who kill all the wounded and the odd prisoners, it being impractical for
a charging line to attempt to hold a few captives. Also another factor
which makes this treatment of prisoners necessary, and which the Allies
have learned by experience, is that unguarded men, once the first wave
has passed over them, will take out a machine gun and catch the
advancing troops between two fires. This happened a number of times
before the simple expedient was adopted of requesting the prisoners to
go down into an _abri_ where they would be “safer,” and then tossing in
two or three grenades which kill and bury them at the same time.
Of course the Boche was not idle in the meanwhile, and kept up a hail of
fire from behind A—— Wood and Dead Man’s Hill, which did not fall until
two days later, and we had the benefit of this back on the roads as we
tore from the relay station to the _poste_, to the hospital, and back
again, trying to take care of as many as we could of the countless
wounded from the attack who were being brought in. French soldiers who
had been in the war since 1914 said that they had never seen such fire.
This run and the work through this attack were the most interesting of
the experiences I had in the zone. We worked day and night, sleeping and
eating at odd moments and with long intervals between, ceasing only when
twelve of our cars had gone _en panne_, and half that number of drivers
were in the hospital suffering from the new mustard gas which was
showered on us in gas shells. We were tired indeed when relieved for a
short period _en repos_.
[Illustration: TAKING A LOAD FROM THE ABRI
COPYRIGHT—INTERNATIONAL FILM SERVICE CO., INC.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
V
L’ENVOI
AN American army is in France. Old Glory is proudly floating above an
armed host which has come to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Allies,
and do battle to prove that Right makes Might. We read in the papers of
the ovations the troops receive, of the reviews, the presentations, the
compliments, and the training, and our hearts beat proudly because we
too are Americans. We are non-combatants, to be sure, and are members
not of the American army but of the French; yet, we are serving in the
same cause, and, we hope, doing our bit towards the final victory.
We know that sooner or later the entire American Field Service is to be
absorbed by the American army, but as to when this is to come, and in
what manner, we are ignorant. We debate often now about these things,
and wonder what effect the change is to have on us and on the section.
Pessimist has picked up a rumor somewhere that we are to be turned out
in a body, and that drivers who have been training at Allentown are to
take our places. Cheerful Liar informs us that we are all to be made
first lieutenants, and that the section is to serve with the American
troops. “Napoleon” thinks that we are to be discharged, and that French
drivers who “know their business” are to take our places. Some one else
says that we are all to be put in the trenches. No one knows anything
definite, and the _chef_ and _sous-chefs_ are besieged for information
which they have not. The Assistant Inspector comes out to us and we know
little more. American officers encountered in Bar-le-Duc can give us no
information, and rumors, most of them originating in the section,
contradict each other.
One evening a large Pierce Arrow pulls up beside our cars, parked in a
walnut grove. Three American medical officers step out with clanking
spurs, and we are all attention. The _chef_ is called and we assemble.
The officer in command makes a short speech. The section is to be taken
over, he says, and those who remain must enlist as privates in the
American army for the duration of the war. These men, having signed up,
are then at the disposal of the Army, but will probably be kept in the
Ambulance Service. The new officers are to be an American lieutenant,
who will be our present _chef_, two sergeants, and a corporal. The
section is to continue to serve with the French army, but may be
transferred to the new American front.
We form small circles and discuss the situation. All the freedom and
romance are gone, but many are going to stay. The rest have chosen
aviation or artillery, and one or two may return home. The old volunteer
Ambulance Service is dead, but the days we have lived with it are
golden, and nothing can ever take them away from us, or bring them back
again.
There is a little lump in each man’s throat as he turns in tonight, but
from now on we serve America, and any sacrifice is worth that. And for
the rest—“_C’est la guerre._”
* * * * *
THE participation of the United States in this war marks the time of
this country’s coming of age, and the real beginning of its work as one
of the great world powers. Up to the War of the Revolution the thirteen
colonies had more than enough on their hands in managing their own
affairs. In the throes of that war the country was born, and slowly
grew, feeling its increasing power which was never quite secure until
the Civil War was at an end. Then, year by year, reaching out over the
two continents of America, guiding and helping our weaker brothers in
their affairs, gave us a foundation of courage and experience in the
adolescent period before we were ready to stand forth staunch in our
beliefs and secure in our power to uphold them. That that time has come,
and that the Old World, throwing down the gauntlet to the New, has found
it unexpectedly ready, is shown by the presence of the Stars and Stripes
on the battlefields of France. The mask of our isolation by the ocean,
that time-worn excuse, has been rudely torn aside by modern inventions,
and the affairs of Europe have become by their intimacy our own. In
mingling with them as we were forced to do, one side was bound to
transgress sooner or later—Germany did. And when Germany transgressed,
America stepped across the bridge from youth to manhood, and picking up
the iron gauntlet proceeded to settle the question by force of arms,—the
one indisputable argument.
This war is to make Democracy secure only in that it is the continual
struggle between the new and the old, a struggle whose issue is certain
before the start—civilization moves to the west.
