[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A. F. F. W. DÉPÔT AT QUIMPER]
BACK OF THE FRONT
IN FRANCE
LETTERS FROM AMY OWEN BRADLEY
MOTOR DRIVER
OF THE
AMERICAN FUND FOR FRENCH WOUNDED
_WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS_
BOSTON
W. A. BUTTERFIELD
59 BROMFIELD ST.
COPYRIGHT
W. A. BUTTERFIELD
SEPTEMBER, 1918
Dedicated
TO THE MANY WORKERS FOR
THE AMERICAN FUND FOR FRENCH WOUNDED
WHOSE LABORS HAVE ENABLED HELP
AND ENCOURAGEMENT
TO BE BROUGHT TO SO MANY BRAVE SOLDIERS
AND DEVOTED WOMEN OF FRANCE
IN THEIR TIME OF TRIAL
FOREWORD
These letters from a young American girl in France to her family, were
written without thought of publication. She is still in France and has
therefore been unable to revise them herself, or correct errors due to
the haste with which they were written.
They are the simple record of what she has seen and felt in France, in
doing work that has taken her from Brittany to the Alps.
R. M. B.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
WINTER IN PARIS 1
CHAPTER II
BRITTANY AND ITS HOSPITALS 14
CHAPTER III
A VISIT TO VERDUN 41
CHAPTER IV
PERSHING’S TROOPS ARRIVE 57
CHAPTER V
BACK OF THE FRONT AT NANCY 63
CHAPTER VI
CHAMBÉRY AND OUR SOLDIERS ON LEAVE 103
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Interior of A. F. F. W. Dépôt at Quimper _Frontispiece_
Exterior of A. F. F. W. Dépôt at Quimper 14
Miss Key with a German prisoner and a French doctor 24
United States flag on Mairie at Quimper 26
Sisters at a hospital 30
“Maggie” in center of a ruined town 43
The morning shave, back of the trenches 48
Pet baby wild boar 50
“Somewhere” near Verdun 56
Motor of Zeppelin at Bourbonne 71
Remains of a “Taube” at Champenoux 74
Poste de Secours 99
American soldiers at Chambéry 121
American soldiers on Y. M. C. A. steps at Chambéry 128
Belgian tuberculosis hospital at Chambéry 133
A. F. F. W. Dépôt at Chambéry 143
INTRODUCTION
The American Fund for French Wounded started its work of emergency
relief for the sufferers in France in April, 1915, as a part of an
English organization. By December, 1915, the desire to help France and
to testify to the deep sympathy with her cause had resulted in such a
rapid growth of the organization in this country that an independent
American society was formed with a central distributing depot in Paris.
The work in America has been carried on by many hundreds of committees
throughout the entire country. In these committees thousands of
workers have for more than three years given countless hours of labor,
preparing and packing surgical dressings, hospital supplies and
garments, refugee clothing and comfort bags. Over 40,000 cases filled
with these supplies have been forwarded to France in that time, besides
motor cars and trucks for the delivery service of the Fund, and sums of
money for immediate emergency calls.
In France, these supplies have been distributed from the Paris
Depot and from the many branch depots and dispensaries, this work
being carried on with the approval of the French Government and in
coöperation with the American Red Cross.
It is hoped that these letters may help some of the many devoted
workers of the Fund to follow in imagination their handiwork until it
reaches those who are so sorely in need across the sea.
BACK OF THE FRONT IN FRANCE
CHAPTER I
WINTER IN PARIS
Paris, October 31, 1916.
Here we are, arrived safely, after spending our first night in
Bordeaux, and I am staying with Uncle Owen and Marie.
The statue of Alsace-Lorraine in the Place de la Concorde still wears
her mourning wreaths, but she holds a French flag in one of her hands.
We went yesterday to see the headquarters of the American Fund for
French Wounded at the Alcazar d’Eté. The office is near the Champs
Elysées in a lovely place surrounded by trees, and the sun comes
pouring into the workrooms.
At present, in the mornings I am to file papers containing requests,
and in the afternoons to pack comfort bags. We are to work in shifts of
five hours a day each, which doesn’t sound very appalling, but it is
quite strenuous.
It makes you realize how near the Germans got to Paris to go out to
Neuilly, and see the trenches and barbed wire on the old wall of Paris.
