Part 11

Our trip has been full of touching and appealing impressions crowding one upon the other. As our picturesque convoy ran through the little villages, and we stopped here and there for some one to clean a spark-plug or mend a tire, children crowded around us, and asked questions about America, and we often got them to sing the "Marseillaise" or some of the topical songs of the moment about "Guillaume" and the "Boches" (people in France seldom speak of the Germans as such, they call them simply "Boches" which seems to mean "brutal, stupid people"). After a long, hard drive we reached Saint-Omer about eleven. The hotels were full, the restaurants were closed, and no provision had been made either for our food or our lodging. So we wheeled into the public square and slept on the stretchers in our ambulances--without other food than the chocolate and crackers we had in our pockets. All day yesterday, as we ran past the quaint towns and villages, we could hear the great cannon on the front booming like distant thunder. It is hard to realize that for five hundred and more miles these cannon are booming day after day all day long, and often throughout the night.

A. P. A.

_First Impressions_

After a few more short delays (inseparable from times and states of war), the Section at last found itself within a mile of one of the most stubbornly contested points of the line. In a little town not far from the front they came in swift progression into hard work, bombardment, and appreciation by the army.

Pont-à-Mousson is in a district in which low hills, many of them covered with thick woods, lie along the valley of the Moselle. Down towards the river, on both banks and at right angles to it, stretch the interminable lines of trenches, east and west; batteries of guns crown the adjacent hills for two or three miles back from the trenches, alike in the enemy's country and that of the French; and intermittently, day and night, these batteries defy and seek to destroy each other, the valleys echoing with the roar of their guns and the sharp scream of shells high overhead. Back of the trenches for several miles every village is full of soldiers resting or in reserve; the roads are filled with marching troops, horses, mule trains, baggage wagons, guns and ammunition carts. At every crossroad stand sentries with bayonets. After sunset the whole country is dark, no lights being permitted, but the roads are more crowded than by day, as it is under cover of night that troops and guns are generally moved. The whole country near to the active lines is one great theatre of war. Everywhere are sights and sounds forbidding a moment's forgetfulness of the fact. Yet--and it is one of the most curious and touching things one sees--the peasant life goes on but little changed. Old men dig in their gardens, women gather and sell their vegetables, girls stand in the evenings at their cottage doors, children run about and play in the streets. Often, not more than two miles away, a desperate attack may be in progress. Between the concussions of the cannon throwing their missiles from the hills over the village can be heard the rattle of rifle-fire and the dull _pop-pop-pop_ of the _mitrailleuses_. In an hour or two, scores, maybe hundreds, of wounded men, or lines of prisoners, will file through the village, and at any moment shells may burst over the street, killing soldiers or women indifferently, but the old man still digs in his garden, the girl still gossips at the door.

J. HALCOTT GLOVER

_The Daily Programme_

About 6 o'clock those sleeping at the _caserne_ get up and dress, rolling up their blanket-rolls, and coming into the dining-room for coffee at about 6.30. Towards 7, the men who have slept at the different _postes_ arrive. After coffee, ambulances which are to be stationed elsewhere for service as required, leave the _caserne_. Men on day duty see to their cars and await calls by telephone which are received by our French assistant. Particulars are entered by him upon a printed slip and given to the driver next in turn to go out. On the driver's return, this slip is handed in with the number of wounded carried and the figures are entered in our record book. At 11 o'clock everybody comes in for _déjeuner_. The dining-room--a large apartment capable of holding three times our number--has been pleasantly decorated with festoons and flags by our orderly, Mignot. The afternoon is taken up in evacuating wounded to Belleville, bringing in fresh wounded as required, or, in slack moments, in reading, writing, or sleeping. We have a little garden and easy-chairs, and, considering the state of war and the very close proximity of the enemy, it is remarkable that we should have so many luxuries. At 6 we have dinner, after which men who are to sleep at Dieulouard go off for the night. By 9 the rest of us have generally turned in. One car every night waits at Montauville, and, should there be too many wounded for one car to convey, as many more are as required are summoned by telephone. During severe attacks, all cars may be called for: in which case one man is appointed to take charge of arrivals and despatches at Montauville, leaving drivers free to come and go with as little delay as possible.