America is the vanguard of the European civilization moving westward. It
has taken the sum of the civilizations of the earth to bridge the chasm
of the Atlantic. America is the last section of the circle of the world,
which completed, civilization moves back to its starting place. Power
increases with civilization and, with each step civilization has taken,
the conquests have been proportionate. Each has tried world conquest and
failed, but each has come nearer and each time the world has been nearer
ready to receive it. The present war is the attempt of a representative
of the civilization of Europe to control the earth, and proving _per se_
its unfitness to do so.
Consequently, the relation of America to the War is that she is coming
of age, and is at last ready to take her place among the great nations
of the world as a power that can never again be disregarded, a mighty
guardian of the Right.
* * * * *
AMERICA has been aptly called the Melting Pot. Since 1620, when the
Pilgrims established their permanent colony at Plymouth, people from the
Old World have been flocking to this country and becoming “Americans.”
Every country of the globe has sent its representatives—each a different
metal to be merged with the others until the American should be as
distinct a type as the Englishman or Frenchman. At first there was
natural discord—each was a different metal in the melting pot, but as
there was no heat, no fire, they could not amalgamate. Then came the
first blast of national fire—the Revolution, and in that, the first
great struggle for Liberty, was moulded from the composite alloys—the
American. The American as he came from the mould of the Revolution was
the foundation on which the country rests, and although the descendants
of those Americans are too few in number now to be more than a flux for
the steady stream of metal as it pours from the pot, they can at least
preserve the standard that their forebears passed down to them as the
Golden Heritage, and be examples to these new and untried metals.
In the War of 1812 and in the Civil War the new metals were amalgamated
and tempered with the old, but since 1864 there has been no fire hot
enough to mould together the millions who have sought the United States
as a home. There has been no sword over our heads. There has been no
great impending disaster, no danger to the country as a whole of great
loss of life or property, and our Liberty and our Honor have not been at
stake as they are today.
So it is now in this fierce blast from Hell’s furnace, the Great War,
that the National fire is rekindled and each metal is slowly sinking its
own individuality into the common form carefully stirred by the hand of
the Almighty, and in the white heat, as the pure metal is tempered until
it rings true and measures to the old standard, the slag is cast aside.
Thus is America the Melting Pot.
* * * * *
PARIS is the place where everything begins and ends. From here during
the four years of war there has been the constant departure of men bound
for the great adventure, and it is Paris that has received with open
arms the greater bulk of the _permissionnaires_ and the _réformés_. Gay,
very gay on the surface, but below the crust it is the saddest of all
places. When a man is in great agony he laughs. It is so with the great
city, and the laugh of delirium is a poor sham indeed.
The shortage of necessities has also been a damper on the city. In
Neuilly, a suburb of Paris, a man was carrying a bag of coal. A few
paces behind him a well-dressed woman was walking home. The man dropped
a piece of coal from his sack and the woman eagerly picked it up and
placed it in her gold bag.
The war hangs over all in a dismal cloud and is in the back of every
one’s mind; although it is rare to hear it mentioned it is always before
one. There is no Parisian who has not lost some one very dear to him or
her, and nineteen out of every twenty women are in deep mourning. The
social activities, therefore, are greatly curtailed, and the gay life is
left only to the people of the street, the majority of whom have been
driven to that life by the reaction of despair and sadness, and in
lonesomeness seek the only companionship that they know.
* * * * *
THE old chateau at 21, rue Raynouard, so kindly loaned to the American
Field Service for its headquarters by the Comtesse de la Villestreux, is
a place of traditions. The great Napoleon has walked here. Rousseau
wrote part of his works here, and Franklin walked in the park daily
while he was Ambassador to France.
The park is the most extensive and beautiful within the fortifications
of Paris, and contains the largest grove of chestnuts in the city. The
water in the springs on the place was famous in the seventeenth century
as the “_eaux de Passy_.”
In the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, located on the banks of the Seine,
the place breathes an atmosphere of rest and beauty and solidity,
springing from the traditions of age. The men of the American Field
Service, we who have had this place as the home to which we would return
_en permission_, can never fully express our sincere gratitude to the
Comtesse de la Villestreux and the other members of the Hottinguer
family, who so graciously extended to us, Americans, the hospitality of
their beautiful estate.
* * * * *
A DREAM of a town, hot but not oppressive under the sun of the Midi,
with quaint streets meandering through it, little blue tables set in the
sunlight and a park filled with gay-colored soldiers and drab women, was
my first impression of Bordeaux. Dilapidated _fiacres_ in tow of hungry
horses transport one from place to place, and give the newcomer his
first taste of the haggling, without which a Latin would be
disconsolate.
For all its quaintness and simplicity it is as much a “pay as you enter”
city as the rest, and even in the park should one sit upon an iron seat
instead of a wooden one there is an indemnity of two _sous_ extracted
and a further _sou_ should the seat possess arms. A damsel in black then
presents a ticket which entitles the possessor to hold down the seat as
long as he comfortably can. The military may sit free, however, if they
know it; but the new arrivals do not, and the park fund increases.
