“LAST evening we went out into a field, and read Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’
out loud.”
Do you get the picture? Can you see the fading glory of the sunset sky,
and hear the soft breeze, sweetly laden with the scent of new-mown hay,
as it murmurs through the gently rustling leaves—a real autumn scene of
rural peace and quiet?
Yes? Well, you are quite mistaken. That is an extract from a letter
written by an ambulance driver on the French front. And so you see that
war is not all horror.
Emerson Low, the son of Alfred M. Low, of Detroit, went to France
with a group of college boys. He joined the American Field Ambulance
Service, and is now in the thick of the fighting in the Champagne
district. The Detroit _Free Press_ prints some extracts from his
letters to his family. In one he tells of his trip to the posts:
Day before yesterday several of us started out for the posts. I carried
the _médecin divisionnaire_ and went a little before the others. In
spite of the fact that the fields are being recultivated and the
searness of former battles is somewhat concealed, the road to the front
is rather a grim affair, and you are startled when you pass through a
town deserted and demolished. There is quite a large town between this
one and the front. It is uninhabited except for a few soldiers and a
yellow dog that slinks about in the doorways.
I left the _médecin divisionnaire_ at his _abri_, a little further
along the road, a road hidden completely by strips of burlap tied to
poles. The first post is in a little wood. There were two of us there,
and we tossed a coin to see who would take the first call. I won and
waited for an ambulance to come in from one of our three posts. These
posts are along the front of the hill where the battle is taking place.
They are all reached by going through and then beyond X (you remember
the little destroyed town with the church which I spoke of during our
first month). The first post was a smaller town than X, and is now
razed completely to the ground. The second is about one-fourth of a
mile to the right and the third—which can only be reached during the
night and left before dawn—is a German _abri_, formerly a dugout of
German officers. The German _saucises_ are directly above the road,
and any machine would be shelled in the daytime. The posts are close
together and are reached by exposed roads.
My call came about noon. I was given an orderly, and left for the first
post. From the road we could see the shells breaking on the hill and in
the fields about, where the French batteries were hidden. We reached
the post, backed the machine into a wide trench, which hid it from
view, and then went into the dugout. It was a new iron dugout, about 30
feet long and 10 or 12 feet broad, with bunks on either side. On top
were heaped bags of sand and dirt.
We read until about two o’clock, when several shells fell in the
battery field a few meters behind us. Then a few shells fell in a
field to the right, and in another moment we were in the midst of a
bombardment. It lasted all afternoon. Two men trying to enter the
dugout were hit, one in the throat and the other in the shoulder, but
not badly. About six o’clock it grew so bad and so many shells fell
on the roof of the dugout that we had to leave, cross through some
trenches—a strange-looking procession, crouching and running along—and
get into a deep cave about twenty feet under the ground, where we
stayed until eight o’clock in the evening. Then the firing became
intermittent, the shells hit further to the right and left, and we ran
back into the dugout.
It was still light and an airplane soared above us, the noise of which
is to me, for an unaccountable reason, one of the most reassuring
sounds I have ever heard.
Quite jocularly he writes of supper, first having looked at his car
which he found uninjured, although covered with dirt from exploding
shells. Continuing, he says:
There were about eight of us, the orderly and myself, the
lieutenant-doctor in charge, and three or four old _brancardiers_, who,
when they ate their soup made more noise than the shells. After every
few spoonfuls, to avoid waste, they poked their mustaches in their
mouths and sucked them loudly.
During the evening the firing became steady on both sides, the French
battery pouring their shells, which whistled over our dugout. We went
to bed, secure in this iron cylinder, whose great ribs stood like the
fleshless carcass of a beast, which to destroy would be a worthless
task. A stump of a candle lay wrapped in our blankets in the bunks. It
was rather comfortable, except that my bed was crossed at the top by a
piece of iron just where my head lay.
All through the night there was a continuous commotion in the dugout,
the _brancardiers_ running around and talking in loud voices about
things we were too sleepy to understand. We had no _blessés_ during the
night (an exceptional thing—this morning they had fifty from one post)
and were relieved about half-past ten the next morning. I returned
to the large town, where our cantonment had been changed to another
quarter of the village.
This is an exceptionally fine cantonment and was recently occupied
by the British Ambulance, whose place we have taken. I think it was
originally an officers’ barracks. Two low cement buildings, faced with
red brick and roofed with red tile, stand on one side, and opposite
these are the stables, used by the “Genies.” In front of the houses are
some trees and grass. Each house (one story in height) is divided into
four parts, accessible by four doors.
Jim, Rogers, and I have one room to ourselves off the third hallway and
in front. There are three other rooms accessible by the same hallway.
It is almost like a separate house, as each division has its flight
of steps before the door and there is a main sidewalk running under
all the front windows. We have our three stretchers on the floor, two
cupboards, a broken mirror, and two camp-stools. We keep our trunks,
etc., right in the room and it saves transferring them every trip
to the posts. There is a large French window with blue shutters. We
certainly are comfortably located. There are no showers after all (we
had expected two), except one that is broken, and we wash from our
_bidons_ (canteens) with a sponge, which is almost as good.
Jim and Rogers came back yesterday shortly before I did. They had both
been to the same post, the second one, and been caught in a gas-attack
which lasted for an hour. They sat in the _abri_ with their masks
on (the masks are a greenish color, with two big round windows for
the eyes) and, of course, with the helmets, the _abri_ was crowded,
and from their description they must have looked like so many big
beetles crouching together. There is absolutely no danger with the
masks, however, and we carry one always with us (even in town) and one
fastened in the car.