J. H. G.

_Handling the Wounded_

The wounded are brought by the army _brancardiers_ direct from the trenches to one or other of the _postes de secours_ established in the villages behind the trenches and are carried on stretchers slung between two wheels. Two men convey them. They usually come two or three kilometres over rough tracks or open fields from the lines where they fell. The work of the _brancardiers_ is exhausting and dangerous, and enough cannot be said in their praise. This war being one of barbarous weapons, the condition of the wounded is often terrible. Shells, shrapnel, hand-grenades, and mines account for most of the injuries, and these are seldom clean wounds and often very serious. The wounded arrive, after rough dressing on the field, sometimes so covered with blood and dirt as to be unrecognizable. Often they are unconscious, and not unfrequently they die before adequate help can be got. One hears few utterances of pain, and no complaints. Stretchers are carried into the _poste de secours_, where a doctor examines the wound and re-dresses it if necessary; the _blessé_ is then brought out and given to us. Our cars can carry three stretcher cases or five or six sitting; only the most seriously injured can be allowed the luxury of lying down. Our business then is to convey them gently, and as fast as is consistent with gentleness, to hospitals. Here the wounded receive further treatment; or, if their case is hopeless, are allowed peacefully to die. The following day, or perhaps several days afterwards, if the wounded man is not fit to travel, he comes into our hands again, to be carried to the _trains sanitaires_ for evacuation to one of the many hospitals throughout France.

J. H. G.

_The Wounded_

One would like to say a little about the wounded men, of whom we have, by this time, seen some thousands. But it is difficult to separate one's impressions: the wounded come so fast and in such numbers, and one is so closely concerned with the mechanical part of their transportation, that very soon one ceases to have many human emotions concerning them. And there is a pitiful sameness in their appearance. They are divided, of course, into the two main classes of "sitting" and "lying." Many of the former have come down on foot from the trenches; one sees them arrive in the street at Montauville looking round--perhaps a little lost--for the _poste de secours_ appointed for this particular regiment or company. Sometimes they help one another; often they walk with an arm thrown round some friendly shoulder. I have seen men come in, where I have stood waiting in the _poste de secours_, and throw themselves down exhausted, with blood trickling from their loose bandages into the straw. They have all the mud and sunburn of their trench life upon them--a bundle of heavy, shapeless clothes--always the faded blue of their current uniform--and a pair of hobnailed boots, very expressive of fatigue. They smell of sweat, camp-fire smoke, leather, and tobacco--all the same, whether the man be a peasant or a professor of mathematics. Sometimes, perhaps from loss of blood, or nervous shock, their teeth chatter. They are all very subdued in manner. One is struck by their apparent freedom from pain. With the severely wounded, brought in on stretchers, it is occasionally otherwise. If it is difficult to differentiate between man and man among the "sitting" cases, it is still more so with the "lying." Here there is a blood-stained shape under a coat or a blanket, a glimpse of waxy skin, a mass of bandage. When the uniform is gray, men say "_Boche_" and draw round to look. Then one sees the closely cropped bullet head of the German. One might describe the ghastliness of wounds, but enough has been said. At first, they cause a shudder, and I have had gusts of anger at the monstrous folly in man that results in such senseless suffering, but very soon the fatalism which is a prevailing tone of men's thoughts in this war dulls one's perceptions. It is just another _blessé_--the word "_gravement_," spoken by the _infirmier_, as they bring him out to the ambulance, carries only the idea of a little extra care in driving. The last we see of them is at the hospital. At night we have to wake up the men on duty there. The stretcher is brought into the dimly lighted, close-smelling room where the wounded are received, and laid down on the floor. In the hopeless cases there follows the last phase. The man is carried out and lies, with others like himself, apart from human interest till death claims him. Then a plain, unpainted coffin, the priest, a little procession, a few curious eyes, the salute, and the end. His grave, marked by a small wooden cross on which his name and grade are written, lies unnoticed, the type of thousands, by the roadside or away among the fields. Everywhere in the war zone one passes these graves. A great belt of them runs from Switzerland to the sea across France and Belgium. There are few people living in Europe who have not known one or more of the men who lie within it.

