BACK OF THE FRONT AT NANCY
Grand Hotel, Place Stanislas,
Nancy, October 7, 1917.
Here I am at Nancy! It is a beautiful place, in the frigid zone I am
sure--and _they say_ in the war zone. We motored through from Paris all
in one day, arriving here at half past two in the morning, and it took
us nineteen hours. The last part of our journey was made in the pitch
darkness and rain. One of the several times that we got lost was at
Bar-le-Duc, at midnight, in the pouring rain. The road we should have
taken was blocked by the “dégâts” of the last raid, so we had to circle
around and around, to find a road that we could take, but eventually we
saw a glimmer of light. Mrs. Dawson and Miss Mitchell called “Madame!”
at it, and a head appeared and gave vague and sleepy directions.
There wasn’t a light in the whole town, nor in any town that we went
through, and you have no idea how ghastly ruined villages look by the
headlights of a Ford when the ruins are shiny and wet.
During our travels, we have come on several “Somewhere in France’s,”
that is, brand-new barracks with the U. S. flag flying over them. Most
of them are being built, but once we suddenly saw the field in front
of a camp shake, and realized that they were our soldiers drilling!
We passed one, crossing the road from one barrack to another, with a
saucepan in his hand. When he saw “American Fund for French Wounded”
on our car, he grinned and waved the saucepan, which was bad for its
contents.
Later we saw a most picturesque sight: a red camp fire, with
steel-helmeted, khaki-clad figures around it, toasting themselves and
their food. As we passed by, they waved and shouted, “Hello!” and one
said, “Gee, but it’s fine to see white folks; what are you doing in
this corner of the world?”
S., your photograph has arrived and I am overjoyed. I had to leave
my photograph books behind in Paris, as every extra ounce of baggage
counts, so now the picture gallery in my room in this hotel consists
of S., a tiny photograph of Mamma when she (--horrors!--a mouse just
ran across the floor of my room!!...) was a little girl, one of Papa
and the picture of Brattleboro by Miss Keyes, also a Nativity by
Rembrandt. Above the door is an awful panel of a baby-carriage running
away downhill with the baby in it. Something has got to be done to
suppress it soon,--very soon. Above the other door is a panel of a
muddy railway-yard with an old woman running across the road, about to
come to grief in a large puddle. The perspective is awful. The rest of
the room isn’t so bad, gray, plain, and clean, in fact rather pleasant
when the sun shines.
Did I tell you that Appleton Miles is at the head of a section now, and
awfully well thought of in all the work he has done? In fact, he is one
of the best men.
Of course there are a million things I should like to tell you and
can’t. If I even begin to mention the people I see, it would give a lot
away. If you are bursting with curiosity, just think how I am exploding
with what I want to tell you and can’t! I think I’d better stop.
Nancy, October 21, 1917.
It is a year to-day since I started on my travels for France, and such
celebrations as I’ve been having!
On Tuesday, Mrs. Dawson, the head of our dépôt, went to see a very
famous regiment that is near here,--the one Victor Chapman served in.
She was most wonderfully received by the general, who, by the way, has
five palms (meaning many citations in Army orders) and a star on his
Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor too. They gave her tea, and
when she went away, a perfectly coal-black man stepped out from the
ranks, and presented her with a poem, so well done in penmanship and
design that it looked almost as if it were beautifully engraved. It was
written in some Persian-looking writing, and was translated below into
French. The poem was to thank God that the Americans were here, and to
welcome her as their representative. The General apologized for not
producing something better,--it was impromptu, he said, as she had come
unexpectedly to see their hospitals.
That was not all the excitement of the day, however. At six o’clock,
I was in my room when the “tocsin,” the signal for air raids, went
off. At the same moment the 75’s on the hills around went banging
away. They make an odd sound, like a loose, very thick elastic being
snapped. Then, bang-bang-bang, the machine gun on the top of the next
building went off, with a terrific cackle, and shot up white balls
with a poppy-puff noise. Meantime the searchlights were waving and we
could hear, above it all, the penetrating and sky-filling whirr of the
enemy machines above us. The electric lights dimmed every time a bomb
dropped. You could tell the bombs by the kind of dead, deafening thud
and bang, and the shaking of the hotel.
Just at that time Mrs. Dawson’s motor had reached the railway station
and the first bomb went off on the station. It’s “forbidden to
circulate” during an attack, but just the same, they bumped away from
the station as fast as they could. Guns were firing on the Boche and
splinters were falling all around. They make a spark when they fall,
like those struck out by horses’ feet. There were no lights in the town
and they had to turn out the lights of their car, so of course they
blew their horn as loud as they could, but such was the noise that they
could not hear it themselves.
They arrived safely at the hotel, and about half past seven, the raid
having let up a bit, we started to have dinner. You never knew such a
hectic meal. The cook was having hysterics in the cellar, an English
officer and a little French couple and ourselves were the only stable
population of the dining room. The rest, consisting of some women and
a bald-headed man, kept popping up and down, to and from the cellar.
