Vive l’Amérique! Vive la France!
The delightful days at Aillianville will always stand out in my memory
in marked contrast with the forty-five days and forty-five long nights
that we spent before Verdun. I shall always remember a night in a
dug-out in front of Verdun toward the end of our long siege. The place
was dimly lighted. At one end was a table on which there was a
telephone. A French officer sat there writing reports and answering
telephone calls. “’Allo! ’Allo!” he would say, taking down the
receiver. Along the wall was a wooden bench on which sat two weary
poilus, their heads nodding under their steel helmets. On the floor, a
wounded soldier lay on a stretcher. Outside I could hear the firing of
the guns, the trampling of horses, the straining and groaning of the
heavy munition trucks pulling up the grade.
I was very tired, in fact I had reached the stage of premonitions. I
felt that luck had been with me just as long as might be expected and
in the fagged, depressed condition of my brain I felt quite certain
that my next time out would be my last. I have seen others pass
through the same stage when they have been worn out. I suppose Alan
Seeger must have felt like that when he wrote his wonderful poem “I
have a rendezvous with Death.”
As I sat there waiting for my turn to go out and expecting a call each
time the telephone rang, I got to thinking of my early impressions
upon reaching France. It seemed a long time since I had landed in
France. Then I got to thinking of my later impressions after coming to
the Front. To keep my mind from dwelling on what was happening
outside, where I must soon go, I took some scraps of paper and wrote a
brief summary of my impressions, supposing that it might be the last
words I would write. I had just finished writing when the telephone
rang. The officer took down the receiver, “’Allo! ’Allo! San Fein!”
The officer turned to me. It was my turn out. I put the scraps of
paper in my pocket, slipped into my heavy coat, put on my steel
helmet, shook hands with the officer and went out.
It was a short run but a bad one, shells were arriving and shells were
departing. I found an Abri had been squarely hit and badly torn up. I
got four wounded, who were in very bad condition. I drove back and got
through. My premonitions were not realized. It was sunrise when I
drove away from the hospital and my work for the night was over.
Coming down the road I met Holt. He told me he was having trouble with
his car and he asked me to wait while he made some repair. I drew up
alongside the road, put my head down on the steering wheel and went to
sleep. A few minutes later Holt woke me up and we drove on together. A
short while later, over hot coffee, I confessed to Holt the
premonitions I had the night before. And then he confessed that he had
had them, too. Then I read to him what I had written:
“I gained my first impression of France while sailing up the broad
Gironde River, flanked by its stately trees, its green and rolling
fields, its Catholic spires, its old châteaux and ancient monasteries.
I came on to Paris. I saw and admired that magnificent city which
stoically smiles through sorrow. I stood at the tomb of Napoleon but I
did not shed a tear; I sat in Nôtre Dame Cathedral on a Sabbath
afternoon, and there I saw women with faces sad but brave, kneeling in
prayer; I heard the organ’s sacred notes; perhaps I shed a tear, why
should I say? I sat at one of the many crowded tables in front of the
famous Café de la Paix and there I watched the Congress of the Armies
of the Allied Nations, sipping drinks, smoking cigarettes, passing the
time of day. I drove up the sloping, tree lined Champs Elysées at
sunset and through the Arch of Triumph. At its crest I saw the tinted
sky and clouds and tops of trees and as I drove on through the
peaceful groves of the Bois du Boulogne by moonlight I thought that
though I loved my native land I would love to live in France.
“Then I came on out to the battle front. I passed through desolate
villages, past desecrated cathedrals; I saw deserted homes and shell
wrecked towns. I heard the thunder and roar of many guns, I heard the
crash of avion bombs, I heard the shriek, the whistle, the moan of
shells. I saw the horror and havoc that these things wrought, the
wounded, the dying, the countless dead. But through all the terrors of
the days and nights I saw the noble Nation, fatigued, yet with
Christlike resignation suffering and bleeding so that others might
live to enjoy an honorable repose. And I thought that the prayer of
this noble Nation must be the prayer of Christ: ‘O Lord, forgive them,
for they know not what they do!’ And as I saw these things I thought
that though I loved my Country, the land of Chance, though I loved my
own Flag, I should be willing to die for France, but it has not thus
far been willed and I am glad. I am glad to go on living and loving
France. She is our kin. Her blood is on our soil, our blood on hers.
She is our sister country.
“Vive l’Amérique! Vive la France!”