Part 3

It must have been pretty close to eleven o’clock that Frederick Norton was standing in the back window of the little Swiss chalet at Ludes, from which place he could get a glimpse of the battle lines through the boughs of the trees. He was waiting for his call to go to the front. His call was soon to come. He no doubt heard the whirr of the approaching aeroplane overhead――he may have heard the deafening crash of the bomb as it struck the ground, making a crater in the earth and riddling the walls of the peaceful chalet. But then the sound of the war was forever silenced――for him. A piece of the shell had cut his throat――another had pierced his heart. He pitched forward, then fell backward on the floor. He had answered his final call.

The following night I walked beside my friend Frederick Norton for the last time. He was not laid to rest until after dusk because his burial place was on the side of a hill in view of the enemy――in view of the towers of the desecrated cathedral at Rheims――as fine a place as any for a volunteer who had earned an honorable rest.

There were French officers of high rank in the gathering to pay homage to the Volunteer American――a priest, a Protestant chaplain, his friends in Section One――a squad of soldiers under arms. As we stood there in the growing dusk a German aeroplane flew overhead and swept the roadside nearby with its rapid fire gun. All looked up but no one moved. The benediction being said, we walked slowly away.

IX

Bastille Day

July 14, 1917, was “Bastille Day,” the great French national holiday, and the troops were greatly heartened by the fact that at last America was coming over to help them win the war. French and American troops were to parade together in Paris――the fighters at the front were to have a special dinner, with a cup of champagne and a cigar. A few of the men in our Section who had a short leave of absence coming due were going into Paris for a couple of days.

Personally, I was glad that I was going out to the front on duty. I felt the need of active, strenuous work. During the forenoon several shells came shrieking over the little Swiss chalet, striking in a field a short distance back. A little while later I saw a dead soldier being carried into the town by his comrades. One shell struck in a field outside the town where a young girl was working in the vineyard and she was obliged to desert her work and run for shelter. I wondered if the Germans had observed the movements of our ambulances in and out of the grounds of the chalet or whether they were merely observing the French holiday. Some one remarked that following a custom of three years standing, they would do what they could to disturb the holiday dinner of the French soldiers. About noon a couple of shells struck in the town of Ludes but did no great amount of damage. A few civilians were still living in Ludes and in the kitchen of a little French woman we ate our meals when not out on a run. We supplied the food and she cooked for us. I remember during my first luncheon in that kitchen seeing her send her little daughters off to school with gas masks flung across their shoulders.

“Bastille Day” was a fairly busy afternoon and that night there was no time to rest. Sometimes it was a call to go out to the Esperance farm――sometimes a call to run into the town of Sillery――sometimes to report at the Château Romont back of Sillery to await further orders.

That night I had no sleep at all, though I made several efforts. Early in the evening I found myself at the Château Romont, and when I was going to retire for a little rest I was not shown down into the dark cellar where I slept for a short while the first night I had been there. I was invited into a large back room in the château which had once evidently been a handsome billiard room. On the walls were deer antlers and a boar’s head. The billiard table had been pushed over in a corner of the room out of the way and in its place was a table at which officers sat poring over maps and reports. A telephone was on the table and on the walls were large maps. I stretched out on a bare rough “crib” to rest. One of the officers called an orderly and said something to him which I did not hear. The orderly went into another room and returned with an armful of rugs. He placed them in the crib and once more I stretched out on this most comfortable couch. But just then the telephone rang. I got up, pulled on my boots, put on my coat, and as I started out the officer at the table smiled sympathetically at me and said “Bon nuit.”

Midnight in the little Swiss chalet. I had returned from a run and had lain down to sleep just outside the room where two nights before Frederick Norton had fallen. Again there was a call. Some time after one o’clock, at the dug-out in the canal bank in front of the Esperance farm, I again lay down, only to be called a few minutes later. I drove down the road to a post I had not visited before, and while the wounded were being placed in the car I was instructed to shut off my motor for fear the Germans might hear and open fire. The car being filled with three wounded men on stretchers inside, and one less seriously wounded on the front seat with me, I started off for Ludes. Along the road I struck a small shell hole which gave the car a severe jolt and the wounded inside cried out: “Oh, comrade! comrade!” In the morning I discovered that the jolt had cracked the front spring of the car but the wounded had forgiven me for my poor driving.

At Ludes the hospital was filled and I must push on back to the town of Epernay to one of the hospitals there. As I drove into the town at daylight I saw a strange sight. Straggling into the town were old men, women and children, all looking worn and bedraggled. Some carried blankets, some were pushing little carts in which were piled up household belongings. Some of the women were carrying babies in their arms.

