THE Section which is here designated as the "Section in Flanders" has
at least two distinguishing characteristics. This was the first Section
of substantial proportions to be geographically separated from the
"American Ambulance" at Neuilly and turned over to the French army.
Until it left "for the front" our automobiles had worked either to and
from the Neuilly hospital, as an evacuating base, or, if temporarily
detached for service elsewhere, they had gone out in very small units.
Secondarily, it has the distinction of having been moved about more
frequently and of having been attached to more diverse army units
than any other of our Sections. During the first year of its history,
it was located successively in almost every part of Flanders still
subject to the Allies: first at Dunkirk and Malo, then at Poperinghe
and Elverdinghe, then at Coxyde and Nieuport, then at Crombeke and
Woesten, Then after a full year in Flanders it was moved to Beauvais
for revision, and since then it has worked in the region between
Soissons and Compiègne and subsequently in the neighborhood of
Méricourt-sur-Somme.
During most of the time the men have been quartered in barns and
stables, sleeping in lofts in the hay or straw, or on stretchers on
the floor, or inside their ambulances, or, during the summer, on the
ground, in improvised tents in the open fields.
The opportunities for comfortable writing have been few, and no
complete story of the Section's experiences has ever been written. The
following pages give only glimpses of a history which has been crammed
with incidents and impressions worth recording.
The Section's story began in the cold wet days of early January, 1915,
when twenty men with twelve cars left Paris for the north. We spent our
first night _en route_ in the shadow of the Beauvais Cathedral, passing
the following day through many towns filled with French troops, and
then, as we crossed into the British Sector, through towns and villages
abounding with the khaki-clad soldiers of England and her colonies and
the turbaned troops of British India. The second night we stayed at
Saint-Omer, the men sleeping in their cars in the centre of the town
square, and the third morning, passing out of the British Sector once
more into the French lines, we arrived in Dunkirk where our work began.
[Illustration: AMERICANS IN THEIR GAS-MASKS IN FRONT OF THE BOMB-PROOF
SHELTER OUTSIDE OF THE HEADQUARTERS]
We were at once assigned to duty in connection with a hospital
established in the freight shed of a railway station, and from then
on for many a long day our duty was to carry wounded and sick in a
never-ending stream from the station, where they arrived from the front
by four or five daily trains, to the thirty or more hospitals in and
about the city. Every school, barrack, and other large building in
the town (even the public theatre) or in the neighboring towns within
ten miles of Dunkirk, seemed to have been turned into a hospital. Our
work was extremely useful, the Section carrying scores and scores of
sick and wounded, day after day, week in and out. The first incident of
an exciting nature came on the second day.
We were nearly all at the station, quietly waiting for the next train,
when high up in the air there appeared first one, then three, and
finally seven graceful aeroplanes. We watched, fascinated, and were
the more so when a moment later we learned that they were Taubes. It
seemed hard to realize that we were to witness one of the famous raids
that have made Dunkirk even more famous than the raider Jean Bart
himself had ever done. Explosions were heard on all sides and the sky
was soon spotted with puffs of white smoke from the shells fired at the
intruders. The rattle of the _mitrailleuses_ and the bang of the 75's
became a background of sound for the more solemn boom of the shells. A
few moments later there was a bang not thirty yards away and we were
showered with bits of stone. We stood spell-bound until the danger was
over and then foolishly jumped behind our cars for protection.
This incident of our early days was soon thrown into unimportance by
other raids, each more interesting than the last. One of them stands
out in memory above all the rest. It was a perfect moonlit night,
quite cloudless. Four of my companions and I were on night duty in
the railway yard. About eleven the excitement started, and to say it
commenced with a bang is not slang but true. Rather it commenced with
many bangs. The sight was superb and the excitement intense. One could
hear the whirr of the motors, and when they presented a certain angle
to the moon the machines showed up like enormous silver flies. One had
a delicious feeling of danger, and to stand there and hear the crash of
the artillery, the buzzing of the aeroplanes, the swish of the bombs
as they fell and the crash as they exploded, made an unforgettable
experience. One could plainly hear the bombs during their flight, for
each has a propeller attached which prevents its too rapid descent,
thus insuring its not entering so far into the ground as to explode
harmlessly. To hear them coming and to wonder if it would be your turn
next was an experience new to us all. The bombardment continued for
perhaps an hour and then our work began. I was sent down to the quay
and brought back two wounded men and one who had been killed, and all
my companions had about the same experience. One took a man from a
half-demolished house; another, an old woman who had been killed in her
bed; another, three men badly mutilated who had been peacefully walking
on the street. An hour later all was quiet--except perhaps the nerves
of some of the men.
