
two large and ancient cathedrals, the
one crowning the upper city—now quite
naturally in ruins, as the enemy, by this
time a connoisseur in churches, makes
frequent air raids. The chateau—considered
quite modern as it is but two hundred
years of age—has mellowed into the
surroundings by now, and forms a sufficiently
integral part of the beauty of
the city to be likewise a target for our
“considerate” neighbor.
.pi
One evening, as the last rays of the
sun glinted from its roof, it stood solid
and strong,—ready to do battle with
the elements for many centuries more,
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.pn +1
but while the city lay quiet in the cold
moonlight of an August night, the sound
of purring motors broke the silence from
above. The contre-avions crashed, and
the yellow shrapnel broke in the sky
often a mile from its invisible target,
and never near enough to arrest the advance
of the raiders, who suddenly shut
off their motors and, as often before,
swooped silently down on their motionless
prey, and dropped their bombs.
Then, turning on their motors, they
climbed and glided over the city again
and again until, having dropped their
entire cargo, they flew off. But in the
morning the chateau no longer stood
proudly up from the river mist, and
another buttress against the ravages of
the elements had crumbled into untimely
ruins.
The main street of the town is denuded
of its plate glass, and more houses crumble
each time the enemy reports “military
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advantage gained” by an indiscriminate
slaughter of the future crop of France’s
defenders, and those heroic souls who
bear them.
The town is noted for its manufactures,
its wines, and its confitures. As to the
first-named I know little, but as to the
merits of its wines, its liqueurs, and its
confitures I cannot say enough, nor can
many thousands of others who seek out
Bar-le-Duc as the one sanctuary from
the mud and deprivations of the rest
of their existence, and bask gloriously
in the discomforts of its civilization for
a few stolen hours.
.tb
.ni
CONVOY formation again, the cars
freshly washed and glistening in the
sunlight,—for a few minutes, before
the grey cloud of dust pouring from the
cars in front settles on us again. We
come to a turn. A large sign greets us,
Souilly—vers Verdun, emphasized by a
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giant arrow pointing in the direction we
take. We are instantly sure that this
is to be our headquarters. Verdun is
a name we have long wished to visualize.
At the first stop we tell each other the
great news. While we are grouped in
the road a big grey limousine carrying
three generals dashes past. Every one
salutes, and by a miracle we are noticed
and the salute is returned. Cheerful
Liar at once informs us that they were
Joffre, Petain, and—he is at a loss for
the third name. We help him out—Hindenburg
perhaps.
.pi
But we are doomed to bitter disappointment.
Thirty kilometres from the
famous city we are given orders to park
our cars in a pile of ruins formerly
known as Erize—Erize la petite, and
well named.
.tb
.ni
ERIZE is, without exception, the dullest
place beneath the sun—a small town,
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now a mass of crumbling ruins, holding
not above two dozen civilians, who are,
for the most part, still less interesting
than the town. Of course, there are
Grand’mère and Grand-père, no relation
to each other, but so christened by us
because they are the only two octogenarians
here. Grand’mère is not properly
from Erize. Her home is somewhere
north of Verdun, in a town with an
unpronounceable name and long since
destroyed. She, herself, carries proudly
on her wrinkled forehead a two-inch scar
from shrapnel, and informs us tearfully
that her two sons have died in action,
“pour la patrie,” she concludes, with a
faint smile.
.pi
I met Grand’mère for the first time
when I picked an unripe apple from an
overburdened tree. The old woman appeared
from the depths of a nearby
building and advanced menacingly towards
me, hobbling along on a cane,
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and pouring forth as she came an unintelligible
tirade from which I gathered
that the apple reposing guiltily in my
hand was hers—not mine. A single
franc served to wreathe her face in smiles
and to obtain undisputed claim to the
apple and her good graces in the future.
Ira furor brevis est. I afterwards learned
that houses in Erize rent for fifty francs a
year, this including several acres of farm
land.
Grand-père, aged ninety-eight, I met
near the temporary kitchen where the
cook was giving him a cup of Pinard,
which he drank eagerly, while Grand’mère
gave him wise counsel, to which he replied
as Omar Khayyam might have done.
But they are the only characters of
interest here. The fields surrounding
the town have as their redeeming feature
a system of old trenches, with much
barbed wire and an occasional shell-fragment
to reward the searcher. The
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German advance was stopped less than
a mile from here, and the trenches have
been used since for practice.
The dugouts interest us particularly.
We are later to become surfeited with
them, but as yet they are still delightfully
novel. The rumble of the guns can be
heard plainly from here, and at rare
intervals a saucisse rises on the horizon,
much to our joy and excitement.
.tb
.ni
THE saucisse is a balloon shaped like
a sausage—hence its name. At the
front they are in the sky by the hundreds
on both sides to direct the fire of the
artillery and to observe the enemy’s
operations generally. They are consequently
made the objective of the aeroplane,
and many are brought down every
day. The aeroplane dodges along from
cloud to cloud, and when he is just over
the saucisse suddenly swoops down, and
with a tic-tic-tic from his machine-gun
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the bag crumples up in a cloud of black
smoke and flames, the observer jumps
out with his parachute, and the aeroplane
dashes off pursued by many shells.
.pi
In the balloons the observers all have
parachutes and usually make their escape,
although often they have to spend
a little time dangling from the limb of
some tree.
.tb
.ni
WE are told not to stray far, as the
order to move may come at any moment.
We take walks through the country, and
always on returning find the section with
“no news,”—but at last the order comes.
.pi
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A SAUCISSE
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[Illustration: A SAUCISSE]
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We have gotten our baggage ready,
and are sitting around in the darkness
smoking our pipes and thinking. Tomorrow
we are going up to the lines.
A big attack has been scheduled, and we
are to take care of the wounded. It is
to be our first work, and any fighting at
all seems a “big attack” to us. We are
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a green section, fresh from Paris. We
have never heard a shell whistle, and
have been thrilled by the sound of guns
twenty miles away. What will be our
sensations face to face with the real
thing? We are a bit nervous. There is
some tension. We discuss the probable
extent of the attack and debate as to its
success. This leads us nowhere, and
after we have pledged each other and the
section “Bonne chance” in a glass of
cognac from a bottle opened for the occasion,
we turn in.
.tb
.ni
IT is cold and chill, and a steady drizzle
is oozing from the sky above into the
earth beneath, and is making it soft and
slippery. I awake, yawn, stretch sleepily,
and gaze out into the grey dejection of
the morning. I have been sleeping luxuriously
on the floor of an ambulance,
wedged in between two trunks and a
duffle-bag.
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.pi
“Well, this is ‘der Tag’ for us,” I remark
to a friend, who has spent the night
on top of the two trunks.
He stops eating my jam for an instant
and agrees with me. Then, on second
thought, he generously offers me some
jam. I sit up and struggle for a few
seconds with a piece of the bread we
carry for nourishment and defence, spread
some jam on it, get out a bottle of Sauterne
(at the front wine is wine at all
hours of the day and night), and we
settle down to breakfast. Breakfast is
a purely personal investment, as it officially
consists of coffee—so called by
courtesy—and bread. The French bread
comes in round loaves a foot in diameter,
and is never issued until four days old,
and is often aged ten or more before we
see it. Fresh bread, it is believed, would
give a soldier indigestion. French officialdom
believes the same evil of water,
and provides each soldier with a quart
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a day of cheap red wine called, in the
argot of the trenches, Pinard. Breakfast
over, we make our way to the barn,
our official quarters, by means of stepping-stones
previously laid from the car, and
chat with the other members of the
section.
Today we are moving up into the zone
of fire itself, and are somewhat excited.
The entire section is to move to a little
destroyed town, Ville-sur-Couzances.
From there six cars are always to be on
duty taking care of our first wounded.
The chef and the sous-chef join us presently.
They went up yesterday and were
shown the postes, and consequently come
in for a storm of questions. The sous-chef
tells us that today we shall hear them
“whistle both ways.” We are thrilled.
He asks us if we are ready. We are—even
Rover. Then the lieutenant comes
in. He speaks a few words to the chef.
The chef blows his whistle four times.
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.pn +1
It is the signal for assembly. He gives
us a few instructions. We run to our
cars. One whistle—we crank up. Two
whistles—the leading ambulance painfully
and noisily tears itself from its bed
of mud. The others follow in regular
succession, until the last car melts into
the grey, cold mist. When shall we see
Erize again?
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II||IN ACTION
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.ni
VILLE-SUR-COUZANCES is also at
this time the headquarters of Section
XXIX, which has just lost two men,
and Section LXIX, which is a gear-shift
section,—we are quite proudly Fords.
Section XIX, French, whom we are
relieving, examines us critically, but
makes no audible comments. To the
six of us chosen for the first “roll” there
is but one impatient thought. We hear
“Napoleon”—a French private attached
to our section for ravitaillement because
he could do nothing else—telling the cook
and several unwilling assistants how to
dispose of the field range. In the French
manner, instead of ignoring him, the
stove is discarded, and a Latin argument
follows much to the amusement if not
to the edification of the onlookers. This
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.pn +1
does not concern us, and as soon as we
get the order to roll we are blithely off.
.pi
It is only a few minutes’ run to Brocourt,
where the triage, or front hospital,
is located. This is like a giant hangar in
shape, but, instead of the mottled green,
blue, and grey camouflage of the latter,
it is brilliantly white with a red cross
fifty feet square surmounting it. Despite
this fact, it is bombed and shelled regularly
by the “merciful” Hun. We pass
through the shattered town, its church
tower still standing, by a miracle, and
pointing its scarred and violated finger
to the heavens with the silent appeal—“Avenge!”
The sous-chef, who is sitting beside me,
tells me to put on my helmet and to sling
my mask over my shoulder. From here
on men “go west” suddenly, and in
their boots. We pass over a short rise
in sight of the German saucisses, and down
a steep and long hill into Récicourt. Of
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.pn +1
that hill there is much to remember—but
today it is just steep, and green, and
has many trees by the roadside loaded
down with much unripe fruit. Past the
sentry, over the bridge which the Boche
hit yesterday with an eight-inch shell—which
failed to explode and bounced
into the muddy river—and we are at
the relay station. It is a barn with half
the roof and a goodly portion of the
walls missing. We use this to screen the
cars from the eyes of raiding enemy
aeroplanes, of which there are many.
Two of us are at once assigned to run
to the poste de secours, P 2, where just
now we are to keep two cars, the other
four remaining at the relay station. Again
luck is with me, and I am in the first
car to roll. Our run is entirely through
the woods, in the Hesse Forest, and as
the enemy will not be able to see us we
rejoice—but we soon learn not to rejoice
prematurely. There is hardly a
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man in sight as we struggle along through
the mud, but beside the road everywhere,
often spilling into it, lie piles of shells,
75’s, 155’s, and torpilles by the thousand,
apparently arranged haphazardly. The
torpille is a winged and particularly
deadly shell, first cousin to the German
minniewerfer, and differing essentially only
in range. The maréchal des logis informs
us encouragingly that the one lying in
the middle of the road which we just ran
over was a Boche which did not explode
when it landed, and has not—yet.
Everything is wrapped in the silence
of the grave except for an occasional
crash as some battery sends its message
into Germany. We arrive at P 2, which
is distinguished from the rest of the
world by a foot square of white cotton
and the universal red cross. There is
room inside the gate—a log dyke against
the mud—to park the cars: “Room
sideways or deep,” as one member of the
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section described it as he watched his
boots sink steadily into the mud.
The sous-chef calls us around him and
gives us our detailed instructions, for he
is going back by the first car. Suddenly,
as we are listening to him attentively,
there is a piercing zz-chung, and a 250
lands within a hundred yards with a
dull crash and a geyser of trees, dirt,
and black smoke. We look at him inquiringly
and he points to the abri.
