[Illustration]
_New Quarters_
_August 6, 1915_
I was delighted to see "Doc" to-day. He arrived yesterday evening from
Paris, but I was on M---- duty, so we did not meet until this morning.
We had a long talk and I told him the story of the fatal 22d; the
recital of it only seems to have reimpressed me with the horror of that
night.
[Illustration: A "POSTE DE SECOURS" AT MONTAUVILLE]
We are now quite comfortably settled in our new quarters, a house
never shelled until just after our occupation of it, when we received
a 77 a few feet from our windows. I do not know why it has been spared
unless the _Boches_ were anxious not to destroy a creation so obviously
their own. Architecturally it is incredible--a veritable pastry
cook's _chef d'oeuvre_. Some of the colors within are so vivid that
hours of darkness cannot drive them out of vision. There is no piano,
but musical surprises abound. Everything you touch or move promptly
plays a tune, even a stein plays "_Deutschland über alles_"--or
something. Still the garden full of fruit and vegetables will make up
for the rest. Over the brook which runs through it is a little rustic
bridge--all imitation wood made of cast iron! Just beneath the latter
I was electrified to discover a very open-mouthed and particularly
yellow crockery frog quite eighteen inches long! A stone statue of a
dancing boy in front of the house was too much for us all. We ransacked
the attic and found some articles of clothing belonging to our absent
hostess, and have so dressed it that, with a tin can in its hand, it
now looks like an inadequately clad lady speeding to her bath-house
with a pail of fresh water.
Last night "Mac" and I were on night duty at M----, and when we
arrived at the telephone bureau--where we lie on stretchers fully
dressed in our blankets waiting for a call (the rats would keep you
awake if there were no work to do)--we were told that they expected a
bad bombardment of the village. "Mac" and I tossed up for the first
call, and I lost. "Auberge Saint-Pierre, I bet," laughed "Mac." That
is our worst trip--but it was to be something even more unpleasant
than usual. About eleven o'clock the _Boches_ started shelling the
little one-street village with 105 shrapnel. In the midst of it a
_brancardier_ came running in to ask for an ambulance--three _couchés_,
"_très pressé_." Of course, I had to grin and bear it, but it is a
horrid feeling to have to go out into a little street where shells are
falling regularly--start your motor--turn--back--and run a few yards
down the street to a _poste de secours_ where a shell has just landed
and another is due any moment.
"Are your wounded ready?" I asked, as calmly as I could. "_Oui,
monsieur._" So out I went--and was welcomed by two shells--one on my
right and the other just down the street. I cranked up N{o} 10, the
_brancardier_ jumped up by my side, and we drove to our destination.
I decided to leave the ambulance on the left side of the road (the
side nearer the trenches and therefore more protected by houses from
shell-fire), as I thought it safer on learning that it would be fifteen
minutes before the wounded were ready; and luckily for me, for a shell
soon landed on the other side of the road where I usually leave the
ambulance. My wounded men were now ready; it appeared that one of the
shrapnel shells had entered a window and exploded inside a room where
seven soldiers, resting after a hard day's work in the trenches, were
sleeping--with the appalling result of four dead and three terribly
wounded. As I felt my way to the hospital along that pitch-black road,
I could not help wondering why those poor fellows were chosen for the
sacrifice instead of us others in the telephone bureau--sixty yards
down the street.
However, here I am writing to you, safe and sound, on the little
table by my bedside, with a half-burnt candle stuck in a Muratti
cigarette box. Outside the night is silent--my window is open and in
the draught the wax has trickled down on to the box and then to the
table--unheeded--for my thoughts have sped far. To Gloucester days, and
winter evenings spent in the old brown-panelled, raftered room, with
its pewter lustrous in the candlelight; and the big, cheerful fire that
played with our shadows on the wall, while we talked or read--and were
content. Well--that peace has gone for a while, but these days will
likewise pass, and we are young. It has been good to be here in the
presence of high courage and to have learned a little in our youth of
the values of life and death.