Our Part in the Great War. Gleason Arthur

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СКАЧАТЬ Flanders section was sent out, ten cars at first. They served at the Second Battle of the Yser, when gas was used for the first time by the enemy. It is a flat country and they ran close to the battle-front. They were billeted at Elverdinghe till the village crumbled under shell fire.

      The work was in part "cleaning plugs and cylinders, tightening nuts and bolts, oiling and greasing, washing our little cars just as though they were a lot of dirty kiddies." The cars receive pet names of Susan, and Beatrice, and The Contagious Bus. The Contagious Bus, Car 82, driven by Hayden, carried 187 contagious cases between March 29 and May 12, and a total of 980 men, covering 2,084 kilometers. In one day 95 men were transported to the hospitals in that one car.

      "At 2.30 in the afternoon a call came from the 'Trois Chemins' poste, and in answering it Day and Brown had a close call. While on the road to the poste, at one place in view of the German trenches, they were caught in a bombardment, seven shells striking within 100 yards of the machine. Two or three days later, Latimer halted his machine at the end of the road, and walked down to the poste with the 'Medecin Auxiliare.' Shrapnel began to break near them and they were forced to put in the next few minutes in a ditch. They were forced to lie down five times that morning in this ditch, half full of mud and water. The red-headed girls still continue to keep open their little store right near the church on the main street. Downs spent the night on the road where he had dropped out with a broken transmission. A fire caused by the heating apparatus broke out in Ned Townsend's car. It flamed out suddenly, and it was too late to save even his personal belongings."

      There are all kinds of interludes in the work. Here is a Christmas note, "Dec. 25. The section had its Christmas dinner at 5 o'clock. Kenyon plays the violin very well, and Day and Downs are at home with the piano. Toasts were drunk all the way from Theodore Roosevelt to 'The Folks at Home.' After dinner impromptu theatricals, Franklin and White's dance taking the cake."

      "Car wanted for Poste de Secours No. 1, 200 yards from trenches, eight kilometers from our post. The car rocks from shell holes. Watch for the round black spots."

      General Putz, commanding the Détachement d'Armée de Belgique, states: "In spite of the bombardment of Elverdinghe, of the roads leading to this village, and of the Ambulance itself, this evacuation has been effected night and day without interruption. I cannot too highly praise the courage and devotion shown by the personnel of the section."

      One of the men writes: "From 3 a.m. April 22 until 7.30 p.m. April 26, five cars on duty. In those four days each man got seven hours' sleep, sitting at the wheel, or an hour on a hospital bed."

      Of one sudden shell-flurry: "We stayed still for fifteen minutes, I smoking furiously, and the English nurse singing. Little 'Khaki,' the squad's pet dog, lay shaking."

      Five days of continuous heavy work exhausted them, and half of the corps was sent to Dunkirk "en repos." On the day of their arrival shells came in from a distance of twenty-one miles, twenty shells at intervals of half an hour. They took a minute and a half to arrive. The French outposts at the German lines telephoned that one was on its way, and the sirens of Dunkirk, twenty-one miles away, blew a warning. This gave the inhabitants a minute in which to dive into their cellars. The American Ambulances were the only cars left in the town. On the sound of the siren the boys headed for the Grand Place, and, as soon as they saw the cloud of dust, they drove into it.

      As one of them describes it:

      "We spent the next two hours cruising slowly about the streets, waiting for the next shells to come, and then going to see if any one had been hit. I had three dead men and ten terribly wounded—soldiers, civilians, women. The next day I was glad to be off for the quiet front where things happen in the open, and women and children are not murdered."

      "Seven shells fell within a radius of 200 yards of the cars, with pieces of brick and hot splinters."

      A French official said of the Dunkirk bombardment:

      "I was at most of the scenes, but always found one of your ambulances before me."

      A Moroccan lay grievously wounded in a Dunkirk hospital. One of our boys sat down beside the cot.

      "Touchez le main," said the wounded man, feebly. He was lonely.

      The boys stayed with him for a time. The man was too far spent to talk, but every little while he said:

      "Touchez le main."

      Through the darkness of his pain, he knew that he had a companion there. The young foreigner at his side was a friend, and cared that he suffered. It is difficult to put in public print what one comes to know about these young men of ours, for they are giving something besides efficient driving. I have seen men like Bob Toms at work, and I know that every jolt of the road hurts them because it hurts their wounded soldier.

      A young millionaire who has been driving up in the Alsace district, remarked the other day:

      "I never used to do anything, but I won't be able to live like that after the war. The pleasantest thing that is going to happen to me when this thing is over will be to go to the telephone in New York and call up François.

      "'That you, François? Come and let's have dinner together and talk over the big fight.'

      "François is a Chasseur Alpin. I've been seeing him up on the mountain. François is the second cook at the Knickerbocker Hotel, and the finest gentleman I ever knew."

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