We nod and adjourn to it. A few more
shells follow, then all is peaceful again,
while the French batteries around us
hammer away at the Germans in their
turn. We take lunch on a rustic table
under the trees and thoroughly enjoy
having our tin plates rattled by the
concussion of the guns, while a Frenchman
explains to us the difference in
sound between an arrivée and a départ.
Such is the initiation. Then while we,
as yet mere amateurs, eat peacefully,
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relishing the novelty of the situation, and
buoyed up by our first excitement, a
short procession passes. It is a group of
men carrying stretchers on which are
what were men a few minutes before,
who, standing within talking distance of
us, were blown out of existence by the
shells which whistled over our heads
and, bursting, scattered éclats and dirt
on the steel roof that sheltered us. It is
a side of the front which has not touched
us deeply before, a side which in the first
few days of the ordeal by fire impresses
itself more and more on the novice, until
he learns to temper the realization with
philosophy and the so-called humor of
the front. Then is the veteran in embryo.
The ambulance sections are divided
into two classes—gear-shift and Ford.
The gear-shift sections are composed of
Fiats, Berliets, or some other French car.
They carry five couchés or eight assis,
// 047.png
.pn +1
and have two men to a car. The French
Army ambulances are all gear-shift, and
the gear-shift sections included in the
American Field Service all originally belonged
to the French Government. Before
the American Government took over
the Ambulance Corps, the American Field
Service, in addition to sending out Ford
sections as quickly as they were subscribed
in America, had been gradually
absorbing the French Ambulance System,
relieving with its own men the French
drivers who could then serve in the
trenches, and including those sections
among its own.
The Ford sections carried three couchés
or four assis, and had one driver, although
many sections had extra men to help out.
A Ford section then, when complete, consisted
of twenty ambulances, one Ford
camionnette or truck, which went for food
and carried spare parts and often baggage,
one French camionnette, a one-ton
// 048.png
.pn +1
truck, which carried tools, French mechanics,
and other spare parts, one large
White truck with kitchen trailer, one
Ford touring-car for the chef, and a more
or less high-powered touring car for the
lieutenant. The personnel was one
French lieutenant, who was the connecting
link between the organization and
the government, and was responsible to
the latter for the actions of the section;
one chef, who was an American chosen
by the organization from the sous-chefs
of one of the sections in the field; one or
two sous-chefs, chosen by the chef from
the members of his or some other section;
twenty drivers, often an odd number
of assistant drivers, an American paid
mechanic, and an odd number of French
mechanics, cooks, and clerks.
The lieutenant received the orders and
was responsible to the army for their
execution. The lieutenant gave the chef
his orders, and the chef was responsible
// 049.png
.pn +1
to him for their execution by the section.
The sous-chefs were the chef’s assistants.
The routine when at work is for a
certain number of cars to be on duty at
one time, the number depending on the
work. The section is divided into shifts
of the number of cars required. When on
duty a man must always have his car
and himself ready to “roll,” and when off
duty, after putting his car in condition,
must rest so as to be in shape for his next
turn. When the work is heavy, the cars
on duty are rolling all the time with very
little opportunity for food or rest for the
driver; consequently, for a man not to
get himself and his car ready in this
period of rest means that the service is
weakened; and that, if other cars go en
panne unavoidably, it is possibly crippled—and
lives may be lost. When the
work is light, men are usually twenty-four
hours on and forty-eight off; when
moderate, twenty-four on and twenty-four
// 050.png
.pn +1
off; when stiff, forty-eight on and
twenty-four off, and during an attack
almost steadily on. The longest stretch
that my section kept its men continuously
at work was seven days and nights
in the Verdun sector during an attack,
and we were compelled to cease then
only because too few of our cars were
left able to roll to carry the wounded.
From headquarters the day’s shift is
sent to the relay station, and from there
cars go as needed to the postes de secours.
The postes are as near the trenches as it
is possible for the cars to go, and some
can be visited only at night. The
wounded are brought to these by the
brancardiers through the boyaux, or communication
trenches, and usually have
their first attention here. After first
aid has been administered, and when there
are enough for a load, or there is a serious
case, the car goes to the triage, stopping
at the relay station, from which a car
// 051.png
.pn +1
is sent to the poste to replace the first,
which returns to the relay station directly
from the hospital.
The hospitals also are divided into two
main classes, the triages, or front hospitals
in the zone of fire, and the H.O.E.’s,
hospitals of evacuation, anywhere back
of the fines. The hospital of evacuation
is the third of the four stages through
which a wounded man passes. The first
is the front-line dressing station, the abri;
the second, if the wound is at all serious,
is the triage; the third, if serious enough,
is the hospital of evacuation; and the
fourth, if the soldier has been confined
to the hospital for ten or more days, is
the ten-day permission to Paris, Nice, or
some other place of his choice. Then
these classes, in some cases, are subdivided
into separate hospitals for couchés,
assis, and malades.
These subdivisions sometimes make
complications, as in the case of one
// 052.png
.pn +1
driver who was given what appeared to
be a serious case to take to the couché
hospital. While on the way, however,
the serious case revived sufficiently to
find his canteen. After a few swallows
he felt a pleasant warmth within, for
French canteens are not filled with water,
and sat up better to observe his surroundings
and to make uncomplimentary
remarks to the driver. Arrived at the
hospital, the brancardiers lifted the curtain
at the rear of the car, and seeing
the patient sitting up and smoking a
cigarette, apparently in good health, they
refused to take him, and sent the car on
to the assis hospital. Overcome by his
undue exertion, the wounded man lay
down again, and by the time the ambulance
had reached the other hospital was
peacefully dozing on the floor. The
brancardiers shook their heads, and sent
the car back to the couché hospital.
Somewhat annoyed by this time, the
// 053.png
.pn +1
ambulancier did not drive with the same
care, and the jolts aroused the incensed
poilu, who sat up and began to ask personal
questions. The driver, not wishing
to continue his trips between the two
hospitals for the duration of the war,
stopped the car outside the couché hospital,
and, seeing his patient sitting up,
put him definitely to sleep with a tire
tool, and sent him in by the uncomplaining
brancardiers.
.tb
.ni
WE spend a good part of our time in
the abri. Just now the Boche appears
to have taken a particular dislike to this
part of the sector, for he is strafing it
most unmercifully. We do not doubt at
all that it is because we are here. The
fact that there are six thousand French
guns massed in the woods, so near together
that you cannot walk a dozen feet
without tripping over one, may, of course,
have something to do with the enemy’s
// 054.png
.pn +1
vindictiveness, but that does not occur
to us.
.pi
After taking an hour or two of interrupted
sleep in the abri, we step out in
the early morning to get a breath of
fresh air and to untangle our cramped
muscles. A shell or two whines in uncomfortably
near, and we are convinced
that the enemy knows our every move
by instinct. When we sit in the abri
during the day, and there is never a
second that we do not hear the whine
of at least one shell overhead, and
the intervals between shells striking near
enough to shake the abri and rattle éclats
on its steel roof grow less, we are convinced
the Boche is searching for our
dugout. When I am making a run to P 2,
and, rounding Dead Horse Corner, start
on the last stretch, and a shell knocks
a tree across the road a hundred feet
ahead, blocking us completely, and two
more shells drop on the road by the tree,
// 055.png
.pn +1
two more strike ten yards on our right,
and another lands within fifteen feet on
our left, there is no doubt in my mind
that the enemy is after me.
In reality, of course, the enemy has no
idea where the abris are located, and just
now is simply taking a few chance shots
at a likely corner—but every man knows
that every shell he hears is meant for
him personally,—all of which goes to
prove how egotistical we really are.
.tb
.ni
AS one man remarked, “Our life out
here is just one d— brancardier after another.”
The brancardiers, or stretcher-bearers,
include the musicians—for the
band does not play at the front,—the
exchanged prisoners who are pledged to
do no combatant work, and others who
volunteer for or are assigned to this work.
These men are in the front-line trenches,
where they bandage wounded men as they
are hit, and carry them to the front abri,
// 056.png
.pn +1
where the major, army doctor, gives them
more careful attention. At the front
abri are other brancardiers, who then
take charge of these men and load them
into our cars. We arrive at the hospital,
and brancardiers there unload the ambulances
and carry in the wounded. Inside
the hospital other brancardiers nurse the
wounded, as no women nurses are allowed
in the triage hospitals.
.pi
.if h
.il fn=i057.jpg w=600px id=i057
.ca
BRANCARDIERS LOADING AN AMBULANCE
COPYRIGHT—INTERNATIONAL FILM SERVICE CO., INC.
.ca-
.if-
.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: BRANCARDIERS LOADING AN AMBULANCE
COPYRIGHT—INTERNATIONAL FILM SERVICE CO., INC.]
.sp 2
.if-
A callous, hardened, dulled class of
men, absolutely lacking in sentiment,
yet doing a noble and heroic work. Who
could do their work without becoming
callous—or insane? We curse them
often when they put a man in the car
upside down or drop him, but we forget
that when the infantry goes en repos, the
brancardiers stay at their posts, going
out into No Man’s Land every hour to
bring in a countryman or an enemy.
When, standing by the car at P 3, I see
two brancardiers carrying a man up from
// 057.png
.pn +1
// 058.png
.pn +1
// 059.png
.pn +1
the abri and, after noticing that both his
arms are broken, one in two places, that
both legs are broken, that a bloody bandage
covers his chest, and that the white band
around his head is staining red, I see them
drop him when a shell screams overhead,
I curse them. But I forget that
for the past two nights, with their abri
filled with chlorine gas, these same men
have toiled faithfully in suffocating gasmasks,
bringing in the wounded, caring
for them, and loading them on our cars.
I forget that these men have probably
not had an hour’s consecutive sleep for
weeks and that it may be weeks before
they have again; that it is months since
they last saw a dry foot of ground, or
felt that for a moment they were free of
the ever present expectation of sudden
death. It is something to remember,
and it is to wonder rather how they do
these things at all than why they seem
at times a little careless or a bit tired.
// 060.png
.pn +1
Would the brancardier tell you this?
When he sees you he asks after your
comrades. He takes you in and gives
you a cigarette and some Pinard in a
battered cup, and tries to find you a
place to rest, all the time telling you
cheerful stories and amusing incidents.
The Staff is the brains of the army;
Aviation, the eyes; the Artillery, the voice;
the Infantry and Cavalry, the arms; the
Engineers, the hands; the Transportation,
the legs; the People behind it, the
body; but the Brancardier is the soul.
.tb
.ni
THERE are sounds outside of a klaxon
being worked vigorously. However, we
have several dozing Frenchmen inside
the abri who are making similar noises,
so nothing dawns upon our sleepy senses
for some minutes while the owner of the
klaxon searches for the abri. This is
dangerous business, because on all sides
are barbed wire, shell-holes, and other
// 061.png
.pn +1
abris. Also, as this one is located in the
corner of a graveyard, there is danger
that the searcher will wander on and
uproot a dozen or more wooden crosses
in the search. At last he discovers the
right one by falling down the pit we
called stairs before the rain set in. A
violent monologue arouses us from our
dozing comfortlessness, and we learn that
a car is wanted at P 2. I am next on call,
so I slowly and painfully unwind myself
from a support and two pairs of legs, and,
with the man who rides with me, make
my way into the outer darkness.
.pi
We get the car and start off down the
road with no lights anywhere, and pray
that everything coming the other way
keeps to its side of the road and goes
slowly. There is always something coming
the other way—and your way,
a steady succession of camions in the
centre of the road, and of artillery trains
on the side. The camions are mostly
// 062.png
.pn +1
very heavy and very powerful, and have
no compunction at all about what they
run into, as they know that it cannot
harm them. The ammunition trains consist
of batteries of 75’s, little framework
teams with torpilles fitting in small compartments
like eggs, and other such
vehicles in tow of a number of mules,
with the driver invariably asleep. The
traffic, however, in spite of the pitch
darkness, would be endurable if it were
not for the mud which often comes up
to the hubs. It is a slimy mud, and
if spread thinly is extremely slippery.