The night before a warning had gone out that an air raid was expected and these civilians living under the shadow of the war had taken to the “caves” on the outskirts of the city for protection.

I reached the principal hospital in the town and, as frequently happened, was sent to another hospital further on. When I arrived there I was feeling tired, bedraggled, hungry and out of sorts myself after the all night strain. But if I felt like complaining I promptly changed my mind and decided to be cheerful.

Stopping my car, I went around to the back and raised the curtain. One of the wounded, a young fellow, looked up at me with the pleasantest expression in the world and said: “Hello, boy Americaine! Good morning!”

But that is the spirit of the French.

X

Here Kultur Passed

Toward the end of July we received orders that we were to move from the Champagne region, but we did not know just where we were to be sent. Early one morning, the order to move having come, we had loaded our cars with tents, supplies, automobile parts, all the paraphernalia of an ambulance section, and our personal belongings, and had formed in a line on the main thoroughfare of the picturesque town of Louvois. Stevenson drove up to the head of the procession, blew his whistle once and every engine was started; he blew his whistle twice, and we were off down the road in the direction of Epernay. The villagers of Louvois were on the street to wave us “Au ’voir.” There were old men, women and girls. The young men were all at the front.

Outside the town of Epernay we drew up alongside the road and waited further instructions. Some thought we were going to Belgium, others said we were going down into the Verdun sector. Our French Lieutenant, Reymond, had gone on ahead in his car for orders. Presently he returned and we learned that we were to drive in the direction of Verdun.

Stevenson, at the head of the procession, blew his whistle and once more all cars were started――soon we were rolling along the road.

At noon we reached Châlons, where we had luncheon in a café crowded with French officers. By late afternoon we reached the outskirts of the town of Vietry, and as we drove into the town we saw a squad of German prisoners, under guard, marching along the road. If they noticed that we were Americans, they showed no emotion even if they felt any. At Vietry we were to spend the night. We were shown to a large barn in which to sleep. Some Russian troops had occupied the barn a short while before and the straw littered about looked rather risky. As it promised to be a clear night some of us decided to sleep out in the open field under the trees. The cows were less to be feared than the straw in the barn or even the avions above.

Having parked our cars, several of us strolled to the banks of the historic Marne and were quickly splashing around in the refreshing though muddy water. Then over to a café in the city for supper. The supper developed into a banquet. It was the first time in a great while that the entire Section and its French attachés had all sat together at one time and everyone off duty. Singing commenced before the meal was half over, and if not all harmonious it was at least hearty. The darkness came on but no lights were made in the room on account of danger from the avions, but the hilarity did not die out in the growing gloom.

Roy Stockwell was obliged to sing several verses of a war song which was called “Around Her Leg She Wore a Purple Ribbon,” in which every one joined in the chorus, singing:

“Far away, far away, She wore it for her lover Who was far, far away.”

“Winnie” Wertz, the French cook, sang a pastoral song of peaceful life on the farm after the war was over. One or two men tried to make speeches but received scant encouragement. The singing continued till late in the evening, when we wended our way back to the open field for a night of peaceful sleep under the trees. As we walked through the city on the way a quartette was lustily singing:

“Far away, far away, She wore it for her lover, Who was far, far away.”

No doubt the French inhabitants awoke to shrug a shoulder and patiently mutter: “Oh, those terrible Americans.”

The next morning we were on our way to Bar le Duc, a picturesque city nestled between high hills. At the top of one of these hills, as we started the steep descent into the city, we passed a large convent almost totally destroyed by avion bombs. Bar le Duc is always subject to air raids and shows many marks of the war on its principal streets. Again we stopped for the night and here I slept on the sidewalk with my head against a sentry box so that no one would fall over me.

On to the town of Evres through a country, as we advanced, showing more and more plainly the desolation and waste of the war. Through towns deserted of all civilians, over roads dry in the midsummer sun and unspeakably dusty from the continual travel toward the front. One afternoon in Evres, Curtis and I dropped into the home of an elderly French peasant woman for a lunch of delicious cottage cheese and a jug of fresh milk. The peasant woman had a sad story to tell. Her husband was dead; her son’s home in the village had been destroyed; he had been taken prisoner and his wife had fallen victim to the advance of Prussian kultur.

At Evres we waited to move on to Verdun and there we learned of the great offensive that was soon to take place and we watched the preparations for it on a vast scale. We were deeply impressed.

