Part 7

During one bombardment, some time ago, however, a considerable number of women and children were killed. A couple of the American ambulances were on the spot immediately after, and the men were silently going about their sad work. The little children who cry out to us as we pass were gathered around holding to their mothers' trembling hands. They said, "_Américain_," when they saw the khaki uniforms, but their tone was hushed and sad instead of loud and joyous, and had a surprised note, as if they had not expected to see the Americans at such a task.

In one place a large crowd of people had gathered around an ambulance in front of a baker's shop. In the upper part of the building was a great irregular hole that included a portion of the roof, and inside the freshly exposed stone rims the interior of a room with shattered furniture could be seen. Below the huge rent on the gray face of the building was the fan-shaped design made by the shell's _éclats_. On the side-walk were the bodies of two women and a soldier. A vivid red pool had formed around them and was flowing into the gutter. For some reason the gray dust covering the motionless black dresses of the women seemed to make the picture very much more terrible. The face of one of the women had been torn away, but her hair and one eye, which had a look of wild fear glazed in it, remained. As the stretcher the woman had been placed on was carried to the car a yellow comb fell out of her bloody hair and dropped on the white-shod foot of a young girl standing near. The child pulled up her skirts with a disgusted look and kicked the comb off into the street.

It took the Americans a long time to learn the value of prudence. At first during the bombardments they would rush to the street as soon as a shell landed and look to see what damage had been done. Then, when some _éclats_ had sizzed uncomfortably close to their persons, they became a little more discreet and waited a while before venturing out. Ten days ago, during a bombardment with the large 210 shells, a few of the Americans were gathered at the entrance to the courtyard of our headquarters to observe the shells hitting in town. It was all very well until quite unexpectedly one hit the eaves of the building at a point about thirty yards from the group and carried away with its explosion about twenty feet of that part of the structure. Fortunately, the _éclat_ took a high course, but great building stones crashed down and blocked the roadway. The Americans were unharmed save for a thick coating of mortar dust, but that experience has discounted the popularity of orchestra seats during an exhibition in which shells larger than 77's appear.

One of the men was twenty-five yards from a 210 high-explosive projectile when it carved a great crater in the ground and killed two French Red Cross men near him, and he, for one, has no overpowering desire, after that murderous, crushing, breath-taking explosion, for any intimate personal research work into the effects of other large-calibre shells.

Even now the members of Section Y have much to learn. They still persist in remaining in their chairs in the exposed garden when aeroplanes are being fired at directly overhead, when balls of shrapnel have repeatedly dropped into the flower-beds, and when one man was narrowly missed by a long, razor-edged fragment of a shrapnel shell. And this has not even the excuse of a desire to observe--for the novelty of these performances has long since passed--and one hardly ever glances upward. They won't even move for a German Taube, though it might at any minute drop a bomb or two. As a matter of fact, however, explosives dropped from German machines are comparatively harmless.

When a certain great stone structure on the water's edge is being shelled, the men off duty adjourn to the shore for the entertainment. They know the various schedules the shells run on, and time their arrival. The German guns firing them are so far off that the report cannot be heard. There is a deep, bass, tearing roar, closely followed by another, for they come in pairs; then two huge columns of water hurtle into the air for a hundred feet, accompanied by two heavy detonations. The bleacher-occupying Americans--they have installed a bench to sit on--then jump up and scurry for a wall that affords protection against the _éclats_ that sing back from the shells. In a second there is a rush for the hot chunks of metal, while the natives emerge from their shelters to collect the fish that have been killed by the terrific concussion--and fish _à la bombardement_ is served to us the next day!

For some reason or other the German prisoners--and the Lord knows there are enough of them these days--still remain a subject of humorous interest to the Americans, while the _Boches_, as the Germans are called, stare at us in wild-eyed amazement, flavored with considerable venom, thinking us British and wondering how we got so far down the line.

No matter how long the war lasts, I do not believe that the members of Section Y will lose any of their native ways, attitudes, or tastes. They will remain just as American as ever. Why, they still fight for a can of American tobacco or a box of cigarettes that comes from the States, when such a rare and appreciated article does turn up, and papers and magazines from home are sure to go the rounds, finding themselves at length in the hands of English-reading soldiers in the trenches. I never could understand the intense grip that the game of baseball seems to possess, but it holds to some members of the Section with a cruel pertinacity. One very dark night, a few days ago, two of us were waiting at an advanced _poste de secours_. The rifle and artillery fire was constant, illuminating rockets shot into the air, and now and then one could distinguish the heavy dull roar of a mine or _torpille_ detonating in the trenches. War in all its engrossing detail was very close. Suddenly my friend turned to me and, with a sigh, remarked, "Gee! I wish I knew how the Red Sox were making out!"