On the roads it is rarely spread thinly,
and when one gets out to push he often
sinks in up to the knee. Then of course
there is always the whine of arrivées and
départs passing overhead, and the occasional
crump of a German 77 or 150
landing near at hand.
The French and the German gunners
play a little game every night with supply
// 063.png
.pn +1
trains and shells. The shells are trumps.
The object is to see who can play the
more “cards” without being trumped.
An artillery train counts one, a camionnette
two, a camion five—because it blocks the
road for some time when hit, and gives
the enemy time to trump more cards—two
ambulances give a win, and if a
gun is hit the enemy is disqualified. The
game is very interesting—for the artillery.
This modernized blindman’s buff is
carried on at its best in the early hours
of the morning before the game becomes
too free-for-all to score carefully, and
most of the cars are returned to the
“pack”—out of the zone of fire—to
wait for the next evening’s fun. At this
time the roads are crowded, and the
game is at its height. As the fun increases
for the judges, however, it decreases for
the players,—that is to say the “cards.”
The prospect of being trumped is not a
pleasant anticipation, although it keeps
// 064.png
.pn +1
up the interest and prevents ennui.
After an hour or so of sport the going
becomes very bad, as there are always
many horses killed, and when the fighting
is at all severe there is no time to
bury them. Then, too, the narrow gauge
railway crossing the road every few rods
is often hit, and left, like a steel octopus,
with its twisted tentacles stretching
out in all directions. These add to
the sport hugely, and our chief consolation
is to imagine the Boche over on his
side having fully as bad if not a worse
time than we.
“This or the next?” inquires my companion
in reference to a cross-road which
appears on our right.
Having no idea I answer, “This one,”
and we turn. An unaccountable number
of jounces greets us as we continue.
“They must have strafed this road a
good bit since our last roll,” my friend
comments.
// 065.png
.pn +1
The going is worse, and we stop to get
our bearings. We shout and presently
a form rises from the darkness. At any
hour of the day or night it is possible to
rouse by one or more shouts any number
of men anywhere. You can see no one,
as the world, for obvious reasons, lives
underground in the rabbit burrows of
abris, but when needed comes forth in
force. This is very convenient, as often
when driving at night one finds his car
stuck in the middle of a new and large
shell-hole, and help is necessary. We
ask our location.
“Ah, oui, M’sieu, P-trois!”
We have come by error to the artillery
poste and must retrace our way. We
exchange cigarettes with the friendly
brancardier and set off again. At last we
get back on the right road, and after
making another turn are nearing the
poste. In the last gleams from a star-shell
ahead we see something grey by
// 066.png
.pn +1
the side of the road. As we are in the
woods I take a quick look with my flash.
It is one of our ambulances. My friend
and I look at each other, and are mutually
glad that it is too dark to see each
other’s face. A careful survey of the
surroundings yields nothing, and we press
on—in silence. We jolt into the poste
with racing motor and wheels clogged
with mud, and go down into the very
welcome abri. Our friends there know
nothing about the ambulance, so we
hope for the best.
Friendships at the front are for the
most part sincere—but sometimes short.
.tb
.ni
IT is about ten o’clock in the evening.
We have been given a load at P 2 and
are returning to the hospital. We turn
from the battered Bois d’Avocourt into
the Bois de Récicourt, and passing through
the Bois de Pommiers roll into the valley.
We cross through the town, and when
// 067.png
.pn +1
the sentry lifts the gate pull slowly up
the hill towards Brocourt. Punctually
at five-thirty this evening twelve shells
whistled over Récicourt and struck the
hill, but fortunately not the road.
.pi
This hill makes a perfect target for
the Boche, for if he falls short he hits
the town, if he overshoots he will probably
hit the hospital, and if he hits what
he aims at he may get the road. Consequently
there are intermittent bombardments
at all hours of the day and night—preferably
at night as there is more
traffic on the roads. There is one time
that the Boche never fails to greet us.
That is five-thirty. Every day while I
was there, as the hour struck, or would
have struck had the clock been left to
strike it, twelve shells whistled over
Récicourt and knocked fruit from the
orchard on the hill. If the Boche were
sentimental, we would say it was the
early twilight that made him do this,
// 068.png
.pn +1
but as we remember Belgium we call it
habit. There are several big rôtis set up
by the roadside like kilo-stones to remind
us that to roll at five-thirty is verboten.
For some unexplained and mysterious
reason many of the German shells do
not explode. Whether this is from faulty
workmanship or defective fuses or materials
we do not know, but it causes
the poilus much amusement. There will
be the whine of an arrivée and a dull thud
as it strikes the ground, but no explosion.
Every Frenchman present immediately
roars with laughter and shouts, “Rôti!
Rôti!”
We crawl up the hill, the road luckily
having escaped injury during the afternoon,
and at length reach the hospital.
Then, much lightened, we start back.
Coasting slowly down the hill we have a
perfect opportunity to observe the horizon.
The sky tonight is softly radiant, a
velvety black with myriads of brilliant
// 069.png
.pn +1
stars in the upper heavens. Opposite us
is another hill, crowned with trees which
break gently into the skyline. Above
these the sky flashes and sparkles in
iridescent glory. The thundering batteries
light up everything with brilliant
flashes, and the star-shells springing up
over No Man’s Land hang for an instant
high in the air with dazzling brilliancy,
and then fading, drift slowly earthward.
The artillery signals (Verrey Lights,
rockets carrying on their sticks one, two,
three, and four lights) dart up everywhere.
A raider purrs overhead, and golden bursts
of shrapnel crack in the sky. All merge
together, first one, then another standing
forth to catch the eye for a brief
second, the kaleidoscopic brilliancy lifting
one up out of the depths of the mire
to forget for a moment why these lights
flare—treacherous will o’ the wisps
leading men on to death—and one sees
only the wonderful beauty of the scene:
// 070.png
.pn +1
a picture impressed on the memory which
makes all seem worth while. One sight
of these causes the discomforts and dangers
of the day’s work to fade, and they
become a symbol—a pillar of fire leading
on to the victory that is coming when
Right shall have conquered Might, and
the tortured world can again breathe
freely.
.tb
.ni
IT is night, and the chill mist has settled
close to the ground. It is cold and damp,
but the front is always cold and damp so
no one comments on it. We are several
feet underground and that augments the
chill somewhat, but as here one lives underground
he does not think of that. There
is a little breeze outside, for the burlap
that hangs at the foot of the stairs leading
to the outer world quivers, and the
lone candle flickers uncertainly, casting
weird shadows from the black steel roof
on the sleeping forms. The sides of the
// 071.png
.pn +1
abri are lined with bunks, wooden frames
covered with wire netting, upon which lie
sprawled brancardiers, poilus, and in one
an American has managed to locate himself
quite comfortably. The abri is short,
and the few bunks are at a premium.
.pi
Two of our men are asleep,—one on
the floor, another in a bunk. The rest
of us wrap our coats around us and
smoke pensively. We think of home, and
wonder what our friends there are doing
just now. It is August and slightly after
midnight. The time difference makes it
a few minutes past six in the States. At
the seashore they are coming in from
canoeing and swimming, sitting around
before dinner, discussing the plans for the
evening and the happenings of the day.
At the mountains they are finishing rounds
of golf or sets of tennis, and the pink and
gold of the sunset is crowning the peaks
with a fading burst of glory. Soon the
fights of the hotel will shine brightly
// 072.png
.pn +1
forth into the gathering gloom, and the
dance music will strike up.
Each tells the others just what he
would be doing at the moment were he
in the States, and comments. It is all
done in an absolutely detached manner,
just as one describes incidents and chapters
in books. We think we would like
to be home now, but we know that we
would rather not. We are perfectly
contented to be doing what we are
doing, and do not envy those at home.
Nor do we begrudge any of them the
pleasant times they may be having. In
fact, if we thought they were giving them
up we would be miserable. One cannot
think about this war for long at a time,
and when one meditates it is to speculate
on what is happening at home. One
gloats over imaginary dances, theatres, and
all varieties of good times. I have often
enjoyed monologue discussions with my
friends, or imagined myself doing any
// 073.png
.pn +1
one of the many things I might have
been doing. It is the lonesome man’s
chief standby to five by proxy.
Outside there is continually the dull
thunder of the guns. They are evidently
firing tir de barrage, for there is a certain
regularity in the wave of sound that
rumbles in on us. Perhaps the barrage
is falling on the roads behind the enemy
lines, cutting off and destroying his supply
trains. Perhaps it is trying to sweep
some of his batteries out of existence, or
perhaps it is falling on his trenches,
taking its toll of nerve and life. Again
we can only conjecture. There is the
continual whine of his shells rushing
overhead, and the crump-crump of their
breaking in the near distance. Then the
enemy starts a little sweeping of his own,
and the arrivées begin to fall in an arc
which draws steadily nearer, until a
thunder clap just outside and the rattling
of éclats, dirt, and tree fragments on the
// 074.png
.pn +1
roof, make you rejoice in your cover, and
you chuckle as a brancardier sleepily
remarks, “Entrez!” You wonder curiously,
and listen expectantly to see if
the next will fall on you; then you doze
again or say something to the man beside
you.
Inside there is an equal variety of
sounds. There are poilus snoring in
seven different octaves, there is the splutter
of the candle overhead, and from
one corner an occasional moan from some
wounded man, growing more frequent
as the night wears on. We may not
take him in until we have enough for a
load. Soon there is the sound of feet
on the stairs, and a brancardier stumbles
in leading a man raving wildly, with his
head swathed in fresh bandages rapidly
staining with the oozing blood. Some
one moves, and he is seated and given
a cup of Pinard and a cigarette, which
he accepts gratefully. We get ready to
// 075.png
.pn +1
go out to the ambulance, but the doctor
shakes his head—we have not a load
yet. Some of the regulations perplex us;
but it is not our business, so we light up
our pipes again and snuggle down into
our fur coats, dozing and listening to
the whine of the shells outside and the
moans inside. Then, after a while, another
blessé is brought to the door and
the doctor nods. Two of us jump up,
snatch our musettes, run to the car, and
assist the brancardiers in shoving in the
third man, who is unconscious. Then we
crank up, and after some minutes of
manœuvring in the deep mud reach the
road and start for the hospital.
.tb
.ni
THE black of the night, split by the
star-shells and the batteries, has given
place to the grey of the dawn. All is
still and quiet, with the rare crash of a
battery or an arrivée alone breaking the
silence. There is no sign of the sun, and
// 076.png
.pn +1
it will be some hours before it breaks
through the early mist to smile upon us
for a few brief moments before the never-ending
rain envelops us again,—for it
is the mauvais temps.
.pi
After lying for two hours in one of the
bunks in the abri, and vainly endeavoring
to keep warm with two blessé blankets,
I arise stiffly and crawl out into the fresh
air. The blessé blankets are single blankets
quartered and, as they are assigned for
use in the ambulances and abris for the
wounded, often bring little visitors.
.if h
.il fn=i077.jpg w=520px id=i077
.ca
AN ABRI
.ca-
.if-
.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: AN ABRI]
.sp 2
.if-
The air is clear and damp, and remarkably
invigorating. A few deep breaths
start the blood slowly moving through
my veins, and I walk around in the
mud, stretching my cramped limbs.