About this time our work was enlivened by the appearance of the one
and only real ambulance war dog and the official mascot of the squad.
And my personal dog at that! I was very jealous on that point and
rarely let him ride on another machine. I got him at Zuydcoote. He was
playing about, and as he appeared to be a stray and was very friendly,
I allowed him to get on the seat and stay there. But I had to answer so
many questions about him that it became a bore, and finally I prepared
a speech to suit all occasions, and when any one approached me used to
say, "_Non_, madame, il n'est pas Américain, il est Français; je l'ai
trouvé ici dans le Nord." One day a rosy-cheeked young lady approached
us, called the dog "Dickie" and I started my speech. "Il ne s'appelle
pas Dickie, madame, mais Khaki, et vous savez il est Français." "Je
sais bien, monsieur, puisqu'il est à moi." I felt sorry and chagrined,
but not for long, as a moment later the lady presented him to me.
We will skip over the humdrum life of the next few weeks to a night in
April when we were suddenly ordered to the station at about 1 A.M. It
was, I think, April 22. "The Germans have crossed the Yser" was the
news that sent a thrill through all of us. Would they this time reach
Calais or would they be pushed back? We had no time to linger and
wonder. All night long we worked unloading the trains that followed
each other without pause. The Germans had used a new and infernal
method of warfare; they had released a cloud of poisonous gas which,
with a favorable wind, had drifted down and completely enveloped the
Allies' trenches. The tales of this first gas attack were varied and
fantastic, but all agreed on the supprise and the horror of it. Trains
rolled in filled with huddled figures, some dying, some more lightly
touched, but even these coughed so that they were unable to speak
coherently. All told the same story, of having become suddenly aware
of a strange odor, and then of smothering and choking and falling like
flies. In the midst of all this had come a hail of shrapnel. The men
were broken as I have never seen men broken. In the months of our work
we had become so accustomed to dreadful sights and to suffering as to
be little affected by them. The sides and floor of our cars had often
been bathed in blood; our ears had not infrequently been stirred by the
groans of men in agony. But these sufferers from the new form of attack
inspired in us all feelings of pity beyond any that we had ever felt
before. To see these big men bent double, convulsed and choking, was
heartbreaking and hate-inspiring.
[Illustration: A "POSTE DE SECOURS" IN FLANDERS]
[Illustration: WAITING AT A "POSTE DE SECOURS"]
At ten o'clock we were ordered to Poperinghe, about twenty miles
from Dunkirk and three miles from Ypres, where one of the biggest
battles of the war was just getting under way. The town was filled
with refugees from Ypres, which was in flames and uninhabitable.
Through Poperinghe and beyond it we slowly wound our way in the midst
of a solid stream of motor trucks, filled with dust-covered soldiers
coming up to take their heroic part in stemming the German tide. We
were to make our headquarters for the time at Elverdinghe, but as we
approached our destination the road was being shelled and we put
on our best speed to get through the danger zone. This destination
turned out to be a small château in Elverdinghe, where a first-aid
hospital had been established. All round us batteries of French and
English guns were thundering their aid to the men in the trenches some
two miles away. In front of us and beside us were the famous 75's, the
90's, and 120's, and farther back the great English marine guns, and
every few seconds we could hear their big shells passing over us. An
automobile had just been put out of commission by a shell, before we
reached the château, so we had to change our route and go up another
road. The château presented a terrible scene. In every room straw
and beds and stretchers, and mangled men everywhere. We started to
work and for twenty-six hours there was scarcely time for pause. Our
work consisted in going down to the _postes de secours_, or first-aid
stations, situated in the Flemish farmhouses, perhaps four hundred
or five hundred yards from the trenches, where the wounded get their
first primitive dressings, and then in carrying the men back to the
dressing-stations where they were dressed again, and then in taking
them farther to the rear to the hospitals outside of shell range.
