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.
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