Part 5

The enemy has been driven back so far by this time that not more than half a dozen vengeful shells a day are directed towards the violated cathedral, its subterranean vaults blown open and exposed, its walls struck, its windows shattered, and its roof fallen. A walk through this city, divided by the peaceful Meuse, would convince one, if nothing had before, that this war is not in vain, and that no force should be spared, no rest taken until the nation which has perpetrated these million crimes be crushed, that it may never strike like this again.

* * * * *

A BATTLE is made up of a number of attacks, and a push consists of a number of battles. Consequently, each attack is most important as it is one of the single stones out of which the wall of the push is constructed. The taking of A—— was a small attack in itself, but it was a part of the foundation on which was built the great August push at Verdun.

Our section rolled into a town about four miles from A—— three days before the attack proper was scheduled to begin. We established our headquarters there, and our relay station and _poste de secours_ in the Hesse Forest, the latter just behind the third-line trenches.

In the Champagne push the year before the French had not had nearly enough artillery support, and it had cost them many lives. It is something one hears spoken of rarely. To avoid a repetition of this disaster they had massed for this attack in one wood six thousand guns varying in calibre from the famous 75’s to several batteries of 380’s, mounted on a railroad a stone’s throw from our sleeping quarters. However, as we had no time for sleep, it made little difference. The 75 is about a three-inch gun, and the 380, a sixteen approximately.

Starting in three days before the attack, these guns began firing as steadily as they could without overheating. Very often in our front _abri_ it was impossible to write because of the vibration. One day, when we stopped in the woods to change a punctured tire, the car was knocked off the jack by the shocks several times before we could remove the tire, and at last we had to run in on the rim.

Finally, just before the men were to go over the top, the barrage was set down in front of the trenches and the men climbed over the parapet, and started walking towards the enemy. It is always possible to tell the _tir de barrage_ by the sound of the guns. There is a certain regularity which is lacking when each gun is firing at independent targets, and the steady thunder gives one the feeling of a tremendous hammer smashing, smashing, irresistibly, each blow falling true and hard, and following one another with the regularity of the machines in a giant factory.

A perfect barrage is impenetrable, with the shells falling so near together and with such short intervals of time between that nothing can survive it. The only possibility is the inaccuracy of some one or more guns which will put a number of shells out of the line and leave a break or opening.

Before the attack the officers all have their watches carefully synchronized, as a mistake of one minute may cost many lives. Walking ahead of their men, keeping them the right distance behind the solid wall of flame and steel, they wait until a certain minute when the barrage is lifted a number of yards and then advance to that distance. In the orders, the minute the barrage is to be lifted and the distance are given out beforehand; for to advance the soldiers too quickly would be to put them under fire from their own guns.

In this attack the first wave passed over the destroyed wire, and on reaching the enemy’s front-line trenches could not distinguish them from the rest of the ground, and found no living thing there. The second-line trenches were little better, and they got their fighting at the third-line trenches. So perfect had the preparation and execution of this attack been that the Bois d’A—— was cleared of the enemy in thirteen minutes from the time the French left their trenches.

The first wave is followed by the “butchers” (the English “moppers-up”), who kill all the wounded and the odd prisoners, it being impractical for a charging line to attempt to hold a few captives. Also another factor which makes this treatment of prisoners necessary, and which the Allies have learned by experience, is that unguarded men, once the first wave has passed over them, will take out a machine gun and catch the advancing troops between two fires. This happened a number of times before the simple expedient was adopted of requesting the prisoners to go down into an _abri_ where they would be “safer,” and then tossing in two or three grenades which kill and bury them at the same time.

Of course the Boche was not idle in the meanwhile, and kept up a hail of fire from behind A—— Wood and Dead Man’s Hill, which did not fall until two days later, and we had the benefit of this back on the roads as we tore from the relay station to the _poste_, to the hospital, and back again, trying to take care of as many as we could of the countless wounded from the attack who were being brought in. French soldiers who had been in the war since 1914 said that they had never seen such fire.

This run and the work through this attack were the most interesting of the experiences I had in the zone. We worked day and night, sleeping and eating at odd moments and with long intervals between, ceasing only when twelve of our cars had gone _en panne_, and half that number of drivers were in the hospital suffering from the new mustard gas which was showered on us in gas shells. We were tired indeed when relieved for a short period _en repos_.

