Part 4

I was soon awakened and told it was my turn out. It was still raining hard and I could hear the thunder and see the flashes of lightning as I bundled up and went out to my car and started out to find Fort Houdremont. I had never been there. I merely had a general direction as to where it was. It was a bad night for a ten-mile ride to a post I had never been to. It was not quite midnight when I started. The roads were slippery and crowded with traffic and progress was slow. About four miles out traffic was blocked for over half an hour, part of which time I dozed sitting at the wheel. Then once more motors began to whirr, trucks were groaning, horses were pulling and tugging, officers on horseback were shouting orders.

The procession moved on, getting nearer the battle, and along the road we could see the flashes of fire from the artillery and the exploding shells as they struck. On through the town of Bras, a desolate shell wrecked place, then on about a half a mile beyond. There I saw a chance to make time and gain ground by pulling out of the procession, driving ahead and crowding into an opening further on. A large motor truck loomed up in front of me. I turned sharply to escape being hit and ran into a ditch. I was hopelessly stalled.

One of our cars, driven by Holt, came directly back of me. He stopped to see if he could give me help. I told him it was impossible for us to pull the car out. He saw that for himself and as he drove on he shouted “Good-night” to me and I called back “Good-night” to him.

He could not have gone far when I saw a shell burst directly down the road over which he had gone. I wondered how close a call he had. Next day he told me he had jumped out of his car and was crouching in a ditch when the shell struck.

I stood alongside of my car in the rain and mud, shells coming in along the road as the procession of the night moved past me. Every one had his work to do and must move on. Once four poilus paused long enough to see whether they could help push my car out of the ditch, but it was useless and they went on.

There was nothing to do but to wait for daylight; and it was a long wait. During the night two horses were killed beside my car.

The dawn came on slowly, the rain stopped, the firing became less intense. The procession of the night had disappeared I knew not where. An empty ammunition wagon came clattering up the road, the driver cracking his whip and urging the four horses to greater speed. When the sun finally appeared I found myself alone in view of the enemy. Alone, excepting for the two dead horses lying in the road. Then I went for help.

I walked back to the town of Bras and if it looked forlorn at night it looked even more so in the daylight. Places where some houses had once stood were now merely marked by débris tumbled into the cellars――dead horses were lying about. A French ambulance gave me a lift back to Verdun and there I found one of our cars which took me back to our cantonment, where I reported my difficulties. Stevenson called to Hanna, who was off duty, and in his car we three drove back over the road to where I had abandoned my ambulance.

I really was sceptical about finding anything more than a pile of wreckage, but the car was still there and so were the two dead horses. Before we proceeded to pull my car out with the aid of Hanna’s car, I tenderly lifted an unexploded shell from under the rear wheel, carried it over to the other side of the road and laid it down.

Then on to Houdrement――Stevenson riding with me and Hanna following in his car. Reaching there, we walked up the side of a steep hill to the dressing station and inquired for any wounded that might be there. I was caked with mud from head to foot. A French officer smiled at my appearance. I saluted and he extended his hand. The French officers were usually quite as polite to us as if we were officers ourselves.

We found some wounded who would otherwise have been kept there until darkness had set in. After that our Section covered the run to Fort Houdremont in daylight with regularity; and in spite of the fact that the road was exposed to view, most of us found the daylight run much less nerve-racking than in the night.

“Do the boche fire on ambulances?” I have sometimes been asked.

“Certainly!” I have answered.

XIV

The Big Shells Come Over

The days and nights went on, but still the attack did not take place, but the artillery duels were growing in intensity every night.

If there was any belief that preparations for the attack were not known, this belief was dispelled when the Germans erected a sign over their trenches reading――

“WE WILL BE WAITING FOR YOU ON THE FIFTEENTH”――but the fifteenth passed by and――the attack did not take place. We were getting very tired――we were becoming conscious that we had nerves――the driving became more hazardous and terrifying with the increased activity of the artillery.

Early on the evening of August seventeenth, I was off duty and was standing talking to some of the fellows, enjoying an after supper pipe and watching the anti-aircraft guns popping at a German aeroplane when Stevenson walked up. He said a telephone message had just come in informing him that Stockwell had broken the front spring of his car out at Fort Houdremont. I was to take a new spring out and Pearl was to go along to help make the repairs.

William Pearl was our volunteer mechanician and had been with the Section for some time. Before that he had been a Rhodes scholar. After the war he would practice law.

Pearl and I started off and we had not gone far when it began to rain――it frequently rained at Verdun. We stopped to slip our rubber ponchos over our heads. Perhaps that brief delay was the cause of what happened shortly after. A matter of seconds sometimes changes destiny when at the front. I recall that on one occasion I slowed down my car for a few seconds, just long enough to light a cigarette, and as I paused a shell struck on the road, not far in front of me. I am sure but for the lighting of that cigarette, the shell would have scored a direct hit. Yet some people say that cigarettes are an unmixed evil!

