(Told by Edward J. Doyle, with American Army)
_The experiences and the souvenirs--such as a piece of shell shot
through an ambulance and buttons cut from the uniforms of German
prisoners--of a volunteer in the American Red Cross service are
recorded in this letter._
Sherman was right, but he knows nothing about it. I suppose by this
time you know all about the attack, and needless to say I have been
through it all. Haven't had my clothes off in over a week and my total
sleep might average about three hours a day for that time, so you can
imagine how I feel. We haven't been working all the time, but we get
shelled out of every place we try to sleep, when we get a chance, and
that's worse than working. We are quite a way to the left of where
I wrote from last. We relieved a section that could not stand the
work--that was before the attack--and you can imagine what it was
during and since the attack.
We arrived at B---- a week ago this morning and started in. That night
the Germans shelled that town, and imagine, it's about fifteen miles
from the German lines. We were alone in a barn, and when the shells
began to go over our heads and gas with it, you can see how much sleep
we had. Next morning Bud and I started out, and the car is running
rotten. The Germans are shelling the road all the way from here. This
is our first post out of R----, about three miles from B----. Don't
try to look up these towns; it's a useless task. Poste 4, a like
distance from R----. We get in the middle of Hill ----, about a mile
from Poste 2, when the car dies.
About 100 yards ahead of us is a crossroad and the Boche is shelling
it. Bud and I didn't realize where we were, and all alone, mud over our
shoe tops where we stopped. We worked on the car for one and a half
hours, falling in the mud every time a German shell came through the
air. We got eleven holes in our car from that morning, and a piece of
shell went right through an inch rod on the front of the car. I'll show
you a picture of that. We were the first in the section to get hit, and
how we escaped alive is the wonder of every one who has seen the car,
and we are always the center of attraction when we stop along the road
or at the postes. I have a piece of shell that went through the car--a
souvenir. We were in the most dangerous part of the whole woods--French
guns on every side of us, but of course we didn't know--and those were
what the Germans were after.
When we finally decided we couldn't get the car to run we made for
a nearby dugout, and a Frenchman there told us we had our nerve. I
left Bud there and walked back to this post--about three and one-half
miles--got another car and towed our own back--that was our baptism of
fire, and it was plenty. We got our car fixed up that day and worked
all that night and the next day. That night we were dead, and the damn
Germans shelled B---- again, and we had to get out twice during the
night and run for a nearby quarry, and no one who has not been through
it can imagine the feeling of being awakened by hearing a shell go over
your head, and almost before you can get into your shoes and out of a
place another drops near by. It's a thousand times worse than being on
a shelled road because you can see a shell hit the road and invariably
another follows--wait for the second one to land and then beat it--some
sport.
I'm at P. J. Left now, our most advanced post with the exception of one
about a mile from here, which we make only at night, as the Germans
can see the road from their first lines. They must have seen us on the
road--some plane of theirs--as they have been shelling here ever since
we arrived. We're in the dugout now and I don't expect to find my car
when I come out at the rate the shells are landing around here.
Now for the attack. Sunday we were at Post 4--a piece of shell just
landed on my helmet. I'm just at the entrance of the dugout--got to
stop--it's getting too warm.
Friday, 1:50 P.M.--Just got out of P. J. Left. They shelled it
from 12 o'clock yesterday until 9:30 last night. Blew up everything in
sight but our dugout; killed a couple of the brancardiers; blew up the
kitchen, and you should have seen what was left of our car--everything
was hit on the darn thing but the air in the tires.
The French made another attack last night on Hill ---- and took it. You
have undoubtedly read about it if you have followed the news. Back for
the attack now--Sunday we were at Post 4, that is, my car--and we made
a couple of trips from there, and all Sunday night the woods were just
ablaze with guns firing and the boys went over the top at 4:40. All we
carried that night had been gassed and there was a bunch of them. At
5:10 a car came to poste, saying they could not make Poste 2--the road
was blocked--so the lieutenant telephoned and gave me a note to deliver
to Poste 2--that meant get it there. Well, we started out, and such a
sight! There was one whole ammunition train along the road that had
been shelled and gassed--every horse dead--and not only horses. We got
to Hill ----, where Bud and I were stuck, and such a sight!
Two trains had been gassed, and we cut the horses that were still alive
from the carriages and then there was a stampede. I shall never forget
that morning--the road blocked, shell holes, gas, dead horses, at least
fifty of them, in less distance than a city block, and this awful
racket. Well, we got the road cleared and made Poste 2, and there it
was worse than ever. Our chief and sous-chief and about six of our boys
had been there all night, gas masks on for nine hours. Two of them had
shell shock, another hysterical, and the dead and wounded all around
us. I'm poor at description, and you could never picture such a scene.
Well, we got a load and started back. You could still cut the gas, and
after we had gone a way one of the couchés rapped on the window. We
stopped. The fellow on the top stretcher had died, his head had fallen
off the edge of the stretcher and he was leaking from the mouth on
the chap below. We took him out, fixed his head on the stretcher and
started on, shells dropping all around us. How we ever got through no
one knows, but we did, and that's just the way things went. Carried
Boches and cut buttons off some of the prisoners--have a Boche helmet
and gas mask--souvenirs.