There are the usual new shell-holes
scattered about to make us first rejoice
in our shelter and then look doubtfully
at the all-too-thin layer of dirt on the
roof between us and a direct hit. The
// 077.png
.pn +1
// 078.png
.pn +1
// 079.png
.pn +1
Germans, when they take up a position,
seem to think of it as permanent, dig their
abris often as deep as a hundred feet
underground, and are absolutely safe in
them except when a raiding party tosses
a grenade down the stairs. Their officers’
quarters are particularly spacious, lined
with cement, with the walls often papered,
holding brass beds and other quite civilized
comforts. A piano was found in
one. It had been put in before the cement
was laid, and they were unable to remove
it when they retreated—even if they
had had the time. The French, whether
from laziness or because they expect
soon again to be moving forward, waste
little time on the dug-outs. The standard
is a pit lined with sandbags, and covered
by a conventional form of corrugated
steel roof, with more sandbags and a little
dirt on top of this. These protect from
the éclats, or shell fragments, but form a
death trap for all inside if there is a direct
// 080.png
.pn +1
hit. If the side of a hill or a hollow is
available it affords more protection. The
one direct hit on our abri at P 2 was
luckily a “dud,” and caused no damage.
I walk over to the pile of discarded
equipment to see if anything interesting
has been added during the night. This
and the hospital are the two favorite
places for souvenir hunters. At all the
postes and in the hospitals the rifles,
bayonets, packs, belts, cartridges, knives,
grenades, revolvers, shoes, and other
equipment of the wounded and dead are
put in a large pile, and the first to recover
get the pick—after our selection. At
the postes these things are piled in the
open, with no protection from the elements,
and many are slowly disintegrating.
This morning, of the new things
there is of interest only one of the large
wire-clippers, used by the pionniers and
scouts for passing through the enemy
wire. But my friend has seen them first,
// 081.png
.pn +1
so I waive all claims, and he tucks them
carefully away in one of the several side-boxes
with which the cars are equipped.
The trees are twice decimated, but
the birds have stayed, and now they
are waking and, overflowing with high
spirits, sing their message of good cheer.
They answer each other from different
parts of the wood, and by closing one’s
eyes one seems to be in the country at
home. Never has the song of birds
seemed more beautiful or more welcome,
and, gladdened, we listen while we may,
before the slowly swelling thunder of the
guns, beginning their early morning bombardment,
drowns out all other sound.
We go down again into the abri and
pray for a load soon to take us down
to the hospital and breakfast at headquarters.
.tb
.ni
WE have been ordered en repos, and
after turning in our extra gas masks—we
// 082.png
.pn +1
carry ten in the car for the wounded
in addition to the two on our person—our
blessé blankets, and stretchers, we
start in to load the cars with our friends,
and our own baggage. As for some time
our baggage has been lying en masse in
the “drawing-room” of Tucker Inn, as
some humorous conducteur styled the
roofless pen in Récicourt, where our belongings
were left while we were rolling,
or in the surrounding abris, one could
not be at all certain that he was putting
the right things in the right duffles, and
it was not surprising if a stray jar or two
of confiture most unaccountably found its
way into one’s own duffle.
.pi
The section in formation, we roll off
with the sun shining brightly on grimy
cars and drivers, down the roads, passing
ruin after ruin, with a burst of speed
past a corner in view of the German
trenches, and we again begin to see
familiar ground. The green hill back of
// 083.png
.pn +1
Erize, with shadows of the woods and the
scars of the old trenches, appears in the
distance, and my friend looks at me and
chuckles.
Back in the same little town, parked in
the same ruins with the same quietness,
peace, and relaxation from the tenseness
of the past days, which is so welcome this
time, my friend and I walk into a little
estaminet, pledge each other in glasses
of French beer, and taking off our helmets
for almost the first time in what
seems an age, survey them and each
other in placid contentment.
// 084.png
.pn +1
// 085.png
.pn +1
.sp 2
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch03
III||EN REPOS
// 086.png
.pn +1
// 087.png
.pn +1
.sp 2
.ni
A BATCH of mail was given out the
morning after our return. When we
moved, our address seemed to have been
lost, for only a few letters, of no interest
to any one, managed to find us. We have
been too busy to miss them, and when
they arrived in a bunch there were no
complaints.
.pi
It is a wonderful thrill to get a letter
from home, to read what those who mean
all to one are doing, and to feel their
personalities throbbing “between the
lines.” We bridge for a brief moment
the chasm of three thousand miles, and
in revery gaze upon those persons, those
places, and those things we have known.
Our thoughts here are always in the
past. We cannot think of the present,
and we dare not think of the future, but
there is always the past to live in,—the
past of events and memories.
// 088.png
.pn +1
We settle down to the same dull
monotony as before. For a few days
this is bliss, but it soon becomes tiring
again. All work here is contrast. When
we are at work, we work intensively,
taking less rest than seems physically
possible, and when en repos we are plunged
into the dullest monotony imaginable,
with nothing to amuse or occupy us.
This is true of every branch of active
service.
The few air raids are rather an anticlimax
after the days that have just
passed, especially as nothing falls near
enough to cause us any annoyance. At
Bar-le-Duc the Boche playfully drops a
dozen bombs into the German prison
camp, much to every one’s amusement;
a mile from us he destroys a camp of
Bulgarian prisoners, and we wonder at
his hard-headedness and laugh. But the
next night we hear bombs crashing in the
distance, and in the morning learn from
// 089.png
.pn +1
some men in another section passing
through that it was Vadlaincourt, where
the Huns flew so near the ground that
soldiers in the streets shot at them with
rifles. At that height the aeroplanes
could not mistake their targets, and they
retired only when the hospital was a
mass of flaming ruins. There are no
smiles at this. Another night the purring
motors reveal outlined high against
the stars a fleet of Zeppelins, bound we
know not where, but, we do know, on a
mission of death to the innocent.
.tb
.ni
THE enemy aeroplane comes over us
often. We have wondered why, but we
now realize that while the Allies can get
control of the air when they want it, to
keep continual control would be too
expensive in both men and machines.
The anti-aircraft gun theoretically solves
the problem. When an enemy machine
appears, a battery of contre-avions is
// 090.png
.pn +1
notified and essays the destruction of the
adventurer.
.pi
It is pretty sport. A little white
machine, sometimes catching the glint
of the sun, dashes towards us at a great
height. It is sighted, and then the high-pitched
boom-booms of the contre-avions
start in, and the shrapnel breaks at
varying distances around the machine
like powder-puffs, which float along for
some minutes. After a little of this
harmless sport the Boche gets out of
range, the guns cease, and the machine,
having in the meanwhile disposed of
some bombs or taken some photographs,
dashes off, to be followed shortly by one
or two Frenchmen.
The practical value of the anti-aircraft
guns is to keep the machines so high in
the air that they can accomplish little, as
the guns rarely score. At M——, where
every day they have been shooting two
or three hundred rounds at the machines
// 091.png
.pn +1
which fly over the city, they are quite
proud of their record, for once in one
day they shot down three machines—two
of their own and one German.
They have been resting on their laurels
ever since. It was a few examples like
this which taught the French airmen to
keep out of the sky while the contre-avions
were busy.
.tb
.ni
“NAPOLEON” was so christened by us
because, despite his sparrow-like form and
manner, he considers himself the moving
spirit of the army in general and of our
section in particular. Because he knows
nothing about automobiles, he styles himself
an expert,—the mere fact that he
is assigned as clerk to an ambulance
section proves his claim. The one time
he had the indiscretion to touch a car,
he drove the lieutenant’s around the
compound with the emergency brake
set—after telling the sous-chef that he
// 092.png
.pn +1
had driven cars for twenty years! One
of the ambulances goes for ravitaillement
every day, carrying “Napoleon,” who
disappears into mysterious buildings and
returns with still more mysterious edibles,
presumably for our delectation.
.pi
On one trip the carburetor gave trouble
and we stopped and cleaned it. While
we were working we noticed “Napoleon”
industriously turning the lights on and
off, pumping the button on the dash.
We said nothing, and when we had finished
and started the car again he tapped
his chest proudly, cocked his head, and
said, “Moi!”
In circumnavigating a large team in
the centre of the road later that day I
rubbed “Napoleon” off against a horse,
and after that he snubbed me on every
occasion.
.tb
.ni
BEING at the cross-roads, all manner
of men and things come through Erize.
// 093.png
.pn +1
The never-ending stream of camions passing
each other as they go, layers deep
with dust and grime, winds on steadily.
There is great rivalry between the camion
pelotons, and each has adopted an insignia
painted on the sides of the cars
to distinguish it from the others. As
there are several hundred pelotons the
designs are many, interesting, and reveal
much of the inner nature of the poilu.
Every species of beast and fowl is depicted,—greyhound,
stork, swallow, and
other types,—as a monkey riding on a
shell, a demon with trident pursuing a
German, and then perhaps a child’s
face, copied no doubt from the locket of
one of the men.
.pi
Soldiers go up cheering wildly, singing
and shouting. They return silent,
tired, covered with mud, and reduced in
numbers. German rifles, bayonets, caps,
buttons, cartridges, and other odds and
ends are then offered for sale. In August
// 094.png
.pn +1
a poilu offered me a German rifle. I was
examining it, and admiring the design,
when I noticed the maker’s name,—the
latest type German rifle had been made
in New Jersey, U.S.A.
In addition to these things, the poilus
have for sale many articles they have
made themselves. The favorite is the
briquet, or pocket lighter. This is made
in all conceivable sizes and shapes, and
operates by a flint and steel lighting a
gasoline wick. This is why we use more
gasoline en repos than when rolling!
The soldiers also take the soixante-quinze
shell-cases and carve and hammer them
into vases. As many of the men were
experts at work of this type “avant la
guerre,” and as much local talent has
appeared since, some of the specimens
are very fine indeed, and command high
prices in the cities.
.if h
.il fn=i095.jpg w=600px id=i095
.ca
A DIVISION EN REPOS
INTERNATIONAL FILM SERVICE CO., INC.
.ca-
.if-
.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: A DIVISION EN REPOS
INTERNATIONAL FILM SERVICE CO., INC.]
.sp 2
.if-
It is these laughing, playing, seemingly
care-free soldiers who are the spirit of the
// 095.png
.pn +1
// 096.png
.pn +1
// 097.png
.pn +1
war. Relieved from the tense struggle of
life and death for a brief rest, their joyous
nature blossoms forth in reaction from the
serious affairs of their day’s work.
.tb
.ni
THERE is nothing that so brings out
the best in a man as to fight against
terrific odds, to struggle in a losing fight
with the knowledge that only by superhuman
effort can the odds be equaled or
turned. To work for an ideal is a wonderfully
inspiring thing, but when the battle
necessitates the risking or the sacrificing
of home, happiness, and life it brings to
the surface in those who persevere characteristics
which lie dormant or concealed.
.pi
An ideal must be worth while when
millions of men gladly risk their all for
its attainment, and those men who risk
and sacrifice must have returned to them
something for what they give. Whatever
sort of creature he is on the surface,
the fire test, if a man passes it and is not
// 098.png
.pn +1
shrivelled in its all-consuming flame, must
develop in him certain latent and hitherto
buried attributes which are fit to greet the
light of day. If he be lacking in worthy
human instincts, the flame will destroy
him, but if he passes through the test, he
emerges a better man—how much better
depends on the individual. At least, having
once seen the ideal, he has something
now for which to live and strive.
.tb
.ni
THE world, judging from what it saw
on the surface, flatly declared that France
could never stand up under the strain;
but what has happened has proved how
little of the real worth of a nation or of
a man is ever visible on the surface.
There must always come the test, the
fire which burns off the mask, the false
surface beneath which mankind ever
hides, and brings forth what is concealed—good
or bad. The bad is swept away
and the good survives.