The women took food with them when they went down, but the poor man
was trying to eat his soup. He took two mouthfuls. Then the guns went
off, and down he’d go again. The English officer, who, by the way, had
a Victoria Cross, said: “I’m jolly sorry for him, his soup’s getting so
cold. I can’t speak French, or I’d tell him to take his plate with him.”
Marthe, the little pink-cheeked maid, was a wonder and served away as
placidly as ever. Well, it kept up intermittently until about ten, and
then, after having collected some splinters from in front of the hotel,
we decided to go to bed. Monsieur Martin, one of the officials, and a
friend of ours, came in during the evening to tell us that a good deal
of injury had been done, and some lives lost, as a train had been hit.
The Boches always try for the stations and so most of the bombs had
been dropped there.
The station is some distance off, by the way, and this cellar is about
the best one in town, having several exits and being of reënforced
concrete, so we are absolutely safe. There is always time to get down
cellar, and a vaulted cellar, such as ours, has never been known to
give in. When you hear that cellars have been smashed, you may be sure
that they are the flat kind.
I thought that I would write you about the bombings, as they are
in the American papers, but don’t get worried if you read of more
bombardments of Nancy. An air-raid is mostly noise and some buildings
smashed in, but no one who has taken the proper precautions has been
hit. Only those who stay upstairs, or go out on the street have been
hurt.
Well, the next day, of course, we went to see the destruction, or
rather, we couldn’t help seeing it, as it was all down the business
section where our work took us. It is strange, ludicrous, horrid,
and very sad. The next night at six, the Boches, with their usual
precision, began again. It was the same, except that the Boches dropped
an incendiary bomb, and, with the white searchlights waving about the
sky, the red glare was weird.
We were at the doorway of the hotel at one time, and saw two bombs drop
in a distant part of the town. For a second the bomb flares up bright
red, and then it is utterly dark. Then comes the bang. They struck
two houses, but there was no loss of life in them. You should see the
houses, though! All three stories were in a mess on the street, and the
débris was so finely splintered up that one couldn’t tell what had been
in the houses. On one wall, however, two stories up, was a big mirror,
intact, also a smaller one on the floor above, and two pictures and
a little what-not with roses on it, entirely undisturbed, in another
corner, all by itself, a piano untouched.
Russell Cogswell and some of his section offered their services, and
did nobly. They evacuated the hospital in the middle of the raid, and
also collected the killed and wounded. The town is full of admiration
for them.
A day or two after, a Boche aëroplane was brought in smashed, and
dumped in the Place, in front of the statue of Stanislas, King of
Poland. It is the custom to do that here, whenever one is brought down
in the neighborhood. When Guynemer guarded Nancy, there were sometimes
three at one time.
That night I was waked at four A.M. by gun firing, and the tocsin,
also the siren, which is for long distance guns bombarding the town. I
hurriedly put on a few clothes, but nothing more happened, so I went to
sleep again. At six the same performance was repeated. In the morning
I went downstairs to learn that this time it had been Zeppelins! They
hadn’t dropped anything and were going very slowly, evidently lost in
the fog on their way back from somewhere. Since then we have heard that
they were coming back from England. One has been brought down in flames
not far from here, so to-day we went to see it. From all the country
around, people were flocking there, and we met officers driving over in
any kind of little cart. Three generals, French, American, and English
were looking at it, and we saw them being introduced to each other in
front of it. We were not allowed very near. It is a mess, just a mass
of metal scaffolding and two huge tanks. We saw it huddled up in the
middle of a ploughed field, and over it, the tender, delicately tinted
sunset, the crescent moon, and one star.
[Illustration: MOTOR OF ZEPPELIN AT BOURBONNE]
Before going to see the Zeppelin, we lunched at the Préfecture.
The Préfet, Monsieur Mirman, and his wife are extremely nice and
have five daughters and a little boy of ten. While we were there the
message came that a second Zepp had been brought down, and to-night we
hear that the third and also the fourth are down, somewhere along the
line. The one we saw got so near to Germany that if the men had known
where they were, and the wind had been right, they could have jumped
in parachutes and landed behind the German lines. I’m glad that these
Zeppelins will molest the world no more:--aren’t you?
At Monsieur Mirman’s we met a French officer, a Commandant of
Chasseurs, big, lithe, and gray, with fitness written all over him.
He had on a Croix de Guerre with two palms, a silver star, and also
the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. We heard later that before the
war he was governor of one of the French colonies. His wife was very
charming and cultured, and learned Arabic so that she could help him,
and he worshiped her and never did anything without her. When the war
broke out he was recalled, so they came back to France. Just before the
attack at the Aisne, he received word from her that she was dying, but
that he was not to come to her if France needed him more than she. He
couldn’t leave, so he had to send back word that France did need him,
and he never saw her again. He would not let his soldiers be told,
lest their sympathy for him should lessen the spirit they needed for
the attack, and never once did he let his personal sorrow be seen. His
soldiers adore him and will follow him anywhere. The Préfet told us
that, before this attack in the Battle of the Aisne, he jumped on the
parapet, and while the Germans were shooting at him and miraculously
missing him, he made a speech to his men, ending “Follow me!” Then he
led them to the attack and won.