Well, there may be more interesting things in the future to write of the Americans serving at the front, and, again, their work may become dull. But it makes no difference to the Section. The men will do what is asked and gladly, for there is no work more worth while than helping in some way, no matter what, this noblest of all causes. One does not look for thanks--there is a reward enough in the satisfaction the work gives; but the French do not let it stop at that. The men from the trenches are surprised that we have voluntarily undertaken such a hazardous occupation, and express their appreciation and gratitude with almost embarrassing frequency. "You render a great service," say the officers, and those of highest rank call to render thanks in the name of France. It is good to feel that one's endeavors are appreciated, and encouraging to hear the words of praise; but when, at the end of an evacuation, one draws a stretcher from the car, and the poor wounded man lying upon it, who has never allowed a groan to escape during a ride that must have been painful, with an effort holds out his hand, grasps yours, and, forcing a smile, murmurs, "_Merci_"--that is what urges you to hurry back for other wounded, to be glad that there is a risk to one's self in helping them, and to feel grateful that you have the opportunity to serve the brave French people in their sublime struggle.[5]

JAMES R. MCCONNELL

[5] This Section, after ten months' service at Pont-à-Mousson, has worked for eight months in the Verdun Sector during the great battle. (_November, 1916._)

VI

AN AMERICAN AMBULANCE IN THE VERDUN ATTACK[6]

"OUR artillery and automobiles have saved Verdun," French officers and soldiers were continually telling me. And as I look back on two months of ambulance-driving in the attack, it seems to me that automobiles played a larger part than even the famous "seventy-fives," for without motor transport there would have been no ammunition and no food. One shell, accurately placed, will put a railway communication out of the running, but automobiles must be picked off one by one as they come within range.

[6] This article was printed in the July issue of the _Cornhill Magazine_, and is reproduced by permission of the author and the publishers of the _Cornhill_.

The picture of the attack that will stay with me always is that of the Grande Route north from Bar-le-Duc, covered with the snow and ice of the last days of February. The road was always filled with two columns of trucks, one going north and the other coming south. The trucks, loaded with troops, shells, and bread, rolled and bobbled back and forth with the graceless, uncertain strength of baby elephants. It was almost impossible to steer them on the icy roads. Many of them fell by the wayside, overturned, burned up, or were left apparently unnoticed in the ceaseless tide of traffic that never seemed to hurry or to stop.

All night and all day it continued. Soon the roads began to wear out. Trucks brought stones from the ruins of the battle of the Marne and sprinkled them in the ruts and holes; soldiers, dodging in and out of the moving cars, broke and packed the stones or sprinkled sand on the ice-covered hillsides. But the traffic was never stopped for any of these things. The continuous supply had its effect on the demand. There were more troops than were needed for the trenches, so they camped along the road or in the fields. Lines of _camions_ ran off the road and unloaded the reserve of bread; the same thing was done with the meat, which kept well enough in the snow; and the shells, which a simple _camouflage_ of white tarpaulins effectually hid from the enemy airmen.

At night, on the main road, I have watched for hours the dimmed lights of the _camions_, winding away north and south like the coils of some giant and luminous snake which never stopped and never ended. It was impressive evidence of a great organization that depended and was founded on the initiative of its members. Behind each light was a unit, the driver, whose momentary negligence might throw the whole line into confusion. Yet there were no fixed rules to save him from using his brain quickly and surely as each crisis presented itself. He must be continually awake to avoid any one of a thousand possible mischances. The holes and ice on the road, his skidding car, the cars passing in the same and opposite directions, the cars in front and behind, the cars broken down on the sides of the road--all these and many other things he had to consider before using brake or throttle in making his way along. Often snow and sleet storms were added to make driving more difficult. Objects six feet away were completely invisible, and it was only by watching the trees along the side of the road that one could attempt to steer.

I was connected with the _Service des Autos_ as a driver in Section N{o} 2 of the Field Service of the American Ambulance of Neuilly. We had the usual French Section of twenty ambulances and one staff car, but, unlike the other Sections, we had only one man to a car. There were two officers, one the Chief of Section, Walter Lovell, a graduate of Harvard University and formerly a member of the Boston Stock Exchange; and George Roeder, Mechanical Officer, in charge of the supply of parts and the repair of cars. Before the war, he was a promising bacteriologist in the Rockefeller Institute. Our Section was one of five which compose the Field Service of the American Ambulance, and are located at various points along the front from Dunkirk to the Vosges. The general direction of the Field Service is in the hands of A. Piatt Andrew, formerly professor at Harvard and Assistant Secretary of the United States Treasury. He has organized the system by which volunteers and funds are obtained in America, and is the responsible link between the work of the Service and the will of the French authorities.