// 099.png
.pn +1
.pi
The French are a temperamental people,
and consequently are most easily affected
by circumstances. In former times the
mass of the people were inclined to be
demonstrative, insincere, somewhat selfish,
and rather egotistical. These characteristics
could never pass the tests, and now
the true spirit of France, the Phœnix, is
rising from the ashes of the past a freed
and glorified being, radiant in the joy of
accomplishment. From the torture she
has endured, an understanding of the
feelings and desires of others must be
born which will banish the taint of selfishness
forever. Those who do things
are never egotistical—they have no time
to talk, and France has been doing things
these past years. Those who rub elbows
with the elementals and sacrifice for each
other and a cause can never be insincere
again. And what harm is there
in demonstration? The bad characteristics
removed, this becomes merely an
// 100.png
.pn +1
effervescence, a bubbling over of a joyous,
unrestrained nature—Ponce de
Leon’s true fountain of perpetual youth.
The difference between the men who
have served at the front and either seen
or felt great suffering, and those who
have not, is most marked. One evening
I was in an abri where some new recruits
were wrangling over unimportant things,
and showing their selfish character in
every speech and act, when a desperately
wounded man was brought in.
After serving for some time in the trenches
he had been given a few days’ leave to
see his family. He went back happily,
thinking of the wife and the little children
he was soon to see again. Having left
the third-line trenches, he was walking
through the woods down the boyau
which leads to the outer world, when a
shell broke overhead. The brancardiers
patched him up and brought him in
with his head bound so that his eyes and
// 101.png
.pn +1
mouth alone were visible. The doctor
handed him a cup of Pinard and a cigarette,
neither of which would he touch
until he had offered it to the rest of us.
I picked up his helmet which he had put
down for an instant, although his eye
never left it. There was a hole in it
through which I could have rolled a
golf ball.
To illustrate the reverse—I was standing
in a town a little ways back, waiting
for a car to give me a lift up to the lines,
when a kitten rubbed against my leg.
I picked it up and started to play with
it. Instantly a peasant—not too old
to serve—rushed out and snatched the
kitten from my arms:
“Ce nest pas à vous!” was his comment.
.tb
.ni
THE English can never be called a
temperamental race, but even their stolid
worth has needed much shaking up for
the best in it to come to the surface.
// 102.png
.pn +1
The example they have set since their
awakening is one which any nation may
well emulate, and it will be a proud
people indeed which can ever equal the
record they have made in this war for
courage and devotion, never surpassed
in the history of the world.
.pi
The poilu and the Tommy are of such
opposite types that each completely mystifies
the other. The Frenchman works
himself up to a fanatical state of enthusiasm,
and in a wild burst of excitement
dashes into the fray. The Englishman
finishes his cigarette, exchanges a joke
with his “bunkie,” and coolly goes
“over the top.” Both are wonderful
fighters, with the profoundest admiration
for each other, but each with an
absolute lack of understanding of the
other, intensified by the difference in
language.
// 103.png
.pn +1
.tb
.ni
THE varying characteristics of troops
from different parts of the world—the
allied countries, dependencies, and colonies—have
led to their classification
and assignment to the work best adapted
to their temperament. The fighting
troops are divided into two main classes
called the “flying” and the “holding”
divisions. There are some troops who
are wonderful in a charge, but have no
stamina or staying power to resist counterattacks
or the wear of steady fighting.
There are others who lack the initiative
and dash, but who can hold on and resist
anything. Then there are others who,
while they are possessed of both qualities,
are somewhat better suited for one class
than the other. The Flying Divisions
are used chiefly in the attacks, where a
quick advance and desperate fighting
must win the day. This completed, they
go back en repos again, while the Holding
// 104.png
.pn +1
Divisions take their place to consolidate
the ground won, and to resist the enemy’s
attempts to regain it. The Flying
Divisions have longer repos but more
violent fighting while they are on the
line, and the Holding Divisions have
shorter repos but a less strenuous although
longer stretch in the trenches. This has
all been worked out from observation and
experiment.
.pi
For example,—in the early days of the
war the Madagascans, French colored
colonial troops, are given certain trenches
to take. They take them with little delay,
and are told to consolidate and hold them.
This is all very well until supper fails to
arrive. The soldiers wait impatiently
for a short while, and then, ignoring the
commands of their officers, evacuate their
trenches, which are immediately occupied
by the Germans, and go back for
their meal. Supper finished, with no
hesitation they return and in a wild
// 105.png
.pn +1
charge recapture their trenches and
several more.
Other French troops in the Flying
Division are the Algerians, who have done
wonderful fighting throughout the war,
and have suffered heavily. It is the boast
of the Foreign Legion, which is classed
as Algerian, that since its organization
it has never failed to reach its objective,
and even in this war it has made good
its boast. In one attack the Legion
entered thirty-five thousand strong and
returned victorious with a remnant of
thirty-five hundred men.
The Algerians have a sense of humor
all their own. An ambulancier was carrying
one of them down to the hospital.
As he was only slightly wounded he was
sitting on the front seat with the driver,
leaving more room for the couchés inside.
One of the couchés was a German. Half
way to the triage the Algerian made
signs to the driver to stop. The driver
// 106.png
.pn +1
looked inquiringly at the man who, with
a broad grin, pulled out a long knife and
pointed at the German. The driver
naturally did not humor him, and the
sulky Zouave refused to speak to him
during the rest of the trip.
Another Algerian came into the poste
one day. He had a great joke that he
wanted us all to hear. He said that he
had been given three prisoners to bring
in, and was leading them down a road
in a pouring rain, when he noticed the
ruin of a house with the roof missing.
He told the prisoners to go in there there—“where
it would be drier,” and when they
complied, stood on the outside and tossed
grenades over the wall at them.
The fact that the colonial troops of
the Allies, especially those of Great Britain—the
Canadians, Australians, and
New Zealanders—fall practically without
exception into the Flying Division
because of the initiative, dash, and daring
// 107.png
.pn +1
developed in them to such a degree, has
given Germany, who has won more victories
with poisoned pen than with the
sword, an opportunity to stir up hard
feeling with her propaganda between the
colonies and their mother country.
This propaganda claims that England
has sacrificed her Colonials to save her
own troops. Nothing could be farther
from the truth. While the Colonials are
in the Flying Division and the larger
part of the English in the Holding Division,
because of their famous bulldog
tenacity, the English have lost a greater
percentage of their men than any one of
the colonies. The world has never seen
such fighting as the troops of Great
Britain have had to stand up under, and
full credit is always given the Colonials
for their share.
The Canadians particularly have distinguished
themselves. They share with
the Foreign Legion alone the distinction
// 108.png
.pn +1
of never having been given an objective
they have not taken. When the order
came for the attack on Vimy Ridge it
read: The Canadians will take Vimy
Ridge at such and such an hour, and they
took it on the dot. With the Canadians
must be put the Anzacs,—Australians
and New Zealanders,—examples of what
universal military training can do.
Then there are the Indians, who never
take a prisoner. By training and tradition
they are great head-hunters, and
enjoy nothing better than creeping out
at night over No Man’s Land and waiting
before the enemy’s trench until a
sentry puts up his head to observe. A
quick sweep of the curved knife, the head
is secured, and the Indian returns with
the feeling of “something accomplished,
something done, has earned a night’s
repose.” Their sense of humor has much
in common with that of the Algerians—and
of the Germans.
// 109.png
.pn +1
Many of the heads, in all stages of
curing, have been found in the knapsacks
and equipments of these troops—when
they were dead or unconscious. While
conscious, the Indian will guard them
with his life, feeling that they are legitimate
souvenirs.
.tb
.ni
THERE are three French medals
which are given for service in this war,
not to mention a number of lesser ones
which are seen rarely. The most coveted
of these is the Legion of Honour, a medal
famous for some centuries both in war
and peace. This is divided into several
classes. There is the Grand Cross of
the Legion of Honour, a very large medal
worn over the right-hand pocket with no
ribbon. This has been awarded to a few
men of the greatness of Joffre and Petain.
Then there is the grade of Commander
of the Legion of Honour. This is a smaller
cross worn at the neck. There are also
// 110.png
.pn +1
the ranks of Officer and Chevalier. Both
are small crosses on red ribbons, but the
former has a rosette on the ribbon to
distinguish it. These are awarded to
officers only and are greatly prized.
.pi
Two new medals were struck for the
war,—the Médaille Militaire and the
Croix de Guerre. The Médaille is a round
medal on a yellow ribbon of one class
only, and is awarded to officers and
soldiers alike for actual bravery on the
field. The Croix de Guerre is a bronze
cross on a green and red ribbon, and
has three classes,—the Croix de Guerre
d’Armée, which has a bronze palm on the
ribbon, de Corps d’Armée, which has a
bronze star on the ribbon, and de Division,
which has a plain ribbon. They are
awarded for different degrees of bravery
or service to officers and soldiers alike,
and may be won unlimited times. In
aviation a Croix with palm is given to
an aviator for every enemy plane he is
// 111.png
.pn +1
officially credited with downing. Thus
Gynemer at the time of his death was
privileged to wear fifty-five palms on his
ribbon. For the benefit of such as he a
silver palm is worn, representing five
bronze, and a gold palm in place of ten
bronze. Before this was allowed, Gynemer
wore his ribbon with forty odd
palms.
In addition to these there are the
colonial medals and a number of French
decorations which have not strictly to do
with the war.
.tb
.ni
TONIGHT I am on guard. I have
just taken a walk around the cars. It is
the hour before the dawn, and the cold,
grey mist hangs over all, robing the
jagged ruins and harmonizing the rough
outlines into something more human,
while accentuating the stare of the vacant
window-openings. There is the first
crescent of the moon in the sky. Two
// 112.png
.pn +1
companies of artillery have just passed
along the road. The guns and caissons
creak and rumble, and the men, preserving
a sleepy silence, bend forward
on their horses, their heavy sabres smacking
against the horses’ sides, and their
blue uniforms melting into the mist.
.pi
The officer halts to water his horse,
and we chat for a minute. The contre-avions
are after a raider headed for Bar-le-Duc,
and I put out my lantern. We
smile as the shrapnel bursts more than
a mile from the machine. The officer
speaks a few words of praise about his
men, then vaults on his horse. We exchange
“bonne chance” and he canters
off down the road, disappearing in the
blue-grey mist.
.tb
.ni
A RUMOR creeps into camp that
the next attack will be at V——. More
rumors follow, supported by the increased
traffic. We are on the main road to
// 113.png
.pn +1
V——, and are keenly critical. We take
out our maps and examine the outline
of the front in the sector just as if
we knew something about it. Would-be
strategists hold forth in heated arguments,
and many bitter debates follow. Those
of us who have the early watch just
at daybreak notice many companies of
soixante-quinzes rumbling by each morning,
and observe that they take the left
fork of the road. This is important, for
the left road leads towards M——, which
is really not in our sector. More argument
follows, and ears are constantly
strained to catch the first augmentation
of the distant thunder of the guns, and
to determine from which end of the
sector it comes.
.pi
Now all the officers admit that an
attack is to ensue shortly, but they do
not know when. We tune up our cars
and get our baggage ready, as we may
be called. The lieutenant receives some
// 114.png
.pn +1
orders and warns us to be ready to move
on a moment’s notice.
The traffic is incessant now. Camions
with shells, barbed wire, camouflage cloth,
torpilles, and more shells rush by. Convoys
pass filled with troops, cheering
wildly, thirty-five hundred or more in
an evening. The thunder is gradually
intensified, and the sky flashes faintly in
the distance like heat lightning. From
a hilltop artillery rockets and star-shells
can be seen in the far horizon. More
troops keep going up, and the guns pound
the line with unabated fury.
It is evening, and we are formed in a
circle listening to some story. The lieutenant
walks up to us:
“We move at seven in the morning,”
he says laconically, and steps off.
// 115.png
.pn +1
.sp 2
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch04
IV||AT THE FRONT
// 116.png
.pn +1
// 117.png
.pn +1
.ni
THIS time we have a different run.
