TO THE FRONT
THAT swift ride through France in the new Red Cross ambulance was
quite devoid of any startling incidents. There were the usual bits of
well traveled and rutty roads and long stretches of fine highway, the
occasional detours by reason of road mending; here old men and boys
labored to keep up the important lanes of traffic for the oncoming
hosts of Americans and the transportation of overseas supplies. The
lads overtook heavily laden lorries, or camions as the French call
them; they passed columns of marching men and those billeted in
villages or encamped in the wayside fields. They noted the slow moving
forward of heavy field pieces and here and there they came to drill
grounds where lately arrived Americans were going through mock trench
fighting or were bayonet stabbing straw-stuffed bags supposed to be
Huns.
Everywhere the boys observed also that there were more people in the
towns and villages than the sizes of these places seemed to warrant,
and in the fields and woods, in uncultivated or otherwise barren spots
little settlements of tents and rude shelters had been established as
evidence of the wide exodus from the battle-scarred areas far to the
east and north. Hundreds of thousands of people, driven from their
ruined or threatened homes, had thus overrun the none too sparsely
inhabited sections beyond the war-torn region.
“_Non, non, non, non!_” That was the common refrain directed by Herbert
and Donald to the solicitations of the French, for the purchase of
sundry articles, mostly of edible character, whenever the car was
forced to stop.
“If you want to get rid of your money very quickly,” Herbert explained
to the three Red Cross nurses riding with them in the rear of the
ambulance, “you can sure do it if you patronize these sharpers. Their
goods are all right generally, but the prices--phew! They must think
every American is a millionaire.”
“And yet one must pity many of them; they have suffered and are
suffering so much,” said the eldest nurse, a sweet-faced woman whose
gray hairs denoted that she was past middle age.
“They seem to be very patient and really very cheerful,” remarked
the somewhat younger woman whose slightly affected drawl and rather
superior bearing indicated that she belonged to the higher social
circles somewhere back in the U. S. And then up spoke the third, a mere
slip of a girl, who had been quite silent until now.
“I have wondered and wondered what it would all be like, what the
people would be like; and now I’m glad I’ve come. Perhaps when the war
is over we can do something for these----”
“We will every one of us be glad to get home again,” said the
gray-haired lady. “You, my dear, will prove no exception, however noble
your reconstructive impulses are. But these people, no matter what they
have gone through, will be well able to take care of themselves.”
And as the car presently dashed on again, Donald remarked to Herbert,
so that their passengers could not hear:
“Don’t you think, old man, it is very true when they say that
patriotism over in the dear old United States has had a remarkable
awakening?”
“Yes, you can call it that, perhaps, if we were ever really asleep.
You refer, I know, to these nurses, evidently ladies of refinement and
culture, coming over here for duties that they must know can’t be any
cinch. The women, if anything, have led the men at home in their zeal
for helping toward making our part in this scrap a good one.”
“Very good and all honor to the women,” Don said, “but I guess, from
what you and I have both seen and will soon see again, that which is
making America’s part in this war a good one is mostly the scrapping
ability of the lads with blood in their eyes. The humane part of it
comes afterward.”
“And a little before at times also,” asserted the lieutenant. “There
is the morale to keep up--the general good fellowship and well-being.
If the boys know they’re going to be treated right if they get winged,
then they’re heartened up a whole lot; you know that.”
“I do,” Don eagerly admitted. “Don’t think I’m throwing any rocks at
the splendid efficiency of the Red Cross; if anyone knows about them
I ought to, from every angle of the service. But I have also seen the
kind of work that threw a scare into the Huns, and believe me that was
not a humane, not a nursing proposition, as you know.”
“Yes, I know that, too. And it may be funny, but I’ve had a sort of
homesick feeling to get back and see more of it, and the nearer I get
the more impatient I am.”
“Same here. But this boat is doing her darndest for a long run and we
can hardly improve the time even if you get out and walk.”
“From watching your speedometer register something over thirty miles
in less than sixty minutes I am convinced that only a motorcycle or an
airplane would help us better to get on.”
The ambulance did get on in a very satisfactory manner. Here and there
along the road and at all turns and forks splotches of white paint on
stones, posts, buildings, bridges or stakes and by which the transport
and freight camions were guided, made the way across the three hundred
miles quite plain. The lads paid no attention to the French sign posts,
here and there, which announced the distance in kilometers to some
larger town or city and then to Paris farther inland, for the route
avoided these places wherever possible and ran into no narrow and
congested streets or masses of people.
At the next stop, for a bite to eat in a small village, the
middle-aged nurse expressed some disappointment at not going into Paris.
“I have been there many times in former years when my dear husband was
living; we stopped there once for several months. But they say now that
the city is not like it used to be--I mean the people, of course, in
manners and gayety; the mourning for the dead and the fear of invasion
or bombardment----”
“There is no longer fear of invasion,” Herbert declared. “That time has
gone past. The business in hand now is whipping the Huns clear across
the Rhine and into Berlin, if necessary, and we are going to do that in
short order!”
“It’s terrible. So much death and suffering,” said the young girl. “And
the Germans, too; who cares for them when wounded?”
“They have a Red Cross and very excellent ambulance and hospital
service,” Don explained. “We pick up a good many of their wounded and
treat them just as well as our own.”
“You have seen this yourself?” asked the gray-haired woman.
“My friend was in the thick of it, around Château-Thierry,” Herbert
announced eagerly. “He was wounded, invalided, but he is going back for
more work.”
The women all gazed at blushing Donald, who hastened to get even.
“He needn’t heap it on to me!” he exclaimed. “He’s going back, too,
after having been gassed and sent across the pond to get well. And, you
see, he got to be a lieutenant for bravery.”
“You both seem to be very young, too,” remarked the eldest nurse.
“Hardly through school yet; are you?”
“No, ma’am; we are both students, junior year, at Brighton Acad----”
“Brighton? Well, I declare! Why, my brother is a teacher there;
Professor Carpenter.”
“Oh, hurrah! He’s a dandy! The fellows all like him immensely!” Don
shouted.
“It’s fine to meet his sister over here, Miss Carpenter,” Herbert said.
“It is indeed a pleasure to know you both,” said the lady, and
proceeded to formally introduce the other two nurses.
Then they were on the road once more and two hours later had safely
landed the women at a Red Cross headquarters on the way, a few miles
north of Paris. The boys parted from their gentle passengers with real
regret; then sped on again, headed for the Army General Headquarters.