We drove on in the rain along the bank of the Meuse past the city of Verdun, up a long hill along which were formed the troops, the munition trucks, the cannon, the camions waiting to move toward the front under darkness; and when the procession once started to move, we knew from experience that progress would be slow along the road. So we drove as rapidly as possible, and as we drove, we got into conversation and Pearl told me that in all his experience Section One had never known anything worse that what we had been through at Verdun. I had heard Ned Townsend say the same thing, and Townsend had been at the front most of the time since the war started.

As we began to descend the long hill, we could see shells striking near the road and when we reached the bottom of the hill, we came to a large camion ditched and deserted on one side of the road and on the other side of the road a large shell hole. It was now dusk and I stopped my car to see whether I could pass without running into the hole. Then we heard the terrific shriek to which our ears had become accustomed――and then the crash. Pearl had stepped partly from the seat and had crouched down――I had put my head down and covered my face with my arms. The pieces of shell and rocks spattered around the car and hit it in several places. Each fraction of a second I expected to feel a stinging sensation but I quickly came to a realization that I was not scratched. I raised my head and asked――“Are you all right, Pearl?” Then I saw a magnificent display of calm courage. As he stood up, Pearl replied as quietly as if he had discovered something wrong with the front tire: “I think my arm is gone.”

It was not gone but badly shattered. With nerves calm and head cool, though he was bleeding badly, he got up on the seat beside me. The nearest dressing station was at Houdrement and we drove on. I am not sure, but I think a shell must have struck behind us at that moment because I later discovered a hole in the rear curtain of the car and the rear hub cap was cut as if by a steel chisel.

At Houdrement we left the car at the cross roads and started to climb the steep muddy embankment to reach the dressing post. Pearl was losing blood and getting weak, but still calm. I am sure he was more calm than I was. While his wound was being dressed I telephoned and reported the accident to Stevenson. I reported that I would remain at Houdrement with Pearl until he could be moved. There was some question as to whether he might be obliged to stay all night, but it was finally decided to move him back to the hospital at Beveaux without waiting.

It was now pitch dark and the roads were crowded with traffic coming toward the front. Progress was extremely slow on the way back. We would perhaps drive a quarter of a mile and then be held up for a quarter of an hour. Shells were arriving and shells were departing. It was a bad night, but all nights were hideously bad in front of Verdun. Whenever we stopped, I would open the little front door of the car and ask Pearl how he felt and always would come back the reply, “All right.” Once we were held up for an unusually long time and I walked ahead to see what was holding up the traffic. It was a large gun that had become ditched and men and horses and trucks were pulling and groaning and straining. Finally we were on our way and without further bad delays we reached the hospital at Beveaux. It had taken us two hours to cover less than ten miles.

I saw Pearl carried from his stretcher and tucked in bed and then I could not refrain from telling him what I felt: “Pearl, you have got about the finest, coolest nerve of any man I have ever seen.”

XV

Under the Shell Shower

Still the attack did not take place and still we were staying on and getting very tired.

On the morning and afternoon of the twentieth, I made several trips to Houdremont. Late in the afternoon we heard that the long delayed and much heralded attack would start that night. As I was returning to Houdremont about five o’clock, Stevenson instructed me to wait there until midnight for wounded and then to return and go off duty.

At dusk began the most terrific artillery firing that I had ever heard. There was not a second’s cessation in the firing――it was as continual and rapid as the rolling of a snare drum. Standing on the hill in front of the poste de secours at Houdrement in front of the French guns the shells were slipping through the air; that is the way they sounded, as if they were being shot along greased planes. I not only heard the departing shells, I actually saw them――black spots flying through space. At first I was sceptical. I thought perhaps my vision had become impaired or perhaps it was the effect of deranged nerves, but I asked White if he could see what I did and he said he could. Night came on and soon the men in the trenches would “go over the top” for the final rush. If it was a strain for us, the waiting must have been a most terrible strain for them. There were several other cars besides mine at Houdrement as night came on, but I would be the last to leave. Stretcher bearers, their faces set and worn, came in bearing wounded.

Patterson’s car was loaded and he started back over the bombarded road for Beveaux. Hanna’s car was loaded and he started back. White’s car was loaded and at the foot of the hill his car broke down and under shrapnel fire the wounded were transferred to another car. Kirtsburg’s car was loaded and he started back. Then I was the only one left. I sat down beside a stretcher bearer and we smoked in silence. The waiting seemed unbearable, listening to the ceaseless thunder of the guns. I fully realized, when I did start, just what I must pass through to get back to the hospital at Beveaux, nearly ten miles away. I wondered how much longer I must wait. I began to realize for the first time how men were glad to be slightly wounded in order to get out of that hell. Pieces of shell were spattering around where we sat, so we went inside underground. A soldier who had been brought in just a little while before was raving and fighting――he had gone insane. Gendarmes threw him to the floor.