Last evening we went out into a field and read Jane Austen’s “Emma” out
loud. Jim and Rog left this morning for the posts and I go tomorrow.
Of the routine work of the ambulance driver he writes:
On account of the night driving we have lately put two men on each car,
a driver and an orderly who just goes back and forth between the posts.
Five cars are out every day and eight drivers. Three cars begin at the
posts and two wait in the woods. As a car comes in from a post, another
is sent out from the woods and this driver takes with him the orderly
who has just come in, as only one man is necessary to make the trip
from the woods to the hospital. From the hospital the latter returns to
the woods, and thus a relay is formed. The day before yesterday I was
at post 1; yesterday (beginning at noon), I was _en repos_ for the day;
today I am _en remplacement_, that is practically the same as repose,
but if any extra cars are wanted in case of an attack, etc., we have
to be within call. I am fourth in the list and don’t expect to go out.
Tomorrow I go in my own car, next day repose, next day as orderly to
post 3, next day repose, etc. The work is as interesting as ever.
In another letter which _The Free Press_ prints Mr. Low tells of a
battle between airplanes directly over his head. The engagement ended
with the winging of both machines. The letter reads:
The German machine fell between the lines, the French plane near one of
our posts. There was a terrific fight, which we could hardly see, as
it was very high in the air. The French plane caught on fire and began
to fall. After some meters it was entirely enveloped in smoke and the
three aviators had to jump, which was a quicker death. When they were
found, parts of their bodies had been burned away.
Just before this the first German shell fell in our cantonment. It was
about half-past seven in the morning and we were all asleep when we
heard the rush and explosion of an _obus_. It struck about two meters
from the barracks and made a large hole in the road. Three shells
usually fall in one place, but no other followed.
For a day of repose it certainly was disturbing.
Yesterday I had a hot shower at the hospital near here. It certainly
seemed good, after bathing for two months out of a small reserve water
can.
This morning we are at the second post. Before the war there were
really enough houses to call it a small town, but it has been so
completely destroyed that only stumps of the buildings remain.
Batteries have been planted all about it, and at present they are
receiving a heavy shelling from the Germans.
Mr. Low seems to possess an excellent nervous organization and a
dependable imagination which he finds quite useful. He says:
We are kept in the dugout, which, provided with chairs and a table, is
very comfortable. It is rather pleasant to be securely seated here with
books and listening to the “rush” of the shells overhead. It is like
being before a grate fire and listening to a winter’s storm outside.
As long as no _blessés_ are brought in we can sit here and warm our
feet until the storm is over. Our beds are all made on the stretchers
(placed high enough to keep out the rats), and we intend to spend a
pleasant afternoon reading. I have Rog’s Shakespeare, and I am reading
“Cymbeline.”
We have just had lunch—hot meat, lentils, camembert, and the inevitable
Pinard. The bombardment has nearly died away, so we can sit out a while
and enjoy a very delightful August day. This post is reached by an old
Roman road, which is rather badly torn up. They have just put up a
screen of burlap to conceal it from the _saucisses_; that is, to hide
the traffic on it, for the German gunners know where every road lies.
(Later) A young fellow of about nineteen was just carried in. He was
at the battery post a few meters behind us and became half-crazed by
the shells during the bombardment. It is quite a common occurrence,
especially with the men in the trenches. The French call it
_commotion_, and the mind becomes so stunned that often they lose
their speech or become totally stupid. The lieutenant said that this
was a bad case and that if another shell fell near the man he would go
mad. He asked us to take the fellow back to the hospital as soon as
possible, and I had to ride in the back of the ambulance with him all
the way to keep him quiet. Fortunately no shells came near the car.
After supper we sat near the edge of the road and watched two or three
battalions pass by on their way to the trenches. The road filled with
carts and supply wagons as soon as the _saucisses_ descended. These
vehicles travel between towns in the rear to a communication trench a
little beyond our post, a point which is a terminus for all traffic.
From there the ammunition and supplies are carried to the trenches by
hand.
There is a little railroad running from that point, beyond our post;
horses pulling small flat cars loaded with wood, barbed wire, etc., for
the trenches. A young _poilu_, standing up and waving his arms, came
spinning down the hill in an empty car. He nearly caused a collision
and I never saw a man so yelled and screamed at as this one was by his
sergeant. The officer scolded him for a quarter of an hour and shouted
himself hoarse: “_Quelle bêtise!_”
About nine we went down into the _abri_, lighted a candle on the table,
and read until about ten, when a man burst through the door, shouting:
“_Gaz! Gaz! M. Médecin!_” and dashed out again. The _médecin_ went
outside, and, returning, told us to have our masks ready, that gas was
coming over the hill and blowing in our direction. We waited about
ten minutes and heard the alarm bell ring—a signal to warn that a gas
attack is near. We sat waiting with our masks at our elbows, but the
wind carried the gas in another direction and we did not have to use
them.
These attacks are frequent, but not dangerous; as at every hour of the
day a man stands in the first line trench (with a bell at his side) to
give warning of gas. The masks that we always carry at our belts are
positive guards against any sort of gas.
We read until twelve and then went to bed, lucky in having only one
trip through the day.