It is from Montzéville to Hill 239, and
the wounded are brought in through the
communication trench which leads to
Mort Homme—the well-named Dead
Man’s Hill. The road was once lined
for a distance of perhaps a mile with
towering poplars, evinced by the size of
the stumps, but now not one of them
is left higher than three or four feet.
The road runs the entire distance across
open meadows, and as what camouflage
there was has been shot away by the
Boche in his search for two 220 batteries,
which have long since moved on, the
enemy saucisses can regulate the traffic
quite simply. The place has been shot
up so much recently that there has been
no time to repair the roads fully, and
now there are long stretches temporarily
// 118.png
.pn +1
patched with rough, broken stone, which
makes bad going. Riding forward, one
sees large German shells breaking on the
road ahead like sudden black clouds,
which disappear slowly and convey to
the mind uncomfortable premonitions.
.pi
Mort Homme comes suddenly and
bleakly into view about two kilometres
on our left,—a hill, not exceedingly
high, commanding a great plain, it is
imposing only in the memory of the
rivers of blood that have flowed down
its sides. Once—and looking at it one can
scarcely believe it—this was covered with
trees and vegetation like many another
less famous hill. Now it is reduced to a
mere sandpile, pitted with the scars of
a million shells. After standing the continuous
bombardment of both combatants
for over a year, there is left not a
stick of vegetation, nor an inch of ground
that has not been turned over by shells
many times. Crowned by the pink of
// 119.png
.pn +1
the sunset, it stands there on the plain a
great monument to the glorious death
of thousands.
The French lost many thousands of
lives in their attempts to capture Mort
Homme, and were very bitter, consequently,
against its defenders. There
was a large tunnel running through the
hill, and when three sides had been captured
and both ends of the tunnel were
held, it was discovered that they had
trapped there three thousand Germans.
I talked with a man who walked through
the tunnel the day after the massacre and
he told me that it was literally inches deep
in blood.
Arrived at the poste, which is nothing
more than a hole in the ground, we stand
around while the brancardiers load the
car and exchange lies with any one who
happens to be there. The Boche sends
a dozen or more shells whining over our
heads to break on the road or beside it,
// 120.png
.pn +1
and near enough for every one to gravitate
slowly towards the abri in preparation
for a wild dive should the next shell
fall much nearer. One man asked me
why they put stairs leading into an abri,
as nobody ever thought of using them.
When I asked him how else one would
get out, he said he had never thought of
that.
There is nothing quite so uncomfortable
to hear as the near whistle of a shell.
The more one hears the sound the more
it affects him. There is something in
the sharp whine which seems to create
despair and induce subconscious melancholy.
There is a feeling of helplessness
and powerlessness that is most depressing.
The thunder of the guns or the crash
of the bursting shells cannot be compared
with the sound of this approaching
menace. It is as if some demon
from the depths of Hades were hurtling
towards you, its weird laughter crying
// 121.png
.pn +1
out, calling to you and chilling your
blood. For the second of its passage a
hush falls on the conversation, and the
best jokes die in dry throats. But it is
only for that second, and instantly
laughter rings out again at some jest.
Speculations or comments are made on
the probable or observed place where it
exploded, and all is the same except for
that subconscious tenseness which, for
the most part unrealized, grips every man
while he goes about his work here.
The first ordeal by fire is the easiest.
It is then but a new and interesting sensation
and experience. Later, after one has
seen the effect and had some close calls,
it is more of a nervous strain. The whine
of a shell is very high-pitched, and after
a time the sound wears distinctly on the
nerves. It is a curious fact that, in spite
of the philosophy developed, the longer
a man has been under shell-fire the harder
it is for him to stand it. By no means
// 122.png
.pn +1
would he think of showing it, but he
would not deny the fact. It is only the
philosophy and callousness developed
which keep the men from breaking down,
and in many cases the strain on the nerves
becomes so great that men do collapse
under it. This is one of the forms of so-called
“shell-shock.”
The car loaded with blessés, we start
back, driving more slowly this time, as
precious lives are in our care and jolts
must be avoided wherever possible. We
find the road still more “out of repair”
than when we went over it before, with
a number of new shell-holes varying from
two to ten feet in diameter, and much
wood, dirt, and torn camouflage strewn
about, and often a horse lying where it
was hit, its blood coloring the mud in the
gutter.
Approaching the town of Montzéville
one sees at first a wood—ci-devant—now
a few blackened tree-trunks of spectre-like
// 123.png
.pn +1
appearance against the grey of the evening
sky. Behind these appears the town,
a mass of jagged ruins, at that distance
seeming to be absolutely deserted. In
fact it is, except for the dozen odd men
who live in two or three scattered abris
for some obscure purpose. An air of desolation
and despair broods over the place,
and God knows it has seen enough to
haunt it.
From Montzéville we ride on to Dombasle
and Jouy, the hospital, and after
handing over our more or less helpless
charges to the tender mercies of the
brancardiers, we return to the relay station
at Montzéville to wait for our
next roll, and to wonder what possible
good those poilus can be doing who sit
all day so peacefully at the door of the
abri opposite ours, sipping Pinard and
smoking their cigarettes.
// 124.png
.pn +1
.tb
.ni
THE soldiers at the front are always
looking for the bright side of life, and
after a little one gets to see humor in
many more things than he would have
believed possible at home. As an example,
there seems to be little humor
connected with a funeral, yet one of the
times I saw the poilus most amused was
one day at P 4, our relay station, on
such an occasion.
.pi
There had been an intermittent bombardment,
and we were sitting or standing
inside the abri waiting for it to let
up. The abri was located in the corner
of a graveyard, and there was always
the unpleasant feeling that the next
rain might wash a few bones in on us.
The abri was small, very crowded, and,
as it was several feet underground, none
too well ventilated. Every one spent
long stretches here, and brought his food
with him. What was too poor to eat
// 125.png
.pn +1
soon mixed with the mud on the floor,
lending an unsavory odor to the atmosphere.
Presently one of the Frenchmen
went out to see if the bombardment
had stopped. This is discovered by the
same method one ascertains whether or
not it is raining—if he gets wet the
storm is not over. The bombardment
was not over, and we waited. At last
it seemed to have let up, only an occasional
shell crashing into the woods
across the road, and we went out to
stretch and get a breath of air.
The poilus gathered our inquisitive
friend from the surrounding shrubbery
and trees and put him into several empty
sandbags which they laid on a stretcher,
carefully placing the head, which appeared
to have been solid enough to withstand
the shock, at the upper end. Another
man carried a freshly-made pine-wood
coffin. In high spirits, the assembled
soldiers formed a procession and marched
// 126.png
.pn +1
into the graveyard, singing alternately
a funeral dirge and “Madelon,” the
French “Tipperary.” This graveyard,
not being on the firing-line itself, was
rather a formal affair. The graves were
laid out in neat rows, and each man had
one all to himself with a wooden cross
and his name on it. Of course occasionally
the shells did a little mixing, but
that was a jest of the Fates which disturbed
no one, least of all those who were
mixed.
Arrived at the grave, the poilus rolled
in the fragments of our late friend and
covered them with dirt.
.pm verse-start
“Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note.”
.pm verse-end
Then they came back, roaring with
laughter and tossing the coffin in the air.
The hero had expected the coffin and they
had fooled him. Now they could use it
again.
// 127.png
.pn +1
The usual method of burial on the
French front, where there is little time to
attend to such matters, is to dig a ditch
six feet wide, ten feet deep, and twenty
feet long approximately. As each man
is killed, time and circumstances permitting,
he is divested of his coat and
shoes, and his pockets are emptied. He
is then thrown into the ditch and covered
with a few shovelfuls of dirt. This system
is all very well until new divisions
relieve those in the trenches, and start
digging ditches for their own men. As
there are no marks to show the location
of the old ones, they sometimes uncover
rather unpleasant sights.
The reputation we have gained at home
of being cold-blooded and lacking in the
finer senses is undeserved. While one is
in it he cannot permit himself to realize
or dwell on the horrors or they would
overwhelm him and drive him insane.
What is more natural than for the reaction
// 128.png
.pn +1
to turn the matter into jest and joke,
to permit it to glance from the surface
without inflicting a wound?—“C’est la
guerre.”
.tb
.ni
PLUNGED suddenly from the commonplaces
of peace into the seething
cauldron of war, France has had to adjust
herself. Every one without exception
has lost many who were dear to him and
much that he had considered essential.
The homes and hopes of thousands have
been blasted. Destruction, following in
the wake of the invaders, has laid waste
much of the land, in many cases irreparably.
.pi
Entering the war a man is possessed of
the greatest seriousness. He thinks of its
causes, the results both immediate and
future, and of the effect of each on him.
He is stunned by what he believes himself
to be bearing up under. Then, as he
moves up into the zone, into service and
// 129.png
.pn +1
action, and sees how others are affected,
how much suffering and misfortune come
to them, he merges his troubles with
theirs, realizing the pettiness and insignificance
of his own in the tout ensemble.
He laughs, and from this laugh springs
the philosophy,—“C’est la guerre.”
If a fly falls in his soup, if his best
friend is blown to bits before him, if his
home and village are destroyed, he calmly
shrugs his shoulders, and remarks, “C’est
la guerre.”
.tb
.ni
THE roads at the front are cared for
by a class of unsung heroes, the roadbuilders.
Back of the lines German prisoners
are often used for this work, but
it is a rule of warfare that prisoners must
not be worked under fire, and the Allies
observe this as the other rules of civilized
warfare. The roads are the arteries
of the front, and during an attack the
enemy does his best to cripple them. If
// 130.png
.pn +1
he succeeds, the troops in the trenches,
cut off from food, ammunition, and other
supplies, are at his mercy. During one
attack through which I worked, the
Boche, whose hobby is getting ranges
down to the inch and applying them as
all other things in a definite system, put
a 150 every ten yards down the more
important roads.
.pi
.if h
.il fn=i131.jpg w=600px id=i131
.ca
NORMAL TRAFFIC AT THE FRONT
INTERNATIONAL FILM SERVICE CO., INC.
.ca-
.if-
.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: NORMAL TRAFFIC AT THE FRONT
INTERNATIONAL FILM SERVICE CO., INC.]
.sp 2
.if-
All work in the zone is done by three
classes of workers, excluding the necessary
military operations carried on by the
troops in action. First, there are the
German prisoners who do every kind of
work out of the zone of fire. Then there
are the French prisoners in the army,
who have committed some military crime,
from sneezing in ranks to shooting a
colonel. Instead of serving time in a
guardhouse, these are put in the front-line
trenches and kept there unarmed to build
up the parapet, attend to the drains, stop
Boche bullets, and perform other functions.
// 131.png
.pn +1
// 132.png
.pn +1
// 133.png
.pn +1
If, for instance, a French soldier
sends a letter through the civil instead
of the military mails, where the censorship
is more strict, he receives a thirty
days’ sentence. If these prisoners make
a suspicious move they are shot by their
own men. Second timers are rare, but
many serve life sentences.
Then there is the third class, a regular
branch of the army, a subdivision of the
engineers, termed pionniers. The engineers
do the nastiest work in the army,
and the pionniers do the nastiest work in
the engineers. It is their duty to see
that the wire is properly cut before a
charge, that the parapet is in repair and
does not lack sandbags,—and it is in
this class that the roadbuilders come.
All along the roads lie piles of broken
stone, which are continually replaced by
loads from the rear. At intervals are
placed abris filled with roadbuilders who
watch until a shell hits the road in their
// 134.png
.pn +1
sector. Then, almost before the dirt
settles, they rush out armed with shovels,
and pile this rough stone into the hole
and rush back again to shelter, to wait
for the next shell, which is not long in
coming. This rough patching is consolidated
later when the sector quiets down,
but does admirably for the time-being,
as the mud and traffic push it rapidly
into shape.