The Commandant, in speaking of the American Ambulance men, said he
thought they must be brave men to endure constantly seeing such awful
sights, that he could not bear it. He hardly ever saw the dead and
wounded, as they fell behind him.
He seemed very fond of the Préfet’s little girl aged three, and made
her toy cat and dog have a fight on the Salon floor, greatly to her
funny little bubbling joy.
I inclose the Roll of Honor with his citation on the back, which was
given to me by the aumonier the other day, when he came in to thank us
for our gifts. The aumonier is a fine little man with a black beard
and looked so funny in his chasseur’s cap and coat over his priest’s
skirts. When he gave it to me he said: “Mademoiselle, you do not know
the names, but they are among the bravest and most glorious of France.”
Now I must go out. We are going to Pont-à-Mousson this afternoon with
Monsieur Martin. He is the most delightfully genial and informal
person, with a tremendous amount of nerve, totally unconscious of
himself, and with a keen sense of humor. He always has a twinkle in his
eye and a little joke, no matter what happens.
When the bombing goes on, he has to receive the telephone messages that
tell where the bomb has hit, etc., also he has to go out to see what
harm has been done, and help the people hurt. One day Mrs. Dawson was
in his office on business when a raid began. She said that Monsieur
Martin was as calm as ever, and had his little joke with the telephone
girl in the cellar, calling down: “Poor child, are the mice very
terrifying down there?” and all the while the Germans were bombing away
from above for all they were worth!
He now adds to his duties by helping every American soldier find his
way, though he works in his office till midnight nearly every evening.
He always takes us about to see things, and in fact has adopted us.
Every night he comes in with the communiqué and after a bombing he
comes to reassure us, and tell us what has been done. In fact, I think
he considers that we are quite helpless without him. Last night we
played “It” with him, and “I have a Cat” and he loved both the games.
Nancy, November 4, 1917.
We have been to three postes to take supplies, and you can have no idea
how marvelous it is. The best troops of France are here, Chasseurs and
Zouaves, all the very finest of men and officers. I’ll have to tell you
about them one by one.
[Illustration: REMAINS OF A “TAUBE” AT CHAMPENOUX]
First we went to see the Chasseur Commandant I told you about, whom we
met last week at the Préfet’s. We sloshed through mud and water with
our supplies, taking detours on the hills, as the valley was flooded,
till we got to the little town where his battalion is billeted. It
was mostly mud and manure heaps, but out from a very rickety, though
charming, old house came the Commandant gay as ever, and neat as a pin,
with his officers the same. The men were all neat too, and swarming
about the town. One wonders how they could keep so clean. In a field
near by some of them were playing soccer, and you should have seen the
fountains of water that spurted up when they ran.
After we had given the doctor our supplies the Commandant asked us
to tea, and we went into the house. In peace times it must have been
quite lovely but now it is bare, except for a crocodile skin hanging on
one door, and a bunch of mistletoe from Christmas 1913 over the huge
table. The owner of the house is still living there, a little fat,
black-bearded man, dressed in corduroy with a huge black bow-tie at his
neck. He was a graduate of the Beaux Arts, had traveled much, and two
years before the war had bought his old house, and was about to settle
down there for the rest of his days. He’s there, but one could hardly
say settled, with officers billeted in every available corner.
Some of the young officers came in and we had a merry time. One of
the sous-lieutenants, fat and forty, kept us all in gales of laughter.
He had lived in Paris and one could see was a man of the world. His
superior officer told us that he was hard to keep in his place,
“though, of course, with only two stripes, he should stay in the
background.” This was said with a twinkle at the sous-lieutenant, who
immediately replied, “Que voulez-vous--I am indispensable--the maid
of all work, you know.” At this they all roared, he having previously
conjured up from somewhere the mixture of tin cups, plates, china
cups, glasses, and cracked coffee pot, which is the invariable tea
service at the front. But you should have seen the cake! The cook had
been a Paris chef and it was a creation of cream frosting ingeniously
and wonderfully arranged to cover all the cracks in the platter! The
officers and doctors joked about everything except Italy, where they
were all keen to go. They told us that on All Saints’ Day they had
asked the Italians near here to dine with them, but the Italians had
sent word that they were feeling too deeply for their fellow soldiers
in Italy, and too sad, and could not be gay, so they would not come.
The Chasseurs said they understood and were very sorry for the poor
fellows.
The Captain in this camp, young, slender, and blushing, graduated from
St. Cyr in 1914, and was one of the few who came through the famous
charge they made in their white gloves and plumes.
After we had bidden them good-bye, we went on to the next poste, this
time in a tiny farmhouse on the bank of the river where we were met by
Commandant V. You never saw such mud. The whole town had been flooded
the day before. On the way we were stopped by some Chasseurs; we
wondered why. They crowded around, said to us:--“The Americans are very
nice,” and then, suddenly overcome by their own boldness, evaporated.
Mademoiselle Mirman was also there and had brought with her an old
friend of the Préfet and of the Commandant V., a simple poilu, and the
two soldiers were the light and life of the party. It was the last day
that the poilu could come to see his friend the Commandant, because he
said, “I am being demobilized, I am too old. It is very hard, but I
must go back to civilian life now.”
