Verdun

When we moved up on the morning of August first to take our small part

in the big offensive, we established our cantonment in the town of

Houdainville, within about three miles of the city of Verdun. The town

of Houdainville was conspicuously a war town, being deserted by all

civilians, crowded with troops and subject to intermittent shelling.

The houses were all old and many bore the marks of battle. Some of our

men were billeted together in the second story of a building which was

infested with rats. The quarters were so small that it was necessary

to crowd the cots uncomfortably close together. Others of us pitched a

tent in a barnyard. It was muddy, unsavory and very different from the

place at Louvais, where we had our tent pitched under the trees

outside the château of M. Chandon. We realized that we were not to see

the war at its worst and we felt reconciled to added hardships by the

fact that our Section had been assigned to the very serious work

ahead.

That there was very serious work ahead, indeed, had been brought home

to us while having seen for days and nights the continual stream of

troops, heavy guns, supplies and munitions moving toward the front. We

had been told that preparations for this offensive had been going on

for months.

Had I been so inclined, which I was not, there was little time to

complain of our surroundings――barely time to note them before I was

sent out to post duty. Now we were to be on post duty for twenty-four

hours and then off duty for twenty-four hours, in which to work on our

cars and rest. This schedule was based on all of the cars in the

Section being able to run, but there were times when some of the cars

were not available.

I was sent out to a post at Cassairne Marceau, at the top of a hill

about three miles in front of Verdun, near the spot which marks the

extreme advance of the Crown Prince in his attack of 1916. Near here

the French had stood and said: “They shall not pass.” They never did,

and I am sure they never will.

Looking back from Cassairne Marceau I could see the ancient fortified

city of Verdun, crowned by its cathedral on a hill. Close at hand were

the remains of barracks built shortly before the war. All about was

desolation, shell holes, pieces of exploded shells. In front of the

post was a graveyard and during my many times at that post there was

not a day that I did not see the dead being laid to rest. Here the war

was seen in its most hideous aspect. Sometimes a wagon would come

rumbling up to the post with dead piled up like so much cordwood.

My first call to go from here to a front line post came before sunset.

The post was near Fort Vaux. An officer rode with me to observe

whether the road could be covered by a car. It was a road that no sane

person would undertake in peace times under any consideration. Down a

ravine between two hills, in a country laid absolutely barren by

continual shell fire, the sides of the hills were pock-marked with

shell holes; and where at one time, three years before, there had been

a beautiful forest, there was not now a tree stump, a bush or a patch

of grass. We drove along the road very slowly indeed, for there was

danger of breaking springs and axles in passing, as we drove close to

the artillery as they were firing. I was later glad for the

opportunity of seeing that road before sunset, for I sometimes covered

it afterward in the darkness without lights.

We reached the poste de secour, picked up three wounded artillerymen

and returned with added caution to Cassairne Marceau. It was very

trying when we wanted to drive fast, in order to get back as quickly

as possible to a place of comparative safety, that we were obliged to

drive most slowly to save our wounded and our cars.

Sometime around eleven o’clock that night I lay down on a stretcher in

the dug-out at Cassairne Marceau to snatch a little sleep while

waiting for my next call. At that time I was still in good condition

and had not yet suffered from great fatigue or undue nervous strain

and consequently could sleep at any time and in any place that the

opportunity offered. Later on I was to become so fatigued and my

nerves were so shaken from the continual strain that I could not sleep

at all. The dug-out served as a dressing station and was equipped for

operations――surgeons were in attendance there. The place had the odor

of a hospital, with the added unpleasant damp odor of the underground.

Not a very satisfactory place in which to sleep, but we slept there

many times.

I was just dozing off when I heard voices, footsteps and a moaning

which was very distressing; and I was sufficiently conscious to

realize that some one badly wounded was being carried in. But I must

rest――I must sleep while the opportunity offered, so I dozed fitfully,

never being quite unconscious of the fact that close by me an

operation was being performed. Finally I was fully awakened by some

one touching my foot. I sat up――the operation had been completed and I

was to take the desperately wounded man back to a hospital in Verdun.

It was well past midnight when the man was lifted into the car and I

started on my dark ride, driving slowly. I had not yet been inside the

walled city of Verdun. I did not know just where the hospital was. I

had simply been informed that by crossing a certain bridge, entering a

certain gate and turning down a certain street I would find it. I

carried few wounded men who moaned in greater agony than did this

soldier as I drove on back to Verdun. I found the bridge and crossed

it. I passed through the gate inside the city walls and I drove slowly

through the dark, silent, apparently deserted city. It seemed indeed

like a city of the dead. I came to a square and in the darkness took

the wrong street. I was doing the best that could be done, and I hoped

the wounded soldier would live till we reached the hospital. I wished

for someone to talk to――for some one to help me find the way. Finally

I saw a sentinel on duty and he directed me down the right street and

before long we came to the house which was serving as a hospital.

That was my first entrance into the ancient fortified city of Verdun.

When I saw the inside of my car at daylight I was glad that we had met

with the sentinel when we did, for I think there could have been but

little time to lose.