Steam-rollers are then sent up to finish
the work, but find themselves persona non
grata when left over night in the middle
of a narrow and muddy road, with no
lights showing. We ambulanciers are not
fond of the species at any time, as they
seem to have a great affinity for six-inch
shells. When disintegrated, any one
of the numerous parts blocks our way.
We are perfectly content to have the
task left to the simple roadbuilder, who
proves less of an obstruction after meeting
a one-fifty.
// 135.png
.pn +1
.tb
.ni
MANY undeveloped instincts lie dormant
in the subconscious mind of man.
In this war, where man has turned back
the pages of civilization to live and act
for a period of time as a glorified cave-dweller,
a number of these unknown faculties
have been discovered and developed.
.pi
Many animals have the power of seeing
in the dark, and all species can sense an
unknown danger. These senses have
been denied to civilized man, but the
primitive life at the front has developed
them and other instincts in those who live
there so that it seems as if man might
again become possessed of all his latent
powers.
A man going along a road has a conviction
that if he continues he will be
killed. He makes a wide detour to avoid
the road, and a shell strikes where he
would have been. Then again, men have
premonitions that they will be killed in
// 136.png
.pn +1
the next attack or battle. All this is
coupled with absolute fatalism. They
feel either that they are going to be
killed or will live through everything, and
whichever it is, they merely shrug their
shoulders, remark, “C’est la guerre,” and
permit nothing to alter their belief.
Many say that the shell with their name
on it has not yet been made, or if it has—“Why
worry? We cannot escape it.” I
carried one man, while doing evacuation
work, who had served three years without
a scratch, and when en repos had fallen
from an apple tree and broken his leg.
He thought it a great joke.
The ambulancier has developed two of
these instincts to quite a degree. The
first is that he can always locate an abri,
his or some one else’s, and disappear in
it with astounding rapidity. The second
is that he can keep the road with no
lights. This has to be done almost entirely
by instinct on many nights, and
// 137.png
.pn +1
we find it usually safer to make a turn
where the “inner voice” directs us rather
than where we remember it should be.
It is not remarkable, of course, that an
occasional car falls into a ditch or a shell-hole,
but astonishing rather how seldom
this happens. While our Fords never
attained any great speed in night driving,
I rode once with a friend from another
section in a Fiat, when he drove in pitch
darkness faster than fifty miles an hour,
taking every turn accurately and safely
by instinct and luck.
.tb
.ni
THE mud plays havoc with calculations,
and we long to set our foot once
again on dry land. All the water in
France seems to have gone into mud.
Water has never been a popular beverage
here, and now it is even less so. One
horrified poilu, who had observed me
drinking a glass of water, asked if it did
not give me indigestion. At the front
// 138.png
.pn +1
there is good reason for this. With so
many men buried in the ground and so
many animals uninterred on it, all the
springs are contaminated, and the germs
of every disease lurk in the water.
.pi
The French army provides a light red
wine to take its place. This wine is little
stronger than grape juice and is the
Pinard of the poilus. The government
also provides tobacco which, to quote
one ambulancier, cannot be smoked without
a gas mask.
The water in the streams is little better,
and a bath in one of them gives more
moral than physical satisfaction. One
French artilleryman told me with great
glee of seeing from his observation post
a company of German soldiers marched
down to a river for a bath. As soon as
they were in the water he signalled the
range to his battery, and they put a
barrage between the bathers and their
clothes.
// 139.png
.pn +1
.tb
.ni
VERDUN is more than a name now—it
is a symbol. France’s glorious fight
here with her back to the wall has gone
down in history as a golden page. The
foe thundered at the gates and the gates
held,—held for months while the fate of
France hung in the balance, and then
opening, the hosts of France poured out
and drove the foe back mile by mile,
bitter miles.
.pi
The city does not boast an unscarred
building, but these wounds do not bleed
in vain. For every one here there shall
be two across the frontier when the day
of reckoning comes. An awe-inspiring
silence broods over the littered streets.
There are no civilians here now, but
many soldiers, and as one walks an
occasional cheer greets him,—“Vive
l’Amérique!”
The enemy has been driven back so far
by this time that not more than half a
// 140.png
.pn +1
dozen vengeful shells a day are directed
towards the violated cathedral, its subterranean
vaults blown open and exposed,
its walls struck, its windows shattered,
and its roof fallen. A walk through this
city, divided by the peaceful Meuse, would
convince one, if nothing had before, that
this war is not in vain, and that no force
should be spared, no rest taken until the
nation which has perpetrated these million
crimes be crushed, that it may never strike
like this again.
.tb
.ni
A BATTLE is made up of a number of
attacks, and a push consists of a number
of battles. Consequently, each attack is
most important as it is one of the single
stones out of which the wall of the push
is constructed. The taking of A—— was
a small attack in itself, but it was a part
of the foundation on which was built
the great August push at Verdun.
.pi
Our section rolled into a town about
// 141.png
.pn +1
four miles from A—— three days before
the attack proper was scheduled to begin.
We established our headquarters there,
and our relay station and poste de secours
in the Hesse Forest, the latter just behind
the third-line trenches.
In the Champagne push the year before
the French had not had nearly enough
artillery support, and it had cost them
many lives. It is something one hears
spoken of rarely. To avoid a repetition
of this disaster they had massed for this
attack in one wood six thousand guns
varying in calibre from the famous 75’s
to several batteries of 380’s, mounted on
a railroad a stone’s throw from our sleeping
quarters. However, as we had no
time for sleep, it made little difference.
The 75 is about a three-inch gun, and the
380, a sixteen approximately.
Starting in three days before the attack,
these guns began firing as steadily as they
could without overheating. Very often
// 142.png
.pn +1
in our front abri it was impossible to write
because of the vibration. One day, when
we stopped in the woods to change a
punctured tire, the car was knocked off
the jack by the shocks several times
before we could remove the tire, and at
last we had to run in on the rim.
Finally, just before the men were to
go over the top, the barrage was set
down in front of the trenches and the
men climbed over the parapet, and started
walking towards the enemy. It is always
possible to tell the tir de barrage by the
sound of the guns. There is a certain
regularity which is lacking when each
gun is firing at independent targets, and
the steady thunder gives one the feeling
of a tremendous hammer smashing,
smashing, irresistibly, each blow falling
true and hard, and following one another
with the regularity of the machines in a
giant factory.
A perfect barrage is impenetrable, with
// 143.png
.pn +1
the shells falling so near together and
with such short intervals of time between
that nothing can survive it. The only
possibility is the inaccuracy of some one
or more guns which will put a number of
shells out of the line and leave a break
or opening.
Before the attack the officers all have
their watches carefully synchronized, as a
mistake of one minute may cost many
lives. Walking ahead of their men, keeping
them the right distance behind the
solid wall of flame and steel, they wait
until a certain minute when the barrage
is lifted a number of yards and then
advance to that distance. In the orders,
the minute the barrage is to be lifted and
the distance are given out beforehand;
for to advance the soldiers too quickly
would be to put them under fire from
their own guns.
In this attack the first wave passed
over the destroyed wire, and on reaching
// 144.png
.pn +1
the enemy’s front-line trenches could not
distinguish them from the rest of the
ground, and found no living thing there.
The second-line trenches were little better,
and they got their fighting at the third-line
trenches. So perfect had the preparation
and execution of this attack been
that the Bois d’A—— was cleared of the
enemy in thirteen minutes from the time
the French left their trenches.
The first wave is followed by the
“butchers” (the English “moppers-up”),
who kill all the wounded and the odd
prisoners, it being impractical for a charging
line to attempt to hold a few captives.
Also another factor which makes this
treatment of prisoners necessary, and
which the Allies have learned by experience,
is that unguarded men, once the
first wave has passed over them, will
take out a machine gun and catch the
advancing troops between two fires. This
happened a number of times before the
// 145.png
.pn +1
simple expedient was adopted of requesting
the prisoners to go down into an
abri where they would be “safer,” and
then tossing in two or three grenades
which kill and bury them at the same
time.
Of course the Boche was not idle in
the meanwhile, and kept up a hail of
fire from behind A—— Wood and Dead
Man’s Hill, which did not fall until two
days later, and we had the benefit of this
back on the roads as we tore from the
relay station to the poste, to the hospital,
and back again, trying to take care of as
many as we could of the countless
wounded from the attack who were being
brought in. French soldiers who had been
in the war since 1914 said that they had
never seen such fire.
This run and the work through this attack
were the most interesting of the experiences
I had in the zone. We worked
day and night, sleeping and eating at odd
// 146.png
.pn +1
moments and with long intervals between,
ceasing only when twelve of our
cars had gone en panne, and half that
number of drivers were in the hospital
suffering from the new mustard gas which
was showered on us in gas shells. We
were tired indeed when relieved for a
short period en repos.
// 147.png
.pn +1
.if h
.il fn=i147.jpg w=600px id=i147
.ca
TAKING A LOAD FROM THE ABRI
COPYRIGHT—INTERNATIONAL FILM SERVICE CO., INC.
.ca-
.if-
.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: TAKING A LOAD FROM THE ABRI
COPYRIGHT—INTERNATIONAL FILM SERVICE CO., INC.]
.sp 2
.if-
// 148.png
.pn +1
// 149.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch05
V||L’ENVOI
// 150.png
.pn +1
// 151.png
.pn +1
.sp 2
.ni
AN American army is in France. Old
Glory is proudly floating above an armed
host which has come to stand shoulder
to shoulder with the Allies, and do battle
to prove that Right makes Might. We
read in the papers of the ovations the
troops receive, of the reviews, the presentations,
the compliments, and the training,
and our hearts beat proudly because
we too are Americans. We are non-combatants,
to be sure, and are members
not of the American army but of the
French; yet, we are serving in the same
cause, and, we hope, doing our bit towards
the final victory.
.pi
We know that sooner or later the entire
American Field Service is to be absorbed
by the American army, but as to when
this is to come, and in what manner,
we are ignorant. We debate often now
// 152.png
.pn +1
about these things, and wonder what
effect the change is to have on us and on
the section. Pessimist has picked up a
rumor somewhere that we are to be
turned out in a body, and that drivers
who have been training at Allentown are
to take our places. Cheerful Liar informs
us that we are all to be made first lieutenants,
and that the section is to serve with
the American troops. “Napoleon” thinks
that we are to be discharged, and that
French drivers who “know their business”
are to take our places. Some one else
says that we are all to be put in the
trenches. No one knows anything definite,
and the chef and sous-chefs are besieged
for information which they have
not. The Assistant Inspector comes out
to us and we know little more. American
officers encountered in Bar-le-Duc can
give us no information, and rumors, most
of them originating in the section, contradict
each other.
// 153.png
.pn +1
One evening a large Pierce Arrow pulls
up beside our cars, parked in a walnut
grove. Three American medical officers
step out with clanking spurs, and we are
all attention. The chef is called and we
assemble. The officer in command makes
a short speech. The section is to be taken
over, he says, and those who remain must
enlist as privates in the American army
for the duration of the war. These men,
having signed up, are then at the disposal
of the Army, but will probably be kept
in the Ambulance Service. The new
officers are to be an American lieutenant,
who will be our present chef, two sergeants,
and a corporal. The section is to continue
to serve with the French army, but
may be transferred to the new American
front.
We form small circles and discuss the
situation. All the freedom and romance
are gone, but many are going to stay.
The rest have chosen aviation or artillery,
// 154.png
.pn +1
and one or two may return home. The
old volunteer Ambulance Service is dead,
but the days we have lived with it are
golden, and nothing can ever take them
away from us, or bring them back again.
There is a little lump in each man’s
throat as he turns in tonight, but from
now on we serve America, and any sacrifice
is worth that. And for the rest—“C’est
la guerre.”