I must tell you about Commandant V. who has a very strong and rugged
face. Before the Battle of Verdun, his colonel told him to hold a
certain place and said good-bye to him, never expecting to see him
again. V. held the place until every man was killed, and he himself
wounded in three places. Then he fainted. When he came to, a German
was standing over him saying that he was dead, so he lay still and
listened to all around him. When night came, he crawled away until he
heard French spoken in a shellhole. He got to the hole, and told the
men who he was. They refused to believe him, and told him that he had
been killed that morning! Then he asked to be taken to the colonel who
recognized him. He told the colonel that he must attack at once, and
win back the place where he had been, as the Germans were disorganized
there, but the colonel said he could not. V. said, “If I lead the
attack, will you order it?” So he led the attack, wounded as he was,
and won back the ground they had lost in the morning.
When we went away the two men gave each other the accolade (the kiss on
both cheeks) before they said good-bye,--one a poilu and the other a
major.
At the third poste to which we went another day, the village where the
troops were billeted was chiefly mud, manure, and pigs. A few scraggly
chickens, children, and old people hang around the doorways of what
houses are still whole. You can’t imagine a more desolate or dreary
place, and so near the front there is nothing whatever to do, not even
the warmth of a fire to sit by, and raw cold outside and in.
It is typical, and the kind of place our soldiers are going to be
billeted in all winter, and are in now. The men sleep in cow barns,
lofts, in fact anywhere at all that is comparatively dry and offers
space enough for them to lie on the straw-covered floor. The place is
often pitch dark, and heated usually by a smelly lantern, which gives
both heat and light, and it is aired only by strong drafts. If our men
don’t write home as often as their families think they should, I can
understand why, as there is no place for writing.
The officers’ quarters are sometimes much better, like those I
described at the other postes, but in this place though they had rooms
in a house, they were dark and damp, and their neat, little, rickety
cots were jammed in as close together as the room would allow. There
was no place to sit and read or write, unless the room in another
building, where we lunched with them, could be used for that. At best,
though, it was desolate.
In taking supplies, we get to know doctors and officers in a very
pleasant, friendly way. They are always charming, and always glad to
see us,--really glad. I think the combination of our being Americans,
bringing supplies as soon as they are asked for, and bringing them
ourselves, thus breaking the monotony of their lives a little, means a
great deal to them. It certainly does to us.
Nancy, November 10, 1917.
The roads now are infested by camions taking our troops to the front
in hundreds. The men stay from five to ten days and then are replaced
by others. The other day I rescued five United States cooks, who were
lost from their regiment on its way to the front, and restored them
to their convoy. The next day, coming over the same road, I saw a car
stopped and surrounded by soldiers, -- “more cooks,” I thought. So in
my rattling and muddy Ford, with the wash bouncing around like a huge
white balloon behind, I slowed up, at the same time calling out, “Are
you broken down; can I help?”
Imagine my horror when a _general_ came forward and saluted me. He
said, “No, we aren’t broken down, but we are in trouble. The trouble
with us is, we haven’t had the pleasure of speaking to an American
lady for a long time, so I am delighted that you have stopped and
given me that pleasure and opportunity.” Wasn’t that nice of him?
Of course I had to stop and talk for a few minutes then. He was a
Brigadier-General and had been in the army thirty-seven years. He came
from Texas originally, but his last residence was near Boston and I
think his family live there now.
After a while, I said good-bye, but that wasn’t all. No sooner had
I got to Nancy than the General’s car drove up to our dépôt with an
invitation for me and Mrs. Dawson to lunch with him. Well, we went, and
he was as nice as could be, with the most courteous manners. He talked
about everything under the sun, and when he spoke about home, he asked
me if I didn’t get homesick sometimes. He is straight and thin, and
soldierly, with very blue eyes.
I suppose you read in the communiqué that twelve of our men were taken
prisoners and three were killed and two wounded. Some one told us that
the Germans came two hundred strong in the night and got them. They
make a kind of scoop of themselves behind a barrage and swing out
from their trenches. The German prisoner, captured by the Americans,
was nearly stripped of his clothes for souvenirs, and when they were
amputating his arm, he bravely asked if they wanted that, too!
I must close now and go to bed, as it is getting both late and cold.
The guns are very loud to-night, and have been going all day.
Nancy, Nov. 16th, 1917.
Work has been somewhat slack while things are getting settled in Paris.
We get differing accounts from passing Americans who come to our dépôt
because we are the only American women they have seen since landing.
They have lived in mud for months and are very homesick. But most of
them agree that the U. S. Army won’t be an important factor before
June at the earliest, because they can’t be trained before then. There
is a lot of pneumonia among those that are here, on account of poor
equipment. This we hear from one side, from another we hear that they
have all they want and are very well off.
The Red Cross also seems to have been in a state of upheaval, but that
is straightening out. I suppose that one should look at these things
from a proper perspective, that really they are going all right, and
are being organized wonderfully from some head who has an ultimate plan.
The soldiers are pouring in now, and I suppose you, at home, see the
progress they have made more than we can here.