V

L’ENVOI

AN American army is in France. Old Glory is proudly floating above an armed host which has come to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Allies, and do battle to prove that Right makes Might. We read in the papers of the ovations the troops receive, of the reviews, the presentations, the compliments, and the training, and our hearts beat proudly because we too are Americans. We are non-combatants, to be sure, and are members not of the American army but of the French; yet, we are serving in the same cause, and, we hope, doing our bit towards the final victory.

We know that sooner or later the entire American Field Service is to be absorbed by the American army, but as to when this is to come, and in what manner, we are ignorant. We debate often now about these things, and wonder what effect the change is to have on us and on the section. Pessimist has picked up a rumor somewhere that we are to be turned out in a body, and that drivers who have been training at Allentown are to take our places. Cheerful Liar informs us that we are all to be made first lieutenants, and that the section is to serve with the American troops. “Napoleon” thinks that we are to be discharged, and that French drivers who “know their business” are to take our places. Some one else says that we are all to be put in the trenches. No one knows anything definite, and the _chef_ and _sous-chefs_ are besieged for information which they have not. The Assistant Inspector comes out to us and we know little more. American officers encountered in Bar-le-Duc can give us no information, and rumors, most of them originating in the section, contradict each other.

One evening a large Pierce Arrow pulls up beside our cars, parked in a walnut grove. Three American medical officers step out with clanking spurs, and we are all attention. The _chef_ is called and we assemble. The officer in command makes a short speech. The section is to be taken over, he says, and those who remain must enlist as privates in the American army for the duration of the war. These men, having signed up, are then at the disposal of the Army, but will probably be kept in the Ambulance Service. The new officers are to be an American lieutenant, who will be our present _chef_, two sergeants, and a corporal. The section is to continue to serve with the French army, but may be transferred to the new American front.

We form small circles and discuss the situation. All the freedom and romance are gone, but many are going to stay. The rest have chosen aviation or artillery, and one or two may return home. The old volunteer Ambulance Service is dead, but the days we have lived with it are golden, and nothing can ever take them away from us, or bring them back again.

There is a little lump in each man’s throat as he turns in tonight, but from now on we serve America, and any sacrifice is worth that. And for the rest—“_C’est la guerre._”

* * * * *

THE participation of the United States in this war marks the time of this country’s coming of age, and the real beginning of its work as one of the great world powers. Up to the War of the Revolution the thirteen colonies had more than enough on their hands in managing their own affairs. In the throes of that war the country was born, and slowly grew, feeling its increasing power which was never quite secure until the Civil War was at an end. Then, year by year, reaching out over the two continents of America, guiding and helping our weaker brothers in their affairs, gave us a foundation of courage and experience in the adolescent period before we were ready to stand forth staunch in our beliefs and secure in our power to uphold them. That that time has come, and that the Old World, throwing down the gauntlet to the New, has found it unexpectedly ready, is shown by the presence of the Stars and Stripes on the battlefields of France. The mask of our isolation by the ocean, that time-worn excuse, has been rudely torn aside by modern inventions, and the affairs of Europe have become by their intimacy our own. In mingling with them as we were forced to do, one side was bound to transgress sooner or later—Germany did. And when Germany transgressed, America stepped across the bridge from youth to manhood, and picking up the iron gauntlet proceeded to settle the question by force of arms,—the one indisputable argument.

This war is to make Democracy secure only in that it is the continual struggle between the new and the old, a struggle whose issue is certain before the start—civilization moves to the west.

America is the vanguard of the European civilization moving westward. It has taken the sum of the civilizations of the earth to bridge the chasm of the Atlantic. America is the last section of the circle of the world, which completed, civilization moves back to its starting place. Power increases with civilization and, with each step civilization has taken, the conquests have been proportionate. Each has tried world conquest and failed, but each has come nearer and each time the world has been nearer ready to receive it. The present war is the attempt of a representative of the civilization of Europe to control the earth, and proving _per se_ its unfitness to do so.

Consequently, the relation of America to the War is that she is coming of age, and is at last ready to take her place among the great nations of the world as a power that can never again be disregarded, a mighty guardian of the Right.