.tb
.ni
THE participation of the United
States in this war marks the time of
this country’s coming of age, and the real
beginning of its work as one of the great
world powers. Up to the War of the
Revolution the thirteen colonies had more
than enough on their hands in managing
their own affairs. In the throes of that
war the country was born, and slowly
grew, feeling its increasing power which
was never quite secure until the Civil
War was at an end. Then, year by year,
// 155.png
.pn +1
reaching out over the two continents of
America, guiding and helping our weaker
brothers in their affairs, gave us a foundation
of courage and experience in the
adolescent period before we were ready
to stand forth staunch in our beliefs and
secure in our power to uphold them.
That that time has come, and that the
Old World, throwing down the gauntlet
to the New, has found it unexpectedly
ready, is shown by the presence of the
Stars and Stripes on the battlefields of
France. The mask of our isolation by
the ocean, that time-worn excuse, has
been rudely torn aside by modern inventions,
and the affairs of Europe have
become by their intimacy our own. In
mingling with them as we were forced to
do, one side was bound to transgress
sooner or later—Germany did. And
when Germany transgressed, America
stepped across the bridge from youth to
manhood, and picking up the iron gauntlet
// 156.png
.pn +1
proceeded to settle the question by
force of arms,—the one indisputable
argument.
.pi
This war is to make Democracy secure
only in that it is the continual struggle
between the new and the old, a struggle
whose issue is certain before the start—civilization
moves to the west.
America is the vanguard of the European
civilization moving westward.
It has taken the sum of the civilizations
of the earth to bridge the chasm of the
Atlantic. America is the last section of
the circle of the world, which completed,
civilization moves back to its starting
place. Power increases with civilization
and, with each step civilization has taken,
the conquests have been proportionate.
Each has tried world conquest and failed,
but each has come nearer and each time
the world has been nearer ready to receive
it. The present war is the attempt
of a representative of the civilization of
// 157.png
.pn +1
Europe to control the earth, and proving
per se its unfitness to do so.
Consequently, the relation of America
to the War is that she is coming of age,
and is at last ready to take her place
among the great nations of the world
as a power that can never again be disregarded,
a mighty guardian of the Right.
.tb
.ni
AMERICA has been aptly called the
Melting Pot. Since 1620, when the Pilgrims
established their permanent colony
at Plymouth, people from the Old World
have been flocking to this country and
becoming “Americans.” Every country
of the globe has sent its representatives—each
a different metal to be merged
with the others until the American
should be as distinct a type as the Englishman
or Frenchman. At first there
was natural discord—each was a different
metal in the melting pot, but as there
was no heat, no fire, they could not
// 158.png
.pn +1
amalgamate. Then came the first blast
of national fire—the Revolution, and in
that, the first great struggle for Liberty,
was moulded from the composite alloys—the
American. The American as he came
from the mould of the Revolution was
the foundation on which the country
rests, and although the descendants of
those Americans are too few in number
now to be more than a flux for the steady
stream of metal as it pours from the pot,
they can at least preserve the standard
that their forebears passed down to them
as the Golden Heritage, and be examples
to these new and untried metals.
.pi
In the War of 1812 and in the Civil
War the new metals were amalgamated
and tempered with the old, but since 1864
there has been no fire hot enough to
mould together the millions who have
sought the United States as a home.
There has been no sword over our heads.
There has been no great impending
// 159.png
.pn +1
disaster, no danger to the country as a
whole of great loss of life or property,
and our Liberty and our Honor have
not been at stake as they are today.
So it is now in this fierce blast from
Hell’s furnace, the Great War, that the
National fire is rekindled and each metal
is slowly sinking its own individuality
into the common form carefully stirred
by the hand of the Almighty, and in the
white heat, as the pure metal is tempered
until it rings true and measures to the
old standard, the slag is cast aside. Thus
is America the Melting Pot.
.tb
.ni
PARIS is the place where everything
begins and ends. From here during the
four years of war there has been the constant
departure of men bound for the
great adventure, and it is Paris that has
received with open arms the greater bulk
of the permissionnaires and the réformés.
Gay, very gay on the surface, but below
// 160.png
.pn +1
the crust it is the saddest of all places.
When a man is in great agony he laughs.
It is so with the great city, and the laugh
of delirium is a poor sham indeed.
.pi
The shortage of necessities has also
been a damper on the city. In Neuilly,
a suburb of Paris, a man was carrying a
bag of coal. A few paces behind him
a well-dressed woman was walking home.
The man dropped a piece of coal from
his sack and the woman eagerly picked
it up and placed it in her gold bag.
The war hangs over all in a dismal
cloud and is in the back of every one’s
mind; although it is rare to hear it mentioned
it is always before one. There is
no Parisian who has not lost some one
very dear to him or her, and nineteen
out of every twenty women are in deep
mourning. The social activities, therefore,
are greatly curtailed, and the gay
life is left only to the people of the street,
the majority of whom have been driven
// 161.png
.pn +1
to that life by the reaction of despair and
sadness, and in lonesomeness seek the
only companionship that they know.
.tb
.ni
THE old chateau at 21, rue Raynouard,
so kindly loaned to the American Field
Service for its headquarters by the Comtesse
de la Villestreux, is a place of traditions.
The great Napoleon has walked
here. Rousseau wrote part of his works
here, and Franklin walked in the park
daily while he was Ambassador to France.
.pi
The park is the most extensive and
beautiful within the fortifications of
Paris, and contains the largest grove
of chestnuts in the city. The water
in the springs on the place was famous
in the seventeenth century as the “eaux
de Passy.”
In the shadow of the Eiffel Tower,
located on the banks of the Seine, the
place breathes an atmosphere of rest and
beauty and solidity, springing from the
// 162.png
.pn +1
traditions of age. The men of the American
Field Service, we who have had this
place as the home to which we would
return en permission, can never fully
express our sincere gratitude to the Comtesse
de la Villestreux and the other
members of the Hottinguer family, who
so graciously extended to us, Americans,
the hospitality of their beautiful estate.
.tb
.ni
A DREAM of a town, hot but not
oppressive under the sun of the Midi,
with quaint streets meandering through
it, little blue tables set in the sunlight
and a park filled with gay-colored soldiers
and drab women, was my first impression
of Bordeaux. Dilapidated fiacres in tow
of hungry horses transport one from
place to place, and give the newcomer
his first taste of the haggling, without
which a Latin would be disconsolate.
.pi
For all its quaintness and simplicity
it is as much a “pay as you enter” city
// 163.png
.pn +1
as the rest, and even in the park should
one sit upon an iron seat instead of a
wooden one there is an indemnity of
two sous extracted and a further sou
should the seat possess arms. A damsel
in black then presents a ticket which
entitles the possessor to hold down the
seat as long as he comfortably can. The
military may sit free, however, if they
know it; but the new arrivals do not,
and the park fund increases.
Bordeaux on my return I found to be
quite Americanized. The quiet uniforms
of our soldiers were neutralizing the
bright reds and blues of our ally. The
little blue tables were often covered by
a khaki arm, and many new signs proclaimed
“American Bar,” those houses
which had specialized in German beers
before the war having painted “American”
over the name of the Rhine country.
There is a large American hospital here
completely equipped and ready to receive
// 164.png
.pn +1
and take good care of the flood that will
soon be pouring in. An American private
telephone line has been built to Paris by
Americans, and with our gradual assimilation
of the railway system of France we
are “carrying on” well from here.
.tb
.ni
THE American Ambulance, the American
Field Service as it was in the old
days, is dead. The spirit of bonne camaraderie
and intimacy which each member
felt for the others; the time when, members
of no army, we served with the
French, on equal terms with the poilus
in the trenches and the officers on the
staff; when, responsible to no one, we
served the cause and the god Adventure,
content with the past and with no
thought for the morrow,—has passed.
With the coming of army discipline and
system, with governmental organization
and routine, the old days are gone. We
are sorry, selfishly, to see them go; but
// 165.png
.pn +1
we cannot and would not have it otherwise.
The Ambulance Service is now
proudly enrolled under Old Glory, and
is broader and greater than it ever could
have been as a volunteer organization.
We rejoice that it is so, and are proud
that we have been a part of it. So, hail
to the new United States Army Ambulance
Corps! The men of the Old
Ambulance salute you!
.pi
.tb
.ni
A LITTLE group of us stands together
in the darkness, with the deck rising and
falling beneath our feet. We are silent
and pensive. The last lights of Bordeaux
are fading in the mist, and with them
France. The boat has been running up
and down the wide harbor all day, and
now in the darkness is making a dash
for the open sea, hoping to outwit the
enemy lurking in the depths.
.pi
Up there, far to the north of those
lights, the great guns thunder and the
// 166.png
.pn +1
sky glimmers with star-shells. Men are
fighting, and struggling, and dying, and
laughing over their Pinard, but it is not
for us. We have finished for a while. Of
course we are coming back, but furlough
is not offered often enough to be refused
lightly. We feel a queer mixture of sadness,
and happiness, and relief. The life
has worked its way into our hearts, and
the call to return rings in our ears. But
the relief from the tenseness and the
joy of anticipation of America and Home
exceeds all else. The wind blowing across
the waves starts somewhere in America,
and we take deep breaths. Soon we shall
be home, shall see our friends, and shall
lead a life of luxurious ease again for a
short space of time.
We walk around the deck and then,
taking out our pipes, settle down in our
steamer chairs and puff thoughtfully. All
is peace and quietness here, the spray
breaking over the bow and the waves
// 167.png
.pn +1
lapping against the sides. It is hard to
realize that the earth is shaking in a
cataclysm only a little north, but we
know that this must be endured until
the power of Germany is destroyed—that
the world may be as peaceful as is
the sea tonight.
// 168.png
.pn +1
// 169.png
.pn +1
.sp 2
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=glos
GLOSSARY
// 170.png
.pn +1
// 171.png
.pn +1
.sp 2
[The meaning of the words as given in this Glossary is
that which holds in the army at the front and sometimes
conflicts with the meaning as given in the dictionary.]
.ta l:22 h:25
Abri | dug-out
Ambulancier | ambulance driver
Argot | slang
Arrivée | an enemy shell
Assis | a wounded man able to sit up
Blessé | wounded man
Bonne camaraderie | good-fellowship
Bonne chance | good luck
Boyaux | communication trench
Brancardier | stretcher-bearer
Briquet | pocket lighter
Camion | truck
Camionnette | small truck
Chef | first lieutenant
Conducteur | ambulance driver
Contre-avion | anti-aircraft gun
// 172.png
.pn +1
Couché | a wounded man lying down
Croix de guerre | war cross
Départ | a shell fired towards the enemy
Dud | a shell which does not explode
Éclat | shell fragment
En Panne | breakdown
En Permission | on furlough
En Repos | on a rest
Estaminet | café
Major | army surgeon
Malade | sick man
Maréchal des logis | French petty officer
Mauvais temps | rainy season
Médaille militaire | military medal
Minniewerfer | German trench mortar
Mort Homme | Dead Man’s Hill
Musette | haversack
Peloton | section
Permission | furlough
// 173.png
.pn +1
Permissionnaire | man on furlough
Pinard | wine
Pionnier | a branch of the Engineers
Poste de Secours | front dressing station for wounded
Ravitaillement | provisioning
Réformé | soldier discharged on account of wounds
Roll | to drive
Rôti | shell which does not explode
Saucisse | observation balloon
Soixante-quinze | 75 mm. shell
Sous-chef | second lieutenant
Straf | to shell (literally, to curse)
Tir de barrage | barrage fire
Torpille | trench mortar shell
Verboten | forbidden
Ville haute | upper city
.ta-
.sp 2
.pb
\_ // this gets the sp 4 recognized.
.sp 2
.dv class=tnbox // TN box start
.ul
.it Transcriber’s Notes:
.ul indent=1
.it Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
.it Typographical errors were silently corrected.
.it Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a\
predominant form was found in this book.
.if t
.it Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
.if-
.ul-
.ul-
.dv- // TN box end
\_