Some of the people we have seen are afraid that we won’t come up to
the scratch in time, and that the French are banking too much on us.
Perhaps that is greenness, though, and shows a sense of responsibility
that is good for them, being judiciously instilled by their superiors.
Anyway, I can’t help thinking they’ll come out all right in the end,
since, for one thing, the French think they are fine soldiers, and that
is a tremendous compliment.
Did I tell you about the American soldier, Clarence Morton, in the
hospital here? He has a mastoid ear, so they left him here. He says
he almost got to the front but his ear “got hurting so I had to stop,
because I couldn’t hide I had an earache when the abscess burst.” His
one idea now is to get back to his battery. He’s the right stuff.
He keeps his belongings in a towel; they consist of a bullet from his
gun and newspaper clippings about the U. S. Army, especially about the
Artillery. He seats us in a row when we go to see him, and talks away
with the greatest joy. He remarks every time that he’s “a great reader,
yes Ma’am”; and he certainly is. He reads the papers that the American
dentist here brings him, from beginning to end, and it is quite a
job to keep him supplied with books. When we come into the ward, he
is flat on his back or draped around a chair, perfectly oblivious of
the outside world. Then one of the near-by poilus punches him, which
sometimes has to be done twice, before he is aware of our arrival.
The Sister says that he is always smiling, and when we told him that
the Sister said he seemed happy, he said: “Yes Ma’am, I like to be
seeming happy.”
Grand Hotel, Place Stanislas,
Nancy, November 25, 1917.
Last Sunday, we all took a drive, and landed at an aviation camp near
here. It is half British, half French. They took us about and showed us
the machines, which were most interesting. Those for night work were
painted black and dark brown, those for day flying, every color under
the shining heavens that the aviator wanted. On the exhaust pipes of
each French plane were little iron crosses painted, to show how many
Boches he’d brought down. They were perfectly beautiful to look at and
every one was distinctly individual, no two were exactly alike, even of
the same kind. They had little mascots in them, rag dolls, or anything
else that the aviator fancied. They nearly always take a little
week-end suitcase along, in case they have to make a forced landing
somewhere.
Week before last, four of them had to land in Germany. They burnt their
machines, and they are loose about the country there now, with 125
marks on their heads as reward for whoever captures them. They rather
think they’ll get back all right though, as they aren’t far from the
lines and are in a quiet sector. They let me climb into one machine
and showed me how it worked. Now I’d give anything to fly; you have no
idea the thrilling sensation you have, all nicely and compactly tucked
in with a wireless and everything convenient to steer you through
the clouds and air. Also, of course, they showed us their bombs and
bomb-dropping arrangements. They have some perfectly huge machines
that came across from England. Afterwards we had tea with them, and
they talked about a lot of things, once about an air-man, mechanic and
observer, who flew from England to Constantinople and dropped bombs on
the Goeben when it was there. Then he flew back to England.
The English aviators seem to be a very fine type of man, and nearly
all Oxford and Cambridge men, in fact England’s choicest. More of the
French belong to the adventurer class, which of course means every
kind. Some of the English aviators are perfect dears, and such infants
that you expect their voices to crack if they become excited talking.
I imagine they are just out of school; in fact one or two have almost
downy faces!
The French Commandant had an abri built for his men to get into when
the Boche came to pay his respects. He is also very fond of vegetables,
so he told the men to make a vegetable garden on top. Then as none
of the aviators, of course, ever dreamed of taking to the abri, they
stored the vegetables (légumes) in it. A sign is now over the door
“Abri des Gros Légumes.” “Gros Légumes” is slang for officers. The
soldiers put it up and the Commandant shows it to every one with
laughter and pride.
Speaking about aviators, I must tell you about an American, who has
been here lately. When the war broke out he was at college, but he
couldn’t stand it, so with some other men he eloped across the border,
and joined the Canadian army in 1915. His family disapproved, but he
went to France as a Tommy just the same, and was in all the fighting
from then on. After about two years he was wounded and discharged,
but, as soon as he was well enough, he tried to enlist in our army
and was refused on account of physical disability. Then he got work
for the Red Cross and came to France again, and helped with the poor
children. Their pitiable condition appealed to his sympathy and I used
to find him smuggling caps and mufflers on to them to keep them warm!
Nevertheless, as he saw our troops going to the front, day by day, it
got on his nerves, and he went to the French recruiting officer, and
succeeded in getting accepted in the French aviation corps. He tells
me that he entered the Canadian army for adventure, but is going now
as a duty. He says he knows he can’t last long, and I think he can’t,
for he looks very frail, but what can you say about such spirit? He
has written some poetry which has been published. If I see him again I
will try to get hold of it, but I don’t know where he is now. He used
to bring tobacco and books to Clarence Morton, the American soldier in
the hospital here whom I wrote you about, though he had nothing but his
Red Cross salary, which is now stopped. When he went away he left all
his books with us for any American soldiers who happened to be sick
here. The books were mostly poetry, including Kipling’s, also a few
magazines, the “First Hundred Thousand” and “Fortitude.”