* * * * *

AMERICA has been aptly called the Melting Pot. Since 1620, when the Pilgrims established their permanent colony at Plymouth, people from the Old World have been flocking to this country and becoming “Americans.” Every country of the globe has sent its representatives—each a different metal to be merged with the others until the American should be as distinct a type as the Englishman or Frenchman. At first there was natural discord—each was a different metal in the melting pot, but as there was no heat, no fire, they could not amalgamate. Then came the first blast of national fire—the Revolution, and in that, the first great struggle for Liberty, was moulded from the composite alloys—the American. The American as he came from the mould of the Revolution was the foundation on which the country rests, and although the descendants of those Americans are too few in number now to be more than a flux for the steady stream of metal as it pours from the pot, they can at least preserve the standard that their forebears passed down to them as the Golden Heritage, and be examples to these new and untried metals.

In the War of 1812 and in the Civil War the new metals were amalgamated and tempered with the old, but since 1864 there has been no fire hot enough to mould together the millions who have sought the United States as a home. There has been no sword over our heads. There has been no great impending disaster, no danger to the country as a whole of great loss of life or property, and our Liberty and our Honor have not been at stake as they are today.

So it is now in this fierce blast from Hell’s furnace, the Great War, that the National fire is rekindled and each metal is slowly sinking its own individuality into the common form carefully stirred by the hand of the Almighty, and in the white heat, as the pure metal is tempered until it rings true and measures to the old standard, the slag is cast aside. Thus is America the Melting Pot.

* * * * *

PARIS is the place where everything begins and ends. From here during the four years of war there has been the constant departure of men bound for the great adventure, and it is Paris that has received with open arms the greater bulk of the _permissionnaires_ and the _réformés_. Gay, very gay on the surface, but below the crust it is the saddest of all places. When a man is in great agony he laughs. It is so with the great city, and the laugh of delirium is a poor sham indeed.

The shortage of necessities has also been a damper on the city. In Neuilly, a suburb of Paris, a man was carrying a bag of coal. A few paces behind him a well-dressed woman was walking home. The man dropped a piece of coal from his sack and the woman eagerly picked it up and placed it in her gold bag.

The war hangs over all in a dismal cloud and is in the back of every one’s mind; although it is rare to hear it mentioned it is always before one. There is no Parisian who has not lost some one very dear to him or her, and nineteen out of every twenty women are in deep mourning. The social activities, therefore, are greatly curtailed, and the gay life is left only to the people of the street, the majority of whom have been driven to that life by the reaction of despair and sadness, and in lonesomeness seek the only companionship that they know.

* * * * *

THE old chateau at 21, rue Raynouard, so kindly loaned to the American Field Service for its headquarters by the Comtesse de la Villestreux, is a place of traditions. The great Napoleon has walked here. Rousseau wrote part of his works here, and Franklin walked in the park daily while he was Ambassador to France.

The park is the most extensive and beautiful within the fortifications of Paris, and contains the largest grove of chestnuts in the city. The water in the springs on the place was famous in the seventeenth century as the “_eaux de Passy_.”

In the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, located on the banks of the Seine, the place breathes an atmosphere of rest and beauty and solidity, springing from the traditions of age. The men of the American Field Service, we who have had this place as the home to which we would return _en permission_, can never fully express our sincere gratitude to the Comtesse de la Villestreux and the other members of the Hottinguer family, who so graciously extended to us, Americans, the hospitality of their beautiful estate.

* * * * *

A DREAM of a town, hot but not oppressive under the sun of the Midi, with quaint streets meandering through it, little blue tables set in the sunlight and a park filled with gay-colored soldiers and drab women, was my first impression of Bordeaux. Dilapidated _fiacres_ in tow of hungry horses transport one from place to place, and give the newcomer his first taste of the haggling, without which a Latin would be disconsolate.

For all its quaintness and simplicity it is as much a “pay as you enter” city as the rest, and even in the park should one sit upon an iron seat instead of a wooden one there is an indemnity of two _sous_ extracted and a further _sou_ should the seat possess arms. A damsel in black then presents a ticket which entitles the possessor to hold down the seat as long as he comfortably can. The military may sit free, however, if they know it; but the new arrivals do not, and the park fund increases.

Bordeaux on my return I found to be quite Americanized. The quiet uniforms of our soldiers were neutralizing the bright reds and blues of our ally. The little blue tables were often covered by a khaki arm, and many new signs proclaimed “American Bar,” those houses which had specialized in German beers before the war having painted “American” over the name of the Rhine country.

There is a large American hospital here completely equipped and ready to receive and take good care of the flood that will soon be pouring in. An American private telephone line has been built to Paris by Americans, and with our gradual assimilation of the railway system of France we are “carrying on” well from here.