In each of the five Sections there are twenty drivers, all Americans and volunteers. Most of them are college men who have come over from the United States to "do their bit" for France and see the war at the same time. Certainly our Section was gathered from the four corners of the "States." One, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, had worked for two years on the Panama Canal as an engineer; another, an Alaskan, had brought two hundred dogs over for the French Government, to be used for transportation in the Vosges; a third was a well-known American novelist who had left his home at Florence to be a chauffeur for France. There were also two architects, a New York undertaker, several _soi-disant_ students, and a man who owned a Mexican ranch that was not sufficiently flourishing to keep him at home.

The term of service required by the French authorities is now six months, though, of course, some of the men have been in the Section since the battle of the Marne. We all get five sous a day and rations as privates in the French army, which was represented in our midst by a lieutenant, a _maréchal de logis_, a mechanic, and a cook.

On February 22 our French lieutenant gave us our "order to move," but all he could tell us about our destination was that we were going north. We started from Bar-le-Duc about noon, and it took us six hours to make forty miles through roads covered with snow, swarming with troops, and all but blocked by convoys of food carts and sections of trucks. Of course, we knew that there was an attack in the neighborhood of Verdun, but we did not know who was making it or how it was going. Then about four o'clock in the short winter twilight we passed two or three regiments of French colonial troops on the march with all their field equipment. I knew who and what they were by the curious Eastern smell that I had always before associated with camels and circuses. They were lined up on each side of the road around their soup kitchens, which were smoking busily, and I had a good look at them as we drove along.

It was the first time I had seen an African army in the field, and though they had had a long march, they were cheerful and in high spirits at the prospect of battle. They were all young, active men, and of all colors and complexions, from blue-eyed blonds to shiny blacks. They all wore khaki and brown shrapnel casques bearing the trumpet insignia of the French sharpshooter. We were greeted with laughter and chaff, for the most part, in an unknown chatter, but now and again some one would say, "Hee, hee, Ambulance Américaine," or "Yes, Ingliish, good-bye."

I was fortunate enough to pick up one of their non-commissioned officers with a bad foot who was going our way. He was born in Africa, which accounted for his serving in the colonials, though his mother was American and his father French. From him I learned that the Germans were attacking at Verdun, and that, to every one's surprise, they were trying to drive the point of the salient south instead of cutting it off from east to west. As we were passing along, one of his men shouted something to him about riding in an ambulance, and I remarked that they all seemed in a very good humor. "Oh yes," he answered; "we're glad to be on the move, as we've been _en repos_ since autumn in a small quiet place south of Paris." "But it means trouble," he added proudly, "their sending us up, for we are never used except in attacks, and were being saved for the summer. Six hundred have been killed in my company since the beginning, so I have seen something of this war. Now my regiment is mixed up with two others, and altogether we make about four thousand men."

As we talked, I realized that his was a different philosophy from that of the ordinary _poilu_ that I had been carrying. Certainly he loved France and was at war for her; but soldiering was his business and fighting was his life. Nothing else counted. He had long since given up any thought of coming out alive, so the ordinary limitations of life and death did not affect him. He wanted to fight and last as long as possible to leave a famous name in his regiment, and to add as many _citations_ as possible to the three medals he had already gained. He was the only man I ever met who was really eager to get back to the trenches, and he said to me with a smile when I stopped to let him off, "Thanks for the lift, _mon vieux_, but I hope you don't have to carry me back."

After that we rode north along the Meuse, through a beautiful country where the snow-covered hills, with their sky-lines of carefully pruned French trees, made me think of masterpieces of Japanese art. In the many little villages there was much excitement and activity with troops, artillery, and munitions being rushed through to the front, and the consequent wild rumors of great attacks and victories. Curiously enough, there were few who thought of defeat. They were all sure, even when a retreat was reported, that the French were winning, and that spirit of confidence had much to do with stopping the Germans.

