Driving His Automobile over a Shell-Swept Road a French Lad Braved
Death to Deliver the Dead
It was during the dreadful few days when the Germans came closest to
Paris, a French writer tells us. Gilles Thurmand—sixteen years old,
whose mother kept the _Côte d’Or_—had got hold of an old motor-car
which had been smashed up in the first days of the rush to the front,
had tinkered with it until it ran again, and then had driven it out
to see what he could pick up. He went in the direction of Givres, for
he heard that there were a good many wounded along the roads, and the
French were yielding. He had come as far as a little coppice, where he
slowed down at the sight of a couple of French uniforms. The Germans
began suddenly to shell the part of the road over which he had just
driven. He did not pay much attention to this at the time, for he
was so engrossed with the French officers, of whom there were three
standing, and a fourth badly wounded. They had been cut off from their
regiment, and were left in this little patch of wood either to be
killed by one of the enemy’s shells, or to be taken prisoner. “Get in,”
Gilles told them, “and we’ll make a run for it. I’m game if you are.”
He was extremely proud of having to do with so many officers at once,
and besides, he thought, it might be the means of getting him admitted
into the Army. Just as they were lifting the wounded man onto the floor
of the vehicle, which was about the size of a Ford limousine, Gilles’
sharp eyes spied another blue coat through the trees at a little
distance away, and he ran over to the man, who wore the uniform of a
captain. He was squatting over something in the denser underbrush, and
raised up hastily as Gilles came toward him.
“Let me get you out of this,” said Gilles, “along with these others.”
“Yes, come with us,” said Major Hervé, the senior officer of the party,
limping toward them to find out the cause of the delay. The strange
officer responded rather thickly that he couldn’t—that he had his duty
to perform, and would prefer to remain at his post. The major, finding
that arguing with him was of no avail, commanded him rather shortly to
follow the rest, and when he still demurred, ordered the other three to
bring him. They did so, gently enough, believing him to be a little
unbalanced by shell-fire. Then they all climbed into the crazy vehicle,
shut the door, and Gilles, mounting to the front seat, set out to drive
them through a quarter of a mile of fire and brimstone, which was as
near to hell as anything he had ever imagined.
Shells whizzed past, and bullets hailed upon the roof. Once or twice
Gilles heard a faint cry in the back of the motor, and he knew some
one was hit, but he bent doggedly to his wheel, and didn’t once look
round, for fear, as he phrased it, that he would “lack courage to go
on again.” Though a bomb ripped off the fender and nearly capsized
the car, Gilles himself was not touched, and presently he drove into
a silence as deafening as the noise had been. It was the outskirts
of a camp, and there were a few simple little everyday noises like
the rattling of dishes and the chopping of wood. But it was like the
cemetery of Père La Chaise to Gilles. He could not hear a sound. Two
or three Frenchmen in khaki came running toward him as he slid off the
box and opened the rear door. Three dead bodies tumbled out. The two
left inside were those of the last-found officer and the badly wounded
man. They, too, were dead. How had they been killed? Not by shell fire,
certainly. Examination proved that they had died by pistol shots.
Gilles, taken into custody, his teeth chattering with fear, pointed out
the officer who had forcibly been made a member of their party. The
man was searched. There were found upon him a spare telephone receiver
and a map of the district, together with other evidence proving him
a German spy. He had probably been directing the German fire at the
moment when Gilles had so inopportunely come upon him. His great
reluctance to join the party was explained. During their wild ride he
had apparently found time to put a bullet through the head of each of
his unsuspecting captors. Whether one of them or he himself had caused
his own death, could not be discovered.
[Illustration:
“Tell Her Not to Worry”
“Dear Father, guard our gallant men
Within whose hearts is love enshrined,
And bring them safely home again
To those they cannot leave behind!”