We walked there with some Ambulance boys who were on the steamer. They
wore their uniforms for the first time, and were tremendously proud of
them. Every time they meet an officer, of course they have to salute.
They were very shy about it, and when they saw an officer coming, half
a block away, they would tell us not to laugh or look at them, and as
of course we met about three officers in every block, our conversation
was constantly interrupted by saluting. We would be laughing over
something, when suddenly a wooden expression would come over the boys’
faces, half a block would be paced in silence, and then a salute like a
railroad signal moving up and down would follow, when the conversation
would resume its natural flow. These Ambulance boys are probably going
to the Argonne section,--one has already gone, and bade us a very
cheerful and desperately serious farewell. That section is no joke.
One of the Ambulance boys thought he would see Paris the other day,
so he wandered about (really to practice saluting in his uniform).
Finally, being tired, he sat down at a table in a café to rest. When he
got up to go, he picked up his gloves, and was greeted by a piercing
scream from a Frenchwoman near by, who said he was going off with a
pair of gloves belonging to an English officer at a table opposite.
Neither understood French, but the English officer left, seeing that
some kind of row was up, and not wanting to be involved in it. The
woman, however, hung on to the American, and yelled for the police.
Meanwhile a crowd gathered. A passing voice came out of it,--“There’s
one of those Ambulance boys in trouble again.” The policeman asked him
for something, probably his “permis de séjour,” and, as he couldn’t
understand, he didn’t produce it. Then he and the woman were both
hauled off to the police station, where, naturally, he swore that the
pair of gloves he had were his own, made in the U. S. A., showed his
“permis de séjour,” and was let go at once. When he got home, he found
that he had two pairs of gloves!
The Ambulance men certainly do have odd experiences on account of
being unable to speak the “lingo.” At Bordeaux, Eliot’s bags failed
to get on the train because he didn’t have a ticket, he got one of
the few porters, exclaiming, “Vous-me-ici!” and ran for the ticket
window. There was a whole line of soldiers buying tickets, but, nothing
daunted, he seized the porter by one hand, and rushed down the whole
line of soldiers, tipping each one a franc (as he had nothing smaller).
They all laughed, and let him get to the window and buy his ticket. He
said he was bankrupt from that time on.
Paris, November 30, 1916.
Yesterday in the metro, I saw a common soldier on crutches get into the
car. A colonel, with a very careworn face, got up and gave him his seat
saying, “It is hard for you to stand, my boy.” The soldier was only a
lad, and he blushed and said, “Merci, mon Colonel,” and had a frightful
time keeping his balance, while trying to salute. The Colonel held him
up while he saluted, and helped him to the seat. When he got off, the
car was crowded, and the Colonel helped him to the door and out.
My work has been changed, and I now drive a Ford to do errands about
Paris. The car, whose name is “Lizzie,” is painted gray, with red
crosses and “Comité Américain pour les Blessés Français” on one side,
and “American Fund for French Wounded” on the other. I’ve had her for
two days, and take care of her as well as drive her. I also wear a
uniform which consists of my leather coat with shoulder straps, marked
A. F. F. W., and a blue felt hat with A. F. F. W. on the hatband.
Nobody in Paris knows what it means, as the Motor Service of the A. F.
F. W. has had uniforms only a week. Hence every one stares, especially
as most women in France don’t wear uniforms in the street (one does not
even see many uniformed nurses). However, I’ve discovered a way not to
be stared at, and that is to stand near the door of the metro, where
they take you for a new variety of ticket-woman.
The first time I had Lizzie out I was to be a messenger, and I left her
in front of the Alcazar d’Eté while I went to lunch. When I came back,
lo! there was a flat tire, and I proceeded to take it off and put in a
new inner tube. No sooner had I started to change it, than six soldiers
emerged from the atmosphere, in their atmospheric blue uniforms, all
asking if they could give me a “coup de main,” and they would not let
me put the tire on myself. Then I needed an electric tape, and the
lieutenant rushed off to a near-by taxi and got a piece for me. At last
I started out, but lo! Lizzie was in a vicious mood, and the tire went
flat again in about two feet. I had to take it off again, and again to
my aid a French soldier sprang, full armed with a monkey-wrench, from
the pavement of the Champs Elysées.
Paris, January 1, 1917.
The night before Christmas, I thought of you sitting about the fire,
and hanging up the stockings, but it made me too homesick to think of
it.