Nancy, November 25, 1917.
Last Friday, Mrs. Dawson and Miss Mitchell went to lunch at one of the
American hospitals in this region, but I couldn’t go with them, as I
was driving Dr. Alice Brown’s dispensary car with Commandant V.
At the luncheon was a French corporal, who had just escaped from
Germany, having been a prisoner there for twenty-two months. He had
been moved from prison camp to prison camp,--“pas trop mal,” but
eventually they wanted him to work in a munition factory, which he
refused. For punishment, they made him stand at attention for thirteen
hours, with his face to the wall and a German with a bayonet behind him
to prick him if he relaxed. At the end of that time he was taken out
to a farm, with another prisoner, where an awful old man and woman put
them in the dirtiest place they could for the night. In the morning
they were told to hoe beets. They said they didn’t know how, but were
told, just the same, that they must, so they spoiled all the beets.
In the afternoon, the same performance with potatoes. Then they were
put in a reprisal camp, and fed on bread and water only. Finally they
decided that they might as well die in trying to escape as die there.
The barbed wire inclosing the camp was made somewhat like a picket
fence, and how they got through it they hardly know, but one night they
climbed it and in their prison clothes started to walk to Holland. They
had twenty-four squares of chocolate and fifty biscuits that they had
obtained somehow, and in order to make the biscuits last they dared
only suck them. They traveled only at night, swimming the rivers. On
the way they met only three persons, an old woman cutting grass,
which she was stealing in the middle of the night for her cow, and two
Russian prisoners, also escaping. They compared improvised maps with
the Russians, consulted their compass which they had mounted on a pin
(the box part having been spoiled, when they were swimming a river),
and shook hands with them and wished them good luck. Eventually they
grew so weak that they decided they would have to give themselves up,
so one day at dawn they spoke to a peasant. They asked him where they
were, and imagine their joy when they found they were in Holland!
The peasant took them to his house, and his wife cooked a meal for
them, which made them weep, but when it was before them, they could
not eat a mouthful. However, the peasant woman nursed them and gave
them clothes, and they were able to reach France. Now they are told
that they need not fight any more, but they have rejoined their old
regiment, under different names, and are back fighting the Boches.
* * * * *
For the last four days I have been driving Dr. Alice Brown, of Winetka,
Ill., on her rounds of dispensary work. She visits six towns, each
twice a week, to look after the women and children, who have had no
medical care since the war. Dr. Brown doesn’t speak a word of French,
but she is so gentle and sweet with the people that they have absolute
trust in her, and no matter how much she hurts them, in treating
infected fingers, pricking boils etc., they always thank her, sometimes
with tears in their eyes.
As helpers she has a trained nurse and Madame Delabeck, a Belgian, who
has a coiffeur establishment in Winetka. Madame Delabeck is a wonder,
and knows just how to explain to the people what they must do to cure
themselves, and knows too just when to laugh, and when to sympathize
with their ailments.
In the dispensary we have happenings from the tragic to the ridiculous
every day; for instance, at the end of the day, the nurse is cleaning
a child’s head with strong antiseptic, Madame Delabeck is tactfully
telling a mother that she must wash her baby, while I flash the pocket
flash light (no other light being allowed on account of the nearness of
the Boche) down a small boy’s throat for Dr. Brown, at the same time
coaxing him to put out his tongue--“tire la langue, mon petit.” His
proud mamma stands by, blandly smiling at her prodigy’s tongue prowess.
All of a sudden Dr. Brown sees four small boys in the background, who,
not wishing to be outdone, stick out their tongues, while one of them
is about to cast her only thermometer on the floor! Consternation,
but helplessness on her part because she can’t speak French. Finally,
however, the thermometer is rescued, the right tongue is waving in the
air, the others restored to their proper places and the consultation
continues.
I wish I could keep on with this work as it is the kind I like best.
The sickness among the people here is due mostly to two things:--nerves
from being constantly bombed and living in cellars, and bad
nourishment. Nearly every child that comes in is suffering from the
food, and many of the grown people too.
The war bread here is very bad, and has made a good many people ill,
including myself, and we ourselves have had practically to give up
eating it.
The children have a fearful amount of impetigo and scabies, they nearly
all have worms, due, Dr. Brown thinks, to the bad lard; pink-eye and
bad colds are ever present, and in one place they have mumps. The grown
people suffer more from nerves, which affect the digestion, and give
them headaches and bad eyes.
The husbands of many of these women have been killed or wounded; the
women have to go out to work, and leave their once tidy homes neglected
and dirty.
All of these towns, except one, contain factories where the women are
employed and which are constantly bombed.