XI

Verdun

When we moved up on the morning of August first to take our small part in the big offensive, we established our cantonment in the town of Houdainville, within about three miles of the city of Verdun. The town of Houdainville was conspicuously a war town, being deserted by all civilians, crowded with troops and subject to intermittent shelling. The houses were all old and many bore the marks of battle. Some of our men were billeted together in the second story of a building which was infested with rats. The quarters were so small that it was necessary to crowd the cots uncomfortably close together. Others of us pitched a tent in a barnyard. It was muddy, unsavory and very different from the place at Louvais, where we had our tent pitched under the trees outside the château of M. Chandon. We realized that we were not to see the war at its worst and we felt reconciled to added hardships by the fact that our Section had been assigned to the very serious work ahead.

That there was very serious work ahead, indeed, had been brought home to us while having seen for days and nights the continual stream of troops, heavy guns, supplies and munitions moving toward the front. We had been told that preparations for this offensive had been going on for months.

Had I been so inclined, which I was not, there was little time to complain of our surroundings――barely time to note them before I was sent out to post duty. Now we were to be on post duty for twenty-four hours and then off duty for twenty-four hours, in which to work on our cars and rest. This schedule was based on all of the cars in the Section being able to run, but there were times when some of the cars were not available.

I was sent out to a post at Cassairne Marceau, at the top of a hill about three miles in front of Verdun, near the spot which marks the extreme advance of the Crown Prince in his attack of 1916. Near here the French had stood and said: “They shall not pass.” They never did, and I am sure they never will.

Looking back from Cassairne Marceau I could see the ancient fortified city of Verdun, crowned by its cathedral on a hill. Close at hand were the remains of barracks built shortly before the war. All about was desolation, shell holes, pieces of exploded shells. In front of the post was a graveyard and during my many times at that post there was not a day that I did not see the dead being laid to rest. Here the war was seen in its most hideous aspect. Sometimes a wagon would come rumbling up to the post with dead piled up like so much cordwood.

My first call to go from here to a front line post came before sunset. The post was near Fort Vaux. An officer rode with me to observe whether the road could be covered by a car. It was a road that no sane person would undertake in peace times under any consideration. Down a ravine between two hills, in a country laid absolutely barren by continual shell fire, the sides of the hills were pock-marked with shell holes; and where at one time, three years before, there had been a beautiful forest, there was not now a tree stump, a bush or a patch of grass. We drove along the road very slowly indeed, for there was danger of breaking springs and axles in passing, as we drove close to the artillery as they were firing. I was later glad for the opportunity of seeing that road before sunset, for I sometimes covered it afterward in the darkness without lights.

We reached the poste de secour, picked up three wounded artillerymen and returned with added caution to Cassairne Marceau. It was very trying when we wanted to drive fast, in order to get back as quickly as possible to a place of comparative safety, that we were obliged to drive most slowly to save our wounded and our cars.

Sometime around eleven o’clock that night I lay down on a stretcher in the dug-out at Cassairne Marceau to snatch a little sleep while waiting for my next call. At that time I was still in good condition and had not yet suffered from great fatigue or undue nervous strain and consequently could sleep at any time and in any place that the opportunity offered. Later on I was to become so fatigued and my nerves were so shaken from the continual strain that I could not sleep at all. The dug-out served as a dressing station and was equipped for operations――surgeons were in attendance there. The place had the odor of a hospital, with the added unpleasant damp odor of the underground. Not a very satisfactory place in which to sleep, but we slept there many times.

I was just dozing off when I heard voices, footsteps and a moaning which was very distressing; and I was sufficiently conscious to realize that some one badly wounded was being carried in. But I must rest――I must sleep while the opportunity offered, so I dozed fitfully, never being quite unconscious of the fact that close by me an operation was being performed. Finally I was fully awakened by some one touching my foot. I sat up――the operation had been completed and I was to take the desperately wounded man back to a hospital in Verdun.

It was well past midnight when the man was lifted into the car and I started on my dark ride, driving slowly. I had not yet been inside the walled city of Verdun. I did not know just where the hospital was. I had simply been informed that by crossing a certain bridge, entering a certain gate and turning down a certain street I would find it. I carried few wounded men who moaned in greater agony than did this soldier as I drove on back to Verdun. I found the bridge and crossed it. I passed through the gate inside the city walls and I drove slowly through the dark, silent, apparently deserted city. It seemed indeed like a city of the dead. I came to a square and in the darkness took the wrong street. I was doing the best that could be done, and I hoped the wounded soldier would live till we reached the hospital. I wished for someone to talk to――for some one to help me find the way. Finally I saw a sentinel on duty and he directed me down the right street and before long we came to the house which was serving as a hospital.