On Christmas Eve, I went to a canteen party. There was a big room
in which were three long tables filled with soldiers,--every kind
of soldier, all in their rain-and-sun faded uniforms, for they were
going back to the front the next day. When we got there, they were
all eating under a ceiling festooned with red, white, and blue, and
the entertainment was ready to begin. Various people sang French
songs for them, which they politely clapped. Then a woman with a
magnificent voice sang a song in French about Christmas night. There
was a dead silence, then “Un, deux, trois; un, deux, trois,” and they
all clapped in rhythm. It is thrilling to hear, and they do it when
especially pleased. They shouted and stamped their feet for more, but
they were not to have more from her then. The entertainment went on;
Harvard and Yale songs were sung by the Ambulance boys, accompanied by
mandolin, guitar, and piano. Those were wildly applauded in the same
manner. A Belgian started to sing; he had a fearful voice, but he was
good-naturedly clapped and cheered. Then one of the Ambulance boys got
up and sang “My Laddie,” and “My Little Gray Home in the West,” in one
of the sweetest, truest voices I have ever heard. The poilus listened
so intently that you could have heard a pin drop. Of course they
couldn’t understand the words, but they loved it, and yelled “bis” and
“encore.” When he had sat down, they all began calling something. At
first we didn’t know what. Then we realized it was “Tippé-ré-ree” that
they wanted, so we all sang it together. The poilus sang, too, though
heaven knows how they pronounced the words, or whether they sang in
French or Flemish.
After that, we passed candy to them, and every one of them said,
“Merci, Mademoiselle.” When I came to one of the side tables, where the
seats were against the wall, I handed the bowl to the end man and told
him to pass it down. That went very well; they smiled their “Merci,
Mademoiselle” across the table to me, until the bowl came to a colored
man as black as soot. He took it from the next man, reached it across
the table to me, and said, “I want it from your own hands,” so I had to
pass it up the rest of the way, leaning across the table!
Then the black man wanted to sing. He sang;--the song was about a
Belgian saying good-bye to his relations. A verse was devoted to
each--Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, Wife, Little Girl, Son, Aunt,
Uncle, all listened to with great patience. Each stanza was droned
out in a deep, sad voice, while the singer rolled his eyes to the
ceiling in a kind of amen at the end. After the “Uncle,” he began on
the “Cousins,” and the poilus saw no end. They clapped vociferously,
and yelled to him to sit down, which he finally did among cheers,
claps, and laughter. When they’d finally got him seated, a young,
sensitive-looking French soldier arose. They all shouted, “un
camarade--un poilu!” He cleared his throat and began, at first very low
and timidly, a song about “La Lune,” and the rest all joined in the
chorus. It was quite lovely.
At the end they all stood up and sang the “Marseillaise,” until the
welkin rang. Then they shouted, “Vive l’Amérique!” “Vive la France!”
and, though no English were there, “Vive l’Angleterre!”
When they went out, we gave them comfort bags to take away, and they
went off gloating over their peeps into them.
On Christmas afternoon, Marie and I went to a hospital to distribute
comfort bags. All the men were as dressed up as they could be under
the circumstances, and were smiling at us from their beds when we came
in. We gave each one a bag. They were delighted, especially as the
bags came from America, and were particularly nice ones. A good many
of the bags contained musical instruments, such as mouth organs. Most
of the men didn’t know how to play them, but one poilu did, and I dare
say strange and weird sounds were issuing from that ward by morning,
for, as one soldier said, “We have plenty of time here to learn.” A
good many of the bags had messages in English in them on postal cards.
These we translated for them, and they loved them, especially the ones
from children. One man had a tiny pink looking-glass in his bag. He
considered it a treasure of untold value, and kept picking it up and
looking at it, back and front, every few moments. I really don’t know
whether he liked the back or the front better. In some of the bags was
chewing gum, and as we hadn’t time to take it out, Marie made them a
speech, and told them not to swallow it or they would be ill. She said
that the Americans chew it for good luck, and then spit it out.
When we went away, the men called “au revoir” after us, and one of the
sisters, a tiny lady in a white coiffe, kissed us on both cheeks “to
thank you for my poilus.”
Paris, January 6th, 1917.