At ten o’clock an operation was being performed, and as we stood close to the operating table, my friend the stretcher bearer brought me a cup of tea. I thought at the moment the strain of waiting to go into the inferno outside was the worst experience I had ever known. But at last the time came――my ambulance was loaded and I started back――not by way of Bras, because gas was coming in and settling in the lowlands, but up a steep long hill which at least would be comparatively free from gas――every inch of the way passing artillery pounding incessantly, so that I could not distinguish the difference between the sound of arriving and departing shells. The flashes of fire in my face were so blinding that I was obliged time and again to pause and get my bearings, to avoid running off the road.

Three times while pulling up that long hill, the engine of my car stalled and I would climb over the wounded soldier sitting by my side and get the engine started again. I felt fatigued almost to the breaking point. I felt sure that if I reached Beveaux I would be physically unable to drive again that night. I thought of the weary, drawn faces of those stretcher bearers back at Houdremont, silently going out and silently returning with their burdens. I thought of my own face. This was not vanity――it was simply that my face seemed to pinch at the cheek bones.

On I went until my car, jerking and limping on three cylinders, drew up on the grounds at the Beveaux hospital. But after the car had stopped, it still seemed to be moving. Others told me they had experienced the same sensation, when they had almost reached the point of exhaustion.

I walked over to our dining tent――stumbled over a guy rope and went inside. I had absolute confidence in the forethought of Stevenson. I struck a match, found some cold meat, a piece of bread and a cup of pinard; then I tumbled into my cot.

All along the front I could hear the incessant pounding of the guns, like the rolling of a snare drum, and then I fell asleep.

XVI

Aftermath of Battle

The attack had taken place――thousands had been killed and wounded on both sides of the lines, but the French had taken many German prisoners. They had advanced their lines――they had gained important hills. The Germans had been driven back. The attack had been a success.

But still no relief came for us, we must stay on, “just for three or four days longer,” through the counter attack of the Germans. We stayed on through the counter attack. Events were happening fast to us. A couple of our men had taken sick――had broken down under the strain and been sent in to Paris. Gamble had broken his arm cranking his car and he was sent in to Paris. Oller developed appendicitis and was sent to a hospital a little further back from the lines for an operation. The hospital where he went was shelled and some of the occupants were killed. Oller had stayed on much longer than most men would in his condition. Holt was gassed――Buhl was gassed――Patterson was gassed; but they stayed on. Drivers were all having narrow escapes.

Young Tapley had just loaded his car with wounded when a big shell came shrieking in. Tapley threw himself on his face as the shell struck and exploded close to his car. The sides of the car were blown out and all the wounded were instantly killed. White was lying on his face close to him. Another car was squarely hit and completely demolished. Fortunately no one was in it at the moment. Cram, while driving at night, wearing a gas mask, drove over a twenty-foot embankment――he rolled out of the car on a dead horse――he fell into a trench on a dead man. A gendarme on horseback, shot in the breast by shrapnel, toppled from his horse directly in front of Purdy’s car. There was not a single car in the Section which was not hit at least once. “Red” Day, who had succeeded Pearl as mechanician, was kept working night and morning and his untiring toil helped to save the Section and keep it rolling.

We had been relieved from the run to Houdremont and were now centring our efforts on the posts as far as Fort Douaumont; and that was worse, because the roads were exposed to view most of the way. The country was laid absolutely barren and along the way, men burrowed holes in the ground and lived like rats――and with them. In the day time we might drive along those roads and see scarcely a human being, and yet thousands of human beings were all about us. As we drove along, rats would scurry across the roads. Once I saw a dead rat in the middle of the road and it made me pessimistic. Dead horses were lying about which long since should have been covered over had time permitted. Sometimes wounded horses were staggering about the road, suffering pitifully and impeding traffic. On one of these occasions, our French Lieutenant Reymond drove out and with a revolver shot several of the wounded horses and then had them cleared from the road. Under fire Reymond was calm, he was magnificent. Back at Louvois I had liked Reymond, but at Verdun I admired him.

Along the roads I sometimes saw big shell holes, enormous craters which made me very thoughtful. We were under fire day and night, whether on or off duty. Overhead, we daily watched the air duels of the avions. Sometimes a German plane would come across, flying straight, swift and low to attack an observation balloon and as it opened fire, we would see the man in the observation basket shoot straight down through the air, then his parachute would open up and perhaps he would land in safety. On one occasion I saw a French plane collapse in the air and come swirling down like a dead leaf――down, down, crashing to the ground, and I drove on not feeling a single sensation. I was dead tired and had passed the stage of feeling a thrill even of horror.