At about six in the evening we reached our destination some forty miles northeast of Bar-le-Duc. The little village where we stopped had been a railroad centre until the day before, when the Germans started bombarding it. Now the town was evacuated, and the smoking station deserted. The place had ceased to exist, except for a hospital which was established on the southern edge of the town in a lovely old château, overlooking the Meuse. We were called up to the hospital as soon as we arrived to take such wounded as could be moved to the nearest available rail-head, which was ten miles away, on the main road, and four miles south of Verdun. We started out in convoy, but with the then conditions of traffic, it was impossible to stick together, and it took some of us till five o'clock the next morning to make the trip. That was the beginning of the attack for us, and the work of "evacuating" the wounded to the railway stations went steadily on until March 15. It was left to the driver to decide how many trips it was physically possible for him to make in each twenty-four hours. There were more wounded than could be carried, and no one could be certain of keeping any kind of schedule with the roads as they then were.

Sometimes we spent five or six hours waiting at a crossroad, while columns of troops and their equipment filed steadily by. Sometimes at night we could make a trip in two hours that had taken us ten in daylight. Sometimes, too, we crawled slowly to a station only to find it deserted, shells falling, and the hospital moved to some still more distant point of the line. Situations and conditions changed from day to day--almost from hour to hour. One day it was sunshine and spring, with roads six inches deep in mud, no traffic, and nothing to remind one of war, except the wounded in the car and the distant roar of the guns, which sounded like a giant beating a carpet. The next day it was winter again, with mud turned to ice, the roads blocked with troops, and the Germans turning hell loose with their heavy guns.

In such a crisis as those first days around Verdun, ammunition and fresh men are the all-essential things. The wounded are the _déchets_, the "has-beens," and so must take second place. But the French are too gallant and tender-hearted not to make sacrifices. I remember one morning I was slapped off the road into a ditch with a broken axle, while passing a solitary _camion_. The driver got down, came over, and apologized for the accident, which was easily half my fault. Then we unloaded four cases of "seventy-five" shells that he was carrying, and put my three wounded in on the floor of his car. He set out slowly and carefully up the ice-covered road, saying to me with a smile as he left, "Don't let the Boches get my _marmites_ while I'm gone." For some time I sat there alone on the road, watching the shells break on a hill some miles away to the north, and wondering when I could get word of my mishap back to the base. Then a staff car appeared down the road making its way along slowly and with difficulty, because, being without chains, it skidded humorously with engine racing and the chauffeur trying vainly to steer. There was a captain of the _Service des Autos_ sitting on the front seat, and he was so immaculately clean and well groomed that he seemed far away from work of any kind. But when the car stopped completely about halfway up the little hill on which I was broken down, he jumped out, took off his fur coat, and using it to give the rear wheels a grip on the ice, he swung it under the car. As the wheels passed over it, he picked it up and swung it under again. So the car climbed the hill and slid down the other slope round the curve and out of sight. It was just another incident that made me realize the spirit and energy of the French Automobile Service. But the captain had not solved any of my difficulties. He had been too busy to notice me or wonder why an American ambulance was sprawled in a ditch with four cases of shells alongside.

I had been waiting there in the road about two hours when another American came by and took back word of my accident and of the parts necessary to set it right. Then about noon my friend came back in his _camion_ to take up his cases of shells and report my wounded safe at the railway station. We lunched together on the front seat of the _camion_ on bread, tinned "monkey meat," and red wine, while he told me stories about his life as a driver. He had been on his car then for more than twenty days without leaving it for food or sleep. That morning his "partner" had been wounded by a shell, so he had to drive all that day alone. Usually the two men drive two hours, turn and turn about; while one is driving, the other can eat, sleep, or read the day before yesterday's newspaper. The French _camions_ are organized in sections of twenty. Usually each section works in convoy, and has its name and mark painted on its cars. I saw some with elephants or ships, some with hearts or diamonds, clubs or spades, some with dice--in fact, every imaginable symbol has been used to distinguish the thousands of sections in the service. The driver told me there were more than ten thousand trucks working between Verdun and Bar-le-Duc. There is great rivalry between the men of the several sections in matters of speed and load--especially between the sections of French and those of American or Italian cars. The American product has the record for speed, which is, however, offset by its frequent need of repair.

My friend told me about trips he had made up as far as the third-line trenches, and how they were using "seventy-fives" like machine-guns in dug-outs, where the shells were fired at "zero," so that they exploded immediately after leaving the mouth of the gun. The French, he said, would rather lose guns than men, and according to him, there were so many guns placed in the "live" parts of the Sector that the wheels touched, and so formed a continuous line.

As soon as we had finished lunch he left me, and I waited for another two hours until the American staff car (in other surroundings I should call it an ordinary Ford touring-car with a red cross or so added) came along loaded with an extra "rear construction," and driven by the Chief himself. It took us another four hours to remove my battered rear axle and put in the new parts, but my car was back in service by midnight.