The roads were bad and we had to pass a constant line of convoys. At
night no lights were allowed and one had to be especially careful not
to jolt his passengers. Even the best of drivers cannot help bumping
on the pavements of Belgium, but when for an hour each cobble brings
forth a groan from the men inside, it is hard to bear. Often they are
out of their heads. They call then for their mothers--they order the
charge--to cease firing--they see visions of beautiful fields--of cool
water--and sometimes they die before the trip is over.
At Elverdinghe the bombardment was tremendous; the church was crumbling
bit by bit. The guns were making too great a noise for sleep. About 4
P.M. we started out to find something to eat. A problem this, for the
only shop still open was run by an old couple too scared to cook. No
food for hours at a time gives desperate courage, so on we went until
we found in a farmhouse some ham and eggs which we cooked ourselves. It
was not altogether pleasant, for the whole place was filled with dust,
the house next door having just been demolished by a shell. However,
the machines were untouched, although a shell burst near them, and we
hurried back for another night's work.
[Illustration: A WINTER DAY IN FLANDERS]
The following morning we decided to stay in Elverdinghe and try to get
a little sleep, but no sooner had we turned in than we were awakened
by the order to get out of the château at once, as we were under fire.
While I was putting on my shoes the window fell in and part of the
ceiling came along. Then an order came to evacuate the place of all its
wounded, and we were busy for hours getting them to a place of safety.
Shells were falling all about. One great tree in front of me was cut
completely off and an auto near it was riddled with the fragments. For
two weeks this battle lasted. We watched our little village gradually
disintegrating under the German shells. The cars were many times under
more or less heavy artillery and rifle fire and few there were without
shrapnel holes.
The advantage of our little cars over the bigger and heavier ambulances
was demonstrated many times. On narrow roads, with a ditch on each
side, choked with troops, ammunition wagons, and vehicles of all
sorts moving in both directions, horses sometimes rearing in terror
at exploding shells, at night in the pitch dark, except for the weird
light from the illuminating rockets, the little cars could squeeze
through somehow. If sometimes a wheel or two would fall into a shell
hole, four or five willing soldiers were enough to lift it out and on
its way undamaged. If a serious collision occurred, two hours' work
sufficed to repair it. Always "on the job," always efficient, the
little car, the subject of a thousand jokers, gained the admiration of
every one.
To most of the posts we could go only after dark, as they were in
sight of the German lines. Once we did go during the day to a post
along the banks of the Yser Canal, but it was too dangerous and the
General ordered such trips stopped. These few trips were splendid,
however. To see the men in the trenches and hear the screech of the
shells at the very front was thrilling, indeed. At times a rifle
bullet would find its way over the bank and flatten itself against a
near-by farmhouse. One was safer at night, of course, but the roads
were so full of _marmite_ holes and fallen trees that they were hard
to drive along. We could only find our way by carefully avoiding the
dark spots on the road. Not a man, however, who did not feel a hundred
times repaid for any danger and anxiety of these trips in realizing
the time and suffering he had saved the wounded. Had we not been there
with our little cars, the wounded would have been brought back on
hand-stretchers or in wagons far less comfortable and much more slow.
Finally the second battle of the Yser was over. The front settled down
again to the comparative quiet of trench warfare. Meanwhile some of us
were beginning to feel the strain and were ordered back to Dunkirk for
a rest. We reached there in time to witness one of the most exciting
episodes of the war. It was just at this time that the Germans sprang
another surprise--the bombardment of Dunkirk from guns more than twenty
miles away. Shells that would obliterate a whole house or make a hole
in the ground thirty feet across would fall and explode without even
a warning whistle such as ordinary shells make when approaching. We
were in the station working on our cars at about 9.30 in the morning,
when, out of a clear, beautiful sky, the first shell fell. We thought
it was only from an aeroplane, as Dunkirk seemed far from the range of
other guns. The dog seemed to know better, for he jumped off the seat
of my car and came whining under me. A few minutes later came a second
and then a third shell. Still not knowing from where they came, we got
out our machines and went to where the clouds of smoke gave evidence
that they had fallen. I had supposed myself by this time something of
a veteran, but when I went into the first dismantled house and saw
what it looked like inside, the street seemed by far a safer place.