That was my first entrance into the ancient fortified city of Verdun. When I saw the inside of my car at daylight I was glad that we had met with the sentinel when we did, for I think there could have been but little time to lose.

XII

Awaiting the Big Attack

We had not been many days at Houdainville when we received orders to move up to Beveaux, just a short distance outside the walled city of Verdun. The big attack had not yet taken place but was expected at any time. In the meanwhile the artillery activity was daily increasing.

At Beveaux there was a large hospital which was almost vacant when we moved up there and pitched our tents. It had been made ready for the big attack and would probably accommodate fifteen hundred wounded. The preparations for the offensive were most impressive and tended to make us thoughtful. Though we were now closer to the front, the location of our cantonment on high, open ground was a welcome change to all of us. Those of us who in Houdainville had our tent in that muddy, unsavory barnyard were glad to get out. Those in the Section who had slept in the crowded, rat-ridden house, were more than glad of the change. That we were close to the war, in fact actually under it, even when off duty, was impressed upon us at supper time that first evening at Beveaux, when several shells struck within the hospital grounds and some hit the large stables adjoining, killing horses and wounding men. We all ran for shelter, and supper was delayed for some time. The hospital was shelled on several occasions after that.

During our stay at Beveaux we usually retired at night with most of our clothes on, partly on account of the avions and partly because our work was so arduous that we were likely to be called in the night, even when supposedly off duty. On retiring we always had our steel helmets and gas masks within reach. Frequently at night when the avions came over we were obliged to get out of bed and run for the nearby trenches. A canvas tent affords mightly little protection against shell fire!

We expected to be at Beveaux for but a very short time before being sent back for a rest, but the days went on, the long nights went on and the weeks rolled around before we were relieved.

XIII

Under Fire in an Ambulance

Twenty-four hours on duty――twenty-four hours off duty: that was the schedule in the Verdun sector, based on all the cars being able to run, but there was not a day or night that cars were not put out of commission, which meant that the work of those who were running was increased. Theoretically speaking that was the schedule; practically speaking there was no schedule. Sometimes we were on duty thirty hours at a stretch, though perhaps in that time we could snatch a little sleep between runs; sometimes there was no sleep at all. The days were bad, the nights were worse, and day or night, either on or off duty, we were always under fire. Almost every time a man came back from post he had an experience to tell――it seemed that on our runs we escaped by a matter of seconds; shells were always hitting just behind us, in front of us and around us. We saw bloodshed all the time. The Twenty-third Psalm speaks of “the valley of the shadow of death.” That describes the desolate land about where we were. Verdun will go down in history as the slaughter house of the world. This was real warfare.

We were working hard all the time but we were buoyed up by the fact that soon, almost any day, the big attack would take place and then we would be sent back for a rest. The attack was to have taken place on August first but was postponed from day to day so that more guns might be moved into position, and more supplies, munitions and men moved up. Every night on the road we saw that endless procession of supply trucks, munitions, guns and men.

We were covering many posts――we were getting very tired even before the attack took place. One night the General commanding a division at Fort Houdrement asked for more cars to be stationed there and he was informed that were no more cars to spare.

He asked “Why?” and was informed that all of our cars were out.

He asked “Where?” and he was informed of the various posts that we were covering. He expressed great surprise. He thought we were merely serving his division. We were serving an entire Army Corps.

Fort Houdrement was a bad spot and it was a hard road to travel to reach there, but bad as it was there were other posts which most of us came to dread more. I first saw Fort Houdremont in broad daylight. Before that our cars had only gone there at night, because the road was so exposed. That I first went there in daylight was not because of bravery on my part or because of a desire to establish a precedent. It was just the result of an accident.

I had turned in to sleep one night――or to sleep as much of the night as might be possible. A couple of my friends had also lain down to sleep. As we lay in the darkness under the shelter of the tent we could hear the firing of the artillery all along the front. Then a sudden gust of cool wind blew the flaps of the tent and we heard the patter of rain above our heads. A thunder storm was coming on. The sound of the thunder was mingled with the noise of the artillery. Our tent was occasionally lighted by flashes of lightning and I could see my companions lying awake on their cots. The rain came down in torrents, the lightning became louder and the roar of the artillery less distinct, until when the storm had reached its height the pouring rain and the sound of the thunder drowned out the sound of the artillery. And as we lay there one of my friends spoke up in the darkness and said quietly: “Phil, it sounds as if God in Heaven is still omnipotent.” And I said: “Yes, I am glad that God in Heaven is still omnipotent in spite of the fact that the tent is leaking right over my face.” Then I pulled the blankets over my head and dozed off to sleep――but not for long.