Still the attack did not take place and still we were staying on and
getting very tired.
On the morning and afternoon of the twentieth, I made several trips to
Houdremont. Late in the afternoon we heard that the long delayed and
much heralded attack would start that night. As I was returning to
Houdremont about five o’clock, Stevenson instructed me to wait there
until midnight for wounded and then to return and go off duty.
At dusk began the most terrific artillery firing that I had ever
heard. There was not a second’s cessation in the firing――it was as
continual and rapid as the rolling of a snare drum. Standing on the
hill in front of the poste de secours at Houdrement in front of the
French guns the shells were slipping through the air; that is the way
they sounded, as if they were being shot along greased planes. I not
only heard the departing shells, I actually saw them――black spots
flying through space. At first I was sceptical. I thought perhaps my
vision had become impaired or perhaps it was the effect of deranged
nerves, but I asked White if he could see what I did and he said he
could. Night came on and soon the men in the trenches would “go over
the top” for the final rush. If it was a strain for us, the waiting
must have been a most terrible strain for them. There were several
other cars besides mine at Houdrement as night came on, but I would be
the last to leave. Stretcher bearers, their faces set and worn, came
in bearing wounded.
Patterson’s car was loaded and he started back over the bombarded road
for Beveaux. Hanna’s car was loaded and he started back. White’s car
was loaded and at the foot of the hill his car broke down and under
shrapnel fire the wounded were transferred to another car. Kirtsburg’s
car was loaded and he started back. Then I was the only one left. I
sat down beside a stretcher bearer and we smoked in silence. The
waiting seemed unbearable, listening to the ceaseless thunder of the
guns. I fully realized, when I did start, just what I must pass
through to get back to the hospital at Beveaux, nearly ten miles away.
I wondered how much longer I must wait. I began to realize for the
first time how men were glad to be slightly wounded in order to get
out of that hell. Pieces of shell were spattering around where we sat,
so we went inside underground. A soldier who had been brought in just
a little while before was raving and fighting――he had gone insane.
Gendarmes threw him to the floor.
At ten o’clock an operation was being performed, and as we stood close
to the operating table, my friend the stretcher bearer brought me a
cup of tea. I thought at the moment the strain of waiting to go into
the inferno outside was the worst experience I had ever known. But at
last the time came――my ambulance was loaded and I started back――not by
way of Bras, because gas was coming in and settling in the lowlands,
but up a steep long hill which at least would be comparatively free
from gas――every inch of the way passing artillery pounding
incessantly, so that I could not distinguish the difference between
the sound of arriving and departing shells. The flashes of fire in my
face were so blinding that I was obliged time and again to pause and
get my bearings, to avoid running off the road.
Three times while pulling up that long hill, the engine of my car
stalled and I would climb over the wounded soldier sitting by my side
and get the engine started again. I felt fatigued almost to the
breaking point. I felt sure that if I reached Beveaux I would be
physically unable to drive again that night. I thought of the weary,
drawn faces of those stretcher bearers back at Houdremont, silently
going out and silently returning with their burdens. I thought of my
own face. This was not vanity――it was simply that my face seemed to
pinch at the cheek bones.
[Illustration: Where Men Live Like Rats and With Them]
On I went until my car, jerking and limping on three cylinders, drew
up on the grounds at the Beveaux hospital. But after the car had
stopped, it still seemed to be moving. Others told me they had
experienced the same sensation, when they had almost reached the point
of exhaustion.
I walked over to our dining tent――stumbled over a guy rope and went
inside. I had absolute confidence in the forethought of Stevenson. I
struck a match, found some cold meat, a piece of bread and a cup of
pinard; then I tumbled into my cot.
All along the front I could hear the incessant pounding of the guns,
like the rolling of a snare drum, and then I fell asleep.