J. H. G.

_Night Duty_

A few days after our arrival at the front I had my first experience of a night call. It was very dark and we had to feel our way forward. Nothing gives one a stronger sense of the nearness of war than such a trip. The dark houses, deserted streets, the dim shape of the sentry at the end of the town, the night scents of the fields as one passes slowly along them, are things not to be forgotten. We strained our eyes in the darkness to avoid other vehicles, all, like our own, going without lights. In those days, not being so well known as we are now, the sentries challenged us: their "_Halte-là_" in the darkness brought us frequently to an abrupt stop. As we drew near the trenches we heard the guns very clearly, and saw over the crest of a hill the illuminating rockets with which both armies throw a glare over their attacks. They throw a greenish and ghastly light over the country, hanging in the air a few seconds before falling. At our destination everything was dark. We left the cars in the road and went up under the trees to the _poste de secours_. Here we found some men sleeping on straw, but had to wait close upon two hours before our wounded were ready. From time to time a battery of 75's startled us in the woods near by. At last in a drizzling rain we came back to quarters, passing several small bodies of soldiers marching silently up to the trenches. Another night, remaining near the trenches till half-past four in the morning, I saw the wounded brought in, in the gray of dawn, from a series of attacks and counter-attacks. I had been waiting in one of the _postes de secours_, where, by candlelight, particulars were being written down of the various wounded. The surgeon, in a long white linen coat, in many places stained with blood, was busy with his scissors. Many wounded lay on straw round the room, and at rare intervals one heard a groan. The air was warm and heavy, full of the smell of wounds and iodine. A window was opened, the light of morning making the candles dim and smoky, and it was pleasant to go out into the cool air. The wounded being brought in looked cold and wretched. There were many who had been hit in the face or head--more than one was blind.

I overheard a few words spoken between a _brancardier_ and a wounded man who--rare sign of suffering--was weeping. "You will be safe now--you are going to your wife," spoken in tones of sympathy for comfort, and the reply: "No, no, I am dying."... Later, as the sun was rising and lifting the blue mist in the hollows of the hill, I watched some shells bursting in a field; a brown splash of earth, a ball of smoke which drifted slowly away.

J. H. G.

_Fitting into the Life_

During the months of May, June, and July the Section, increased in number to twenty cars, broke all records of the American Ambulance. The work was so organized and men brought such devotion to their duties that it may be said that, of all the wounded brought down from daily and nightly fighting, not one was kept waiting so much as ten minutes for an ambulance to take him to the hospital.

Where, before the coming of the American cars, ambulances came up to the _postes de secours_ only when called, and at night came after a delay occasioned by waking a driver sleeping some miles away, who thereupon drove his car to the place where he was needed, the American Section established a service on the spot, so that the waiting was done by the driver of the ambulance and not by the wounded. The effect of this service was immediate in winning confidence and liking, of which the members of the Section were justly proud. Their swift, light, easy-running cars were a great improvement on the old and clumsy ambulances which had served before them. In the early days, when these old ambulances were working side by side with ours, wounded men being brought from the trenches would ask to be carried by the Americans. That the latter should have come so far to help them, should be so willing to lose sleep and food that they should be saved from pain, and should take the daily risks of the soldiers without necessity or recompense seemed to touch them greatly. It was not long before the words "_Ambulance Américaine_" would pass a man by any sentry post. The _mot_, or password, was never demanded. And in their times of leisure, when others were on duty, men could eat with the soldiers in their _popotes_ and become their friends. Many of them have become known and welcomed in places miles apart and have formed friendships which will last long after the war.