* * * * *

THE American Ambulance, the American Field Service as it was in the old days, is dead. The spirit of _bonne camaraderie_ and intimacy which each member felt for the others; the time when, members of no army, we served with the French, on equal terms with the _poilus_ in the trenches and the officers on the staff; when, responsible to no one, we served the cause and the god Adventure, content with the past and with no thought for the morrow,—has passed. With the coming of army discipline and system, with governmental organization and routine, the old days are gone. We are sorry, selfishly, to see them go; but we cannot and would not have it otherwise. The Ambulance Service is now proudly enrolled under Old Glory, and is broader and greater than it ever could have been as a volunteer organization. We rejoice that it is so, and are proud that we have been a part of it. So, hail to the new United States Army Ambulance Corps! The men of the Old Ambulance salute you!

* * * * *

A LITTLE group of us stands together in the darkness, with the deck rising and falling beneath our feet. We are silent and pensive. The last lights of Bordeaux are fading in the mist, and with them France. The boat has been running up and down the wide harbor all day, and now in the darkness is making a dash for the open sea, hoping to outwit the enemy lurking in the depths.

Up there, far to the north of those lights, the great guns thunder and the sky glimmers with star-shells. Men are fighting, and struggling, and dying, and laughing over their _Pinard_, but it is not for us. We have finished for a while. Of course we are coming back, but furlough is not offered often enough to be refused lightly. We feel a queer mixture of sadness, and happiness, and relief. The life has worked its way into our hearts, and the call to return rings in our ears. But the relief from the tenseness and the joy of anticipation of America and Home exceeds all else. The wind blowing across the waves starts somewhere in America, and we take deep breaths. Soon we shall be home, shall see our friends, and shall lead a life of luxurious ease again for a short space of time.

We walk around the deck and then, taking out our pipes, settle down in our steamer chairs and puff thoughtfully. All is peace and quietness here, the spray breaking over the bow and the waves lapping against the sides. It is hard to realize that the earth is shaking in a cataclysm only a little north, but we know that this must be endured until the power of Germany is destroyed—that the world may be as peaceful as is the sea tonight.

GLOSSARY

[_The meaning of the words as given in this Glossary is that which holds in the army at the front and sometimes conflicts with the meaning as given in the dictionary._]

ABRI _dug-out_

AMBULANCIER _ambulance driver_

ARGOT _slang_

ARRIVÉE _an enemy shell_

ASSIS _a wounded man able to sit up_

BLESSÉ _wounded man_

BONNE CAMARADERIE _good-fellowship_

BONNE CHANCE _good luck_

BOYAUX _communication trench_

BRANCARDIER _stretcher-bearer_

BRIQUET _pocket lighter_

CAMION _truck_

CAMIONNETTE _small truck_

CHEF _first lieutenant_

CONDUCTEUR _ambulance driver_

CONTRE-AVION _anti-aircraft gun_

COUCHÉ _a wounded man lying down_

CROIX DE GUERRE _war cross_

DÉPART _a shell fired towards the enemy_

DUD _a shell which does not explode_

ÉCLAT _shell fragment_

EN PANNE _breakdown_

EN PERMISSION _on furlough_

EN REPOS _on a rest_

ESTAMINET _café_

MAJOR _army surgeon_

MALADE _sick man_

MARÉCHAL DES LOGIS _French petty officer_

MAUVAIS TEMPS _rainy season_

MÉDAILLE MILITAIRE _military medal_

MINNIEWERFER _German trench mortar_

MORT HOMME _Dead Man’s Hill_

MUSETTE _haversack_

PELOTON _section_

PERMISSION _furlough_

PERMISSIONNAIRE _man on furlough_

PINARD _wine_

PIONNIER _a branch of the Engineers_

POSTE DE SECOURS _front dressing station for wounded_

RAVITAILLEMENT _provisioning_

RÉFORMÉ _soldier discharged on account of wounds_

ROLL _to drive_

RÔTI _shell which does not explode_

SAUCISSE _observation balloon_

SOIXANTE-QUINZE _75 mm. shell_

SOUS-CHEF _second lieutenant_

STRAF _to shell_ (literally, _to curse_)

TIR DE BARRAGE _barrage fire_

TORPILLE _trench mortar shell_

VERBOTEN _forbidden_

VILLE HAUTE _upper city_

● Transcriber’s Notes: ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book. ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

End of Project Gutenberg's The White Road of Mystery, by Philip Dana Orcutt