This week I have done absolutely nothing but lie on my back under
Lizzie, or else scrub and arrange her from above. She has a nervous,
temperamental disposition, poor dear, and one never can tell what she
will do next. She has really been an awful trial to my nerves during
this last month, as I have driven her nearly every day, and every day
she has done something. There’s nothing I don’t know about 1914 Fords
by now. First, her carburetor leaked perpetually for a week,--awful!
when gasoline is 3.60 francs for five liters. Neither they, at the
Ford place, nor we, at the garage, could find out what the matter was.
It seemed to be plain cussedness,--however we changed the carburetor.
I wrote you before, that the first day I drove her she had three
tire-changing fits,--last week she had another spell of them in the
other rear tire. The tires were completely worn out, so we got new
ones. You’d think that would be enough, but no, we took her all to
pieces and cleaned out the carbon, for the second time in two weeks,
and put her together again. She wasn’t a bit grateful, however, and
the next day obligingly dropped off her gasoline pipe for me. It had
come unsoldered. I must say to her credit that she had the sense to
do it in the garage doorway, and not at the Place de l’Opéra or the
Champs Elysées or the Arc de Triomphe (why add insult to injury?) or
the Faubourg St. Honoré which she had chosen as fitting settings for
her other tantrums. However, it took two days to get it soldered on
again, as it is almost impossible to find people who can do the job,
which takes about fifteen minutes perhaps. Was that enough? No. The
next day I took Cousin Bessie to do some errands needed for her trip to
the front. Lizzie had fits again. The next day I took her out to the
Ford place as oil was leaking through her piston rings, and she went on
two cylinders,--which made her motion like that caused by Dummerston
“Thank-ye-ma’ams.” They couldn’t mend her till the middle of next week,
and I have spent the last two days in painting her outsides, which were
completely bare in places. Of course I got under her to paint the rods
below, that were all rusty. When the paint fell on my face, I felt like
Michael Angelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I also got a
lot of it in my hair, which so helps one’s personal appearance!
If there is one thing in life that I never expected to be, it is a coal
heaver. The business as conducted in Boston has never appealed to me.
Nevertheless,--I have been one. It is almost impossible to get coal
here. You have to fetch it yourself. Barbara Howe, from Boston, and I
went to get some the other day, on the way home from work in Lizzie. We
finally managed to get a bag containing a scant two bushels, I should
say, and paid ten francs for it. Miss Howe had just received a letter
from her family, commenting on how luxuriously she was living in an
apartment by herself! She told me that, just as we were heaving the bag
up the steps, and we collapsed with giggles, and could go no farther
for some moments, to the astonishment of the passing inhabitants of
Paris.
Paris, February 2.
Monday, Dorothy and I went to another hospital. It was run by sisters,
and was as clean and neat as a pin, and very sunny. The men were all in
little rooms, two or three together, and all convalescent. They were
making little chains out of beads, very patiently, and seemed glad to
see us. One man, who was plastered all over with medals, and had one
leg, took great joy in telling us which medal was which, but wouldn’t
tell us how he got them. A man with one arm said, “Yes, when one has
only one leg the medals are good as a consolation, only you’ve got to
do something to get them.” He didn’t have any medals, but seemed to
think it unnecessary for him, as he had both legs.
We have just heard the news of our having broken relations with
Germany. Dorothy and I were out in the motor the morning the news
came, and an old gentleman nearly fell out of a passing taxi trying
to salute us. At the hospitals, they all say that they hope soon to
welcome our country, as well as ourselves, as allies.
Marie got a letter from her filleul, telling how he had hung a big
sign over the trench proclaiming that the U. S. is now against the
“barbares,” which greatly enraged the opposing Hun. Also all along the
front they have fired salvos of the 75’s to arouse the Boches, and to
celebrate our breaking off diplomatic relations.
I do hope our supplies won’t stop coming on account of the submarines
and the break with Germany. The need is so terrible, and still as
great, if not greater, than ever.
I have just got S.’s letter about her house-party. It does seem so
jolly and cozy and safe. It is a good thing that there is a spot left
on earth where one can laugh, just for the joy of laughing.
The number of wounded is a thing one never gets used to. It is awful
to see every other soldier wearing a “wounded” badge. Imagine if every
second man in the Boston subway wore one, and nearly every woman were
in deep black. It’s terrible to think of. However, more and more, one
perceives the courage behind, and that seems the greatest thing of all.