Imagine the strain of working from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M.,--knowing that the
blast furnaces light up the sky for miles around, hearing the alarm
for an air raid go off, keeping on working, though you know that the
enemy is coming for you,--then on top of that having your husband at
war, and your children, sometimes little ones, running the streets all
day with no lunch except a piece of war bread and a bit of chocolate
because there isn’t time to go home and cook for them. That is how they
have lived for the last three years. Do you wonder that they sometimes
come to us and say: “I don’t know what the matter is, but I seem to
feel tired all the time.” Yet these women are the very ones who want to
fight the war until there is a deciding victory for France, and I have
never heard them complaining of their hardships. Sometimes they sigh
and comment on the length of the war,--all are weary of it--but usually
they say: “We shall hold out to the very end.” They have absolute faith
and trust in us and in the English, of whom they say: “Ils ne lâcheront
jamais” (“they will never let go”). They wait for hours to see “la
doctoresse Américaine” and so many flock to her that we have to turn
some away. The very fact that we are helping the civilians makes them
think that we must have immense resources ready at hand. We are the
only Americans they have seen, and they are so grateful and eager that
it is pathetic to see them and almost frightening to realize the faith
they have in us to end the war, and start them on a normal existence
again. I pray we may not fail them when they need us most!
Nancy, December 15, 1917.
On Thanksgiving we were all invited to dine at the hospital at Toul at
6.30, so at 6 we started off in the motor, taking Monsieur Martin with
us. He was delighted, of course, because he had never heard of such a
thing as Thanksgiving before.
As no turkey can be procured, we had to take with us a huge and piping
hot goose in a covered dish. Miss Mitchell and Miss de Schweinitz
sat in front, Monsieur Martin and I in the back and Monsieur Martin
held the goose, and he thought it so nice and informally American.
Well, we went along, balancing the goose and chatting, and were
nearly there, when--pop! went a tire! We had none pumped up to change
with, so we had to put in a new inner tube, which is a fearful job on
the big Overland tires. In fact we worked away about half an hour,
and didn’t accomplish much, Monsieur Martin hopping about on the
outskirts, jacking up the car, and holding the lanterns and saying
how “malheureux” it was that he didn’t know anything about a car. We
all got quite weak from laughing. Meanwhile, of course, the goose was
getting chilled all alone in its glory on the back seat. After a while
we heard a motor coming with two men in it, so we stopped it, and asked
if they would help us. They said they would be delighted to if we could
lend them some gasolene, for they had a leak in their gasolene tank and
otherwise couldn’t get to Nancy if they stopped! Luckily we had some.
They tried and tried for about another hour, while the goose congealed,
and they couldn’t do it. Then along came a camion. They tried for half
an hour more and at last got the tire on.
All this time no one got in the least impatient or angry as Americans
probably would have done. They said the tire was marvelous, it must
have some “trick” to it, so that really it worked very easily,--if only
you knew how. It _must_ be practical, because it was American, and
everything American was practical. At last they got it changed, and we
went on our way with a stone-cold goose, two hours late!
When we got to the hospital, dinner was half finished. They had waited
an hour for us. The Staff of the Toul Hospital was there, some English
and Irish aviators who had been asked over, and five American aviators
who had heard there was a place where you could get a Thanksgiving
dinner for twenty-five cents, so they had turned up! They had to go
immediately after dinner but the English and Irish stayed on. There was
one fascinator among them,--an Irish Captain with red face and hair,
and white eyebrows, but most beautifully made and graceful.
After dinner we played “Going to Jerusalem” and “Winkum” and danced a
Virginia reel. You should have seen the Irishman! We were all weakly
collapsed about the room from laughing. It was a queer gathering, two
women dentists, French, English, and American nurses and doctors,
aviators, and ourselves. We shan’t see the Irish Captain again for he
is going home on leave for five months. Perhaps that is why he was so
joyous for he hadn’t had any leave since the War began. When it was all
over Monsieur Martin remarked: “Eh bien!--I have found that the English
are not so cold as I thought.”
Well, we got happily home, and the next day I took Dr. Brown to a poste
near the front. Did I tell you that we were given gas masks and told to
bring them every time we went there?
Many houses in these bombarded towns look only partially demolished on
the outside, but often inside there is nothing left. Sometimes half the
house or the upper story is gone, and people are still living in the
rooms below.
In one, we found an old couple who are still running their bakery
in the downstairs rooms, and there is literally no upstairs at all.
Six shells have hit the house. When we said that we thought them
courageous, they said, “Que voulez-vous? We are not rich and we must
stay, we don’t want to be refugees.”
At another house was a little “pâtisserie.” We went in and had tea and
the woman was so pleased to have us that, instead of letting herself
be paid, she gave us a huge bunch of roses. Though most of the houses
are smashed, and grass is growing in the streets, and the population is
reduced to a few, those that stay are brave and cheerful, and have the
finest spirit of comradeship that you can imagine.
The other day, when we were at work at this poste, the Boche started
a cannonading outside the town. We could see the shells hit with a
flash, and their smoke. The people said: “What is the matter with them
to-day?” and went on about their affairs as if nothing extraordinary
were happening. Most of the people live in their cellars, and don’t go
out walking much in the open, and carry their gas masks.
They overwhelm us with hospitality and kindnesses. For instance, when
we arrive, Mlle. Marie, a little apple-faced woman, runs to her house
where she gets a huge pot of steaming hot chocolate and some crackers
to warm us after the drive from Nancy. She does it every time we come.
Another day when I came, my face was very cold from the wind. A young
girl (who is an artist, and now paints sunset scenes on burst shell
casings!), immediately sat down and made me a fur collar out of the
skins of some rabbits that another young girl had raised herself.