The house was only a mass of torn timbers, dirt, and _débris_. Even
people in the cellar had been wounded. We worked all that day, moving
from place to place, sometimes almost smothered by dust and plaster
from the explosion of shells in our vicinity. We cruised slowly around
the streets waiting for the shells to come and then went to see if any
one had been hit. Sometimes, when houses were demolished, we found
every one safe in the cellars, but there were many hurt, of course, and
quite a number killed. The first day I had three dead and ten terribly
wounded to carry, soldiers, civilians, and women too. In one of the
earlier bombardments a shell fell in the midst of a funeral, destroying
almost every vestige of the hearse and body and all of the mourners.
Another day one of them hit a group of children at play in front of the
_billet_ where at one time we lodged, and it was said never to have
been known how many children had been killed, so complete was their
annihilation.
For a time every one believed the shells had been fired from marine
guns at sea, but sooner or later it was proved that they came from
land guns, twenty or more miles away, and as these bombardments were
repeated in succeeding weeks, measures were taken to safeguard the
public from them. Although the shells weighed nearly a ton, their
passage through the air took almost a minute and a half, and their
arrival in later days was announced by telephone from the French
trenches as soon as the explosion on their departure had been heard.
At Dunkirk a siren was blown on the summit of a central tower, giving
people at least a minute in which to seek shelter in their cellars
before the shell arrived. Whenever we heard the sirens our duty was to
run into the city and search for the injured, and during the succeeding
weeks many severely wounded were carried in our ambulances, including
women and children--so frequently the victims of German methods of
warfare. The American ambulance cars were the only cars on duty during
these different bombardments and the leader of the Section was awarded
the _Croix de Guerre_ for the services which they performed.
[Illustration: A GROUP OF AMERICAN DRIVERS IN NORTHERN FRANCE]
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL IN NIEUPORT, JULY, 1915]
In the summer a quieter period set in. Sunny weather made life
agreeable and in their greater leisure the men were able to enjoy
sea-bathing and walks among the sand dunes. A regular ambulance
service was kept up in Dunkirk and the surrounding towns, but part of
the Section was moved to Coxyde, a small village in the midst of the
dunes near the sea between the ruined city of Nieuport and La Panne,
the residence of the Belgian King and Queen. Here we worked for seven
weeks, among the Zouaves and the Fusiliers Marins, so famous the
world over as the "heroes of the Yser."
Then once more we were moved to the district farther South known
as Old Flanders, where our headquarters were in a Flemish farm,
adjacent to the town of Crombeke. The landscape hereabout is flat as a
billiard-table, only a slight rise now and again breaking the view. Our
work consisted in bringing back wounded from the vicinity of the Yser
Canal which then marked the line of the enemy's trenches, but owing to
the flatness of the country we had to work chiefly at night. Canals
dotted with slow-moving barges are everywhere, and as our work was
often a cross-country affair, looking for bridges added to the length
of our runs. Here we stayed from August to the middle of December,
during which we did the ambulance work for the entire French front
between the English and the Belgian Sectors.
Just as another winter was setting in and we were once more beginning
to get hordes of cases of frozen feet, we were ordered to move again,
this time to another army. The day before we left, Colonel Morier
visited the Section and, in the name of the Army, thanked the men in
glowing terms, not only for the work which they had done, but for the
way in which they had done it. He recalled the great days of the Second
Battle of the Yser and the Dunkirk bombardments and what the Americans
had done; how he had always felt sure that he could depend upon them,
and how they had always been ready for any service however arduous or
dull or dangerous it might be. He expressed officially and personally
his regret at our departure.
We left on a day that was typical and reminiscent of hundreds of other
days we had spent in Flanders. It was raining when our convoy began to
stretch itself out along the road and it drizzled all that day.[8]