At night the avions were always overhead, dropping bombs――sometimes a munition plant would be hit and explosion after explosion would light the sky for several hours. Still we stayed on――the relief did not come.

And while we were voluntarily and willingly, yes even very cheerfully, under fire for the cause, it was most shocking to read in the papers that disloyalty went unpunished back in the United States. Our troops Over There are entitled to the assurance that it is not safe for anyone at home to stab them in the back.

XVII

In the Valley of the Shadow

On the morning of September first, after we had been at Verdun for a month under fire, as we were eating breakfast, three Englishmen walked into our dining tent. They were members of Section One, English Ambulance Corps. They informed us that their Section had been sent up to relieve us. We were elated. We invited them to sit down for breakfast with us, for we wanted to be decently polite and reserved. A little later it turned out they had been misinformed. They had merely been sent up to assist us. We were dejected. We were to stay on, “just three or four days longer.”

The French were going to follow up their success of August twentieth with another attack which would take place “’most any day” and then we would be sent back for rest. The centre of this attack was to take place in front of Fort Douaumont, and, if anything, it would be harder on us than when we were at Haudremont on the twentieth.

The attack took place on the seventh of September and while some ground was gained, the success was not as decisive as the previous attack.

But the relief did not come for us, we were to stay on, “just for two or three days longer,” through the counter attack of the Germans.

Personally I was playing out very rapidly. I was losing the ability to relax and recuperate when off duty. I was losing the ability to sleep――I was reaching the stage of premonitions. I hoped that I might last out until relief came. I wanted to finish decently. I was afraid of myself――I was afraid I might turn coward――I was afraid I might turn quitter.

Then came a drive that I shall always remember. It was during the counter attack of the Germans. I shall always remember it, for one reason, because I was almost tempted to turn coward and quit.

The wounded were coming in fast at Douaumont, both French and German, and all of our cars were on duty――at least all that were able to run. It was just about noon when I started, and the sun was shining cheerfully enough overhead but it was hell on earth. A short distance out I passed one of the English cars coming in and the driver shouted to me to have my gas mask ready. I confess I had a feeling of fear. I had seen the victims of poison gas and I had a greater dread of that than I had of shells, if such a thing were possible, and besides a couple of nights before during a period that I had been on constant duty for thirty hours in which time I had punctured six tires, had had a slight touch of gas and had felt rather ragged ever since. About four miles out, I passed one of our cars and the driver called to me something about big shells and gas. I stopped to call back for more particulars, but he was too far back to hear me. I was wavering but I drove on. A little further and I could see the shells coming in. I could see the gas clouds. I stopped my car――I got out and then I had the hardest argument I have ever had with myself. First I argued: “It is suicide to go on, I am justified in turning back and reporting the road is impassable.” Then I argued with myself, “But if I do go on and am hit, the agony will be over with in a few minutes, but if I turn back, the agony will be with me the rest of my life.” So I put on my gas mask and drove on.

Approaching the brow of the hill, I saw three of our cars drawn up alongside the road. I stopped my car directly behind them and walked ahead. The engine of one of the cars was still running, but the cars were all deserted. At that minute a shell struck just at the brow of the hill. The stop had undoubtedly saved me. I ran down an embankment into a deserted dug-out and there I crouched, sweltering in my gas mask. A few minuter later I ran out, jumped into my ambulance, passing the three deserted cars and drove on, trembling so that I could scarcely keep my feet on the right pedals. I reached the post at Douaumont and there in the entrance was our French Lieutenant Reymond in his steel helmet, calm and undisturbed, directing and assisting in the loading of the ambulances. He quietly and good-naturedly took me to task because my boots were not properly laced. I gave him a cigarette and lighted one myself. Then I went inside the post where tea was being ladled out to the stretcher bearers. This steadied me a bit. I went out. The place was littered with wounded, mostly Germans. Lieutenant Reymond assisted me in lifting wounded Germans into the car.

Then I drove back and went off duty. Some time in the middle of the night I had a terrible nightmare and went through the whole experience over again, and in it I dreamed that I had an urgent call to go back to the same post. I woke up, but the dream had been so vivid that I really thought I had received a call. I pulled on my boots and, partly dressed, started for my car. Stevenson and “Red” Day who were out there informed me there had been no call and sent me back to bed. Stevenson gave me a drug to make me sleep. Later, I found that “Red” Day deliberately fixed my car so it would not run in the event of my receiving any more imaginary calls in the night.