Another time, a whole band of forty pieces was ordered out to give a
concert to the four of us, Dr. Brown, Mme. Delabeck, the trained nurse,
and myself. The band is one that belongs to an attacking regiment, and
is now “en repos.” The men are stretcher bearers when in action. One of
the men had lived in Chicago, and spoke excellent English. They played
beautiful music, and one man gave some songs from Carmen to a low
accompaniment. While the band was playing softly the Germans suddenly
turned their guns our way and some shells went over us. The band went
right on, perfectly unconcerned, and ended in a burst of martial music.
When it was over the bandmaster explained that the Germans could
hear us and had probably sent those shells over to see if they could
“déranger la musique.”
Dr. Brown is given all kinds of presents, flowers, baskets of apples,
just like a country minister at home. This is certainly inspiring work,
and especially so as it is reconstructive. There is a feeling of real
neighborliness that I might almost say isn’t to be found anywhere else
in the world. You can’t possibly imagine a more cheerful and helpful
foundation for work.
One day while Dr. Brown was giving her treatments she did not need Miss
Mitchell and me, so we took a walk with one of the officials. We went
along a road and were told to be very careful about walking in line
because the Boche had shelled the road at that time the day before. I
took a picture from a house near by, and I had to take it from between
the shutters, because if the Boche had seen the open window, he would
have “donné un coup de canon.” Then we went out to a Poste Avancée very
near the German lines. In fact we went to within two hundred yards of
them. We could hear torpedoes and some rifles went off, which caused
the soldiers by the wayside to peer cautiously through the burlap
camouflage with which the road is lined everywhere. At the Poste
Avancée they were in need of bandages, so we brought them some the next
day. When we came out from the Poste we had to speak low so that the
enemy shouldn’t hear us, and Miss Mitchell had to hide her red scarf.
We also went to a slope from which you can see the Boche trenches
wonderfully, they are not at all far away,--in fact right there.
[Illustration: POSTE DE SECOURS]
Every one asks us for flags, from the Commandant of the famous Chasseur
Regiment of the region, to the Sisters who want to show them to the
children in the little schools that still keep up.
Things look about as black as they can now, don’t they? It looks as if
only a miracle could save the East from the grip of Germany, yet they
_must_ be beaten, so I imagine the war will go on and on. But if people
at home have the courage of those here, we can’t help winning in the
end. Does France seem so far away to Americans that they won’t be able
to see _why_ Germany has to be beaten?
Speaking of atrocities, I saw a woman yesterday, who herself saw her
neighbor’s child of three killed in its mother’s arms, when the Germans
were there early in the war. We took her own child over to the hospital
here because its arm had become so bad from a wound given by a German
at that time, that it had to be amputated.
We went one day to Bois-le-Prêtre to see the famous fountain where,
even during the hardest fighting early in the war, the French and
Germans both went for water. It now belongs to the French, though
it isn’t far from the German lines. While we were there some shells
whistled overhead, and dropped in the woods, smashing the trees, and
some torpedoes went off farther away. We had tea, consisting of cakes
and champagne, in an abri with the Commandant and some of his officers,
and visited some trenches, but not front line ones.
When we were walking through the woods in a perfect tangle of barbed
wire and trenches, we came to a kind of furrow in the ground. The
Commandant pointed to it and said to me that it was the second line of
defense. If they had to retreat, they would go as far as that. Like a
fool, I said: “But suppose you have to go farther, where do you go?”
He made me a low and gracious bow and said: “Mademoiselle, we go no
farther, we die.”
Paris, December 27, 1917.
I am here for a week in Uncle Owen’s apartment, before starting with
Mrs. Lee for the Chambéry dépôt day after to-morrow. Uncle Owen and
Marie have just gone south for the winter, and isn’t it dear of them to
let me stay on here with the maids?
The day before Christmas was full, and spent in taking bags to
hospitals. In the evening I went to the same canteen as last year,
and the same things were done again, until just before the end, when
all of Boston somehow appeared, and we sang Christmas carols, led by
Dr. Cabot! I saw Nora Saltonstall and Hannah Fiske, who said she was
so glad to get here where she could get something to eat. Also Miss
Curtis and Hilda Williams were there and Griette, who looked well but
tired. It was nice to get a glimpse of them all for every one is so
busy that it is practically impossible to see people except by the most
tremendous effort, and every one is always out except in the evening,
when it is impossible to get about.
On Christmas afternoon I went to Mrs. N.’s to a party of stray
Americans. It was so nice and Christmas-y, with a tiny tree in the
corner for the babies. We had tea and cakes, and Garneau had sent some
sugar from the front for the party, but unfortunately he had sent it
in a tobacco tin, and it tasted of the tobacco, greatly to Mrs. N.’s
distress, so she used up _all_ her own allowance for the party, and
expects to use the tobacco-flavored sugar for the next month, herself.
Then in the evening, I asked Marie’s family to dine with me, and we had
a very nice time, so that’s how Christmas passed, but all the time I
was longing to be at home with you.