[Illustration]
_Incidents of a Driver's Life_
On the 3d of May N{o} 6 went back on me for the first time. I was
returning from Toul when the car broke down in half a dozen different
places at once. I could not fix it, but would have reached Dieulouard
on three cylinders if it had not been for a steep hill. Twice N{o} 6
nearly reached the top, only to die with a hard cough and slide to the
bottom again. On account of this hill I was forced to walk fourteen
kilometres to Dieulouard for help. The next night I had my first
experience at night driving. A call came in at half-past nine to get
one wounded man at Clos Bois. McConnell, driver of N{o} 7, went with
me. We neither of us had ever been there, so it was somewhat a case
of the blind leading the blind. It made little difference, however,
as the night was so black that nothing but an owl could have seen his
own nose. We felt our way along helped by a distant thunderstorm, the
flicker of cannon, and the bursting of illuminating rockets, picked up
our wounded man, and were returning through Montauville when we were
stopped by an officer. He had a wounded man who was dying, the man was
a native of Dieulouard and wished to die there, and the officer asked
us to carry him there if the doctor at Pont-à-Mousson would give us
permission. We took him. He had been shot through the head. Why he
lived at all I do not know, but he not only lived, but struggled so
hard that they had to strap him to the stretcher. When the doctor at
the hospital saw him, he refused to let us carry him to Dieulouard
because the trip would surely kill him and he might live if left at the
hospital. Whether he did live or die I was never able to find out.