Bordeaux on my return I found to be quite Americanized. The quiet
uniforms of our soldiers were neutralizing the bright reds and blues of
our ally. The little blue tables were often covered by a khaki arm, and
many new signs proclaimed “American Bar,” those houses which had
specialized in German beers before the war having painted “American”
over the name of the Rhine country.
There is a large American hospital here completely equipped and ready to
receive and take good care of the flood that will soon be pouring in. An
American private telephone line has been built to Paris by Americans,
and with our gradual assimilation of the railway system of France we are
“carrying on” well from here.
* * * * *
THE American Ambulance, the American Field Service as it was in the old
days, is dead. The spirit of _bonne camaraderie_ and intimacy which each
member felt for the others; the time when, members of no army, we served
with the French, on equal terms with the _poilus_ in the trenches and
the officers on the staff; when, responsible to no one, we served the
cause and the god Adventure, content with the past and with no thought
for the morrow,—has passed. With the coming of army discipline and
system, with governmental organization and routine, the old days are
gone. We are sorry, selfishly, to see them go; but we cannot and would
not have it otherwise. The Ambulance Service is now proudly enrolled
under Old Glory, and is broader and greater than it ever could have been
as a volunteer organization. We rejoice that it is so, and are proud
that we have been a part of it. So, hail to the new United States Army
Ambulance Corps! The men of the Old Ambulance salute you!
* * * * *
A LITTLE group of us stands together in the darkness, with the deck
rising and falling beneath our feet. We are silent and pensive. The last
lights of Bordeaux are fading in the mist, and with them France. The
boat has been running up and down the wide harbor all day, and now in
the darkness is making a dash for the open sea, hoping to outwit the
enemy lurking in the depths.
Up there, far to the north of those lights, the great guns thunder and
the sky glimmers with star-shells. Men are fighting, and struggling, and
dying, and laughing over their _Pinard_, but it is not for us. We have
finished for a while. Of course we are coming back, but furlough is not
offered often enough to be refused lightly. We feel a queer mixture of
sadness, and happiness, and relief. The life has worked its way into our
hearts, and the call to return rings in our ears. But the relief from
the tenseness and the joy of anticipation of America and Home exceeds
all else. The wind blowing across the waves starts somewhere in America,
and we take deep breaths. Soon we shall be home, shall see our friends,
and shall lead a life of luxurious ease again for a short space of time.
We walk around the deck and then, taking out our pipes, settle down in
our steamer chairs and puff thoughtfully. All is peace and quietness
here, the spray breaking over the bow and the waves lapping against the
sides. It is hard to realize that the earth is shaking in a cataclysm
only a little north, but we know that this must be endured until the
power of Germany is destroyed—that the world may be as peaceful as is
the sea tonight.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
GLOSSARY
[_The meaning of the words as given in this Glossary is that which holds
in the army at the front and sometimes conflicts with the meaning as
given in the dictionary._]
ABRI _dug-out_
AMBULANCIER _ambulance driver_
ARGOT _slang_
ARRIVÉE _an enemy shell_
ASSIS _a wounded man able to
sit up_
BLESSÉ _wounded man_
BONNE CAMARADERIE _good-fellowship_
BONNE CHANCE _good luck_
BOYAUX _communication trench_
BRANCARDIER _stretcher-bearer_
BRIQUET _pocket lighter_
CAMION _truck_
CAMIONNETTE _small truck_
CHEF _first lieutenant_
CONDUCTEUR _ambulance driver_
CONTRE-AVION _anti-aircraft gun_
COUCHÉ _a wounded man lying
down_
CROIX DE GUERRE _war cross_
DÉPART _a shell fired towards
the enemy_
DUD _a shell which does not
explode_
ÉCLAT _shell fragment_
EN PANNE _breakdown_
EN PERMISSION _on furlough_
EN REPOS _on a rest_
ESTAMINET _café_
MAJOR _army surgeon_
MALADE _sick man_
MARÉCHAL DES LOGIS _French petty officer_
MAUVAIS TEMPS _rainy season_
MÉDAILLE MILITAIRE _military medal_
MINNIEWERFER _German trench mortar_
MORT HOMME _Dead Man’s Hill_
MUSETTE _haversack_
PELOTON _section_
PERMISSION _furlough_
PERMISSIONNAIRE _man on furlough_
PINARD _wine_
PIONNIER _a branch of the
Engineers_
POSTE DE SECOURS _front dressing station
for wounded_
RAVITAILLEMENT _provisioning_
RÉFORMÉ _soldier discharged on
account of wounds_
ROLL _to drive_
RÔTI _shell which does not
explode_
SAUCISSE _observation balloon_
SOIXANTE-QUINZE _75 mm. shell_
SOUS-CHEF _second lieutenant_
STRAF _to shell_ (literally,
_to curse_)
TIR DE BARRAGE _barrage fire_
TORPILLE _trench mortar shell_
VERBOTEN _forbidden_
VILLE HAUTE _upper city_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
End of Project Gutenberg's The White Road of Mystery, by Philip Dana Orcutt