Well, after the attack we held the first two lines of trenches. When I
went off duty after being on outpost I simply lay down in the mud and
mess of things and slept. I waked up coughing and wracking as if my
body were going to burst.
The Boches had crept over and thrown gas bombs among us. Some of the
men were too far gone to get out of it. Others had managed to get away.
A few had gas masks, and one of these put his arms under my shoulders
and dragged me with him to the rear. We all should have had our masks,
and nowadays a soldier found without his is severely punished. I had
mine then, but it was under my blanket and I couldn't get to it quickly
enough.
They stuffed something under my nose, and it hurt almost as much as the
gas, but it brought me to, and I was put in an ambulance. The body of
it was filled with wounded men, so I sat with my legs dangling over the
tailboard, propped up against a leather strap. The poor fellows inside
groaned and grunted with every bump of the crazy vehicle. The road was
pitted from shell-fire, and I had to hang on for dear life to keep from
being thrown off.
Presently the Boches began shelling the road. They were not purposely
after the ambulances. They were just shelling that road. If ambulances
were there they were likely to get hit.
I heard one coming. I knew she was headed toward us, but there was no
place to duck to. Right behind us the road seemed suddenly to bow up
like a steel band when the ends are sprung suddenly together. Then it
settled back. I was so stunned by the shock of the explosion that I
hardly felt anything else, but as the ambulance careened onward I began
to feel a pain in my thigh. I put down my hand, and when I looked at it
it was red. I had been hit.
A man lying on his back in the ambulance, with his feet beside me, had
lost more than half of one of them as a result of the same explosion.
There wasn't time to do anything for either of us. The driver went
ahead like mad and got us to a dressing station, where dozens of men
were waiting for treatment.
Some of them were serious. The surgeon looked at me and said, "You're
easy. Can't waste much time on you. Lie on that table."
I lay down on my stomach and he probed for a second, then gave a yank.
I thought he had pulled my leg out by the roots, but he thrust a pair
of pincers in front of my eyes and said, "There it is. Want it?" and he
dropped a bit of shell into my hand. I still have it.
Then a big ambulance, with seven other men in it, took me to Compiègne,
where I lay in the dining saloon of a château for a few hours and then
was sent to Paris.
The wound healed quickly and I was sent back to the trenches, but the
gas had left my lungs bad, and I couldn't stand the cold and wet. It
wasn't long before they invalided me out.
But I'm all right now, and I'm going back if they'll let me.