J. H. G.

_Paysages de Guerre_

I went early one morning with one of our men, by invitation of an engineer whose acquaintance we had made, up to the part of the Bois-le-Prêtre known as the Quart-en-Réserve. We started at three, marching up with a party going up to identify and bury the dead. The sites of all the trenches, fought over during the winter, were passed on the way, and we went through several encampments where soldiers were still sleeping, made of little log houses and dug-outs, such as the most primitive men lived in. It was a gray morning, with a nip in the air; the fresh scents of the earth and the young green were stained with the smoke of the wood fires and the mixed smells of a camp. After a spell of dry weather, the rough tracks we followed in our course through the wood were passable enough; the deep ruts remaining and here and there a piece of soft ground gave us some idea of the mud through which the soldiers must have labored a few weeks before. And it is by such tracks that the wounded are brought down from the trenches! Small wonder that when the stretcher is laid down its occupant is occasionally found to be dead. In about half an hour, nearing the top of the hill which the Bois-le-Prêtre covers, we noticed a change both in the scene and in the air. The leafage was thinner, and there was a look, not very definable yet, of blight. The path we were following sank deeper, and became a trench. For some hundreds of yards we walked in single file, seeing nothing but the narrow ditch winding before us, and bushes and trees overhead. With every step our boots grew heavier with thick, sticky mud. And a faint perception of unpleasant smells which had been with us for some minutes became a thing which had to be fought against. Suddenly the walls of our trench ended, and in front of us was an amazing confusion of smashed trees, piles of earth and rock--as though some giant had passed that way, idly kicking up the ground for his amusement. We climbed out of the remains of our trench and looked round. One had read, in official reports of the war, of situations being "prepared" by artillery for attack. We saw before us what that preparation means. An enlarged photograph of the mountains on the moon gives some idea of the appearance of shell-holes. Little wonder that attacks are usually successful: the wonder is that any of the defenders are left alive. The difficulty is to hold the position when captured, for the enemy can and does turn the tables. Here lies the whole of the slow torture of this war since the open fighting of last year--a war of exhaustion which must already have cost, counting all sides, more than a million lives. The scene we looked round upon might be fittingly described by the Biblical words "abomination of desolation." Down in the woods we had come through, the trees were lovely with spring, and early wild flowers peeped prettily from between the rocks. Here it was still winter--a monstrous winter where the winds were gunpowder and the rain bullets. Trees were stripped of their smaller branches, of their bark: there was scarcely a leaf. And before us lay the dead. One of the horrible features in this war, in which there is no armistice, and the Red Cross is fired upon as a matter of course, is that it is often impossible to bury the dead till long after they are fallen. Only when a disputed piece of ground has at last been captured, and the enemy is driven well back, can burial take place. It is then that companies of men are sent out to pick up and identify. Of all the tasks forced upon men by war, this must be the worst. Enough to say that the bodies, which were laid in rows on the ground awaiting their turn to rest in the sweetness of the earth, were those of men who fought close on two months before. I pass over the details of this awful spectacle, leaving only two things: one of a ghastly incongruity, the other very moving. Out of a pocket of a _cadavre_ near to me I saw protruding a common picture post-card, a thing of tinsel, strange possession for one passed into the ages. And between two bodies, a poppy startlingly vivid, making yet blacker the blackened shapes before us....

J. H. G.

_Soldier Life_

The main street of Montauville gives, perhaps, a characteristic glimpse of the life of the soldier on active service, who is not actually taking his turn in the trenches. He is under the shade of every wall; lounges in every doorway, stands in groups talking and laughing. His hands and face and neck are brown with exposure, his heavy boots, baggy trousers, and rough coat are stained with mud from bad weather. He laughs easily, is interested in any trifle, but underneath his surface gayety one may see the fatigue, the bored, the cynical indifference caused by a year of war, torn from every human relationship. What can be done to humanize his lot, he does with great skill. He can cook. Every cottage is full of soldiers, and through open doors and windows one sees them eating and drinking, talking, playing cards, and sometimes, though rarely, they sing. In the evening they stand in the street in great numbers, and what with that, the difficulty of making ears accustomed to shrapnel take the sound of a motor horn seriously, and the trains of baggage wagons, ammunition for the guns, carts loaded with hay, etc., it is not too easy to thread one's way along. In our early days here curiosity as to who and what we were added to the difficulty, crowds surrounding us whenever we appeared, but by this time they are used to us, and not more than a dozen at once want to come and talk and shake hands.

Perhaps the most interesting time to see Montauville is when, after a successful attack by the French, the German prisoners are marched through the village. These, of course, without weapons and with hands hanging empty, walk with a dogged step between guards with fixed bayonets, and as they pass, all crowd near to see them. Almost invariably the prisoners are bareheaded, having lost their caps--these being greatly valued souvenirs--on their way down from the trenches. They are housed temporarily, for interrogation, in a schoolhouse in the main street, and when they are lined up in the school-yard there is a large crowd of French soldiers looking at them through the railings. Afterwards, they may be seen in villages behind the lines, fixing the roads, or doing similar work, in any old hats or caps charity may have bestowed upon them.

J. H. G.

_July 22 at Pont-à-Mousson_