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HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN FIELD
       SERVICE IN FRANCE 
 
 
Marechal Joffre
<dari4 A 2 8  Mars   ^ 9 •
     C'est aux aotes qu'on reconnait
les vrais amis. A friend in need is a
friend indeed.-
     Quelles autres paroles pourrait-
on inscrire au frontispice de oe livre
"Les Amis de la France", vrai br^viaire
d?h$rolque charite* et de joyeuse abne-
gation.
     En feuilletant ces pages je crois
entendre la voix de oes milliers de
blesses fran^ais ramassds sur les
bords de la Marne par les ambulances
de lf,IAmerioan Field Service",  descen-
dus des pentes de lfHartmannsweilert
tir6s des boues de la Flandre,  arra-
ch6s a l'enfer de Verdun. Qufil soit
permis a un ami de l'Am6rique de se
faire ici leur interprete et de dire
aux "Amis de la France" a oes hardis
volontaires d'Avant-Garle,  la gratitu-
de infinie de son Pays.
 
 
 
            History of the
American  Field Service in France
          "Friends of  France"
                1914-1917
          TOLD BY ITS MEMBERS
            WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
Volume I
19*4 - »9V
       Boston and New York
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
        1920
 
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY


     ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
500
H-6,73
1920
 v. I 
TO
   OUR. MOTHER^

before whose silent Sacrifice,
deep hidden in their Hearts,
our Part seems mere Adventure.
 
 
              PREFATORY NOTE

The American Field Service, as a group of youths serving
the French Army in  the  Great War,  is a thing of the
past. And this is its history. The reader must not assume,
however,  that the American Field Service no  longer
exists, or  that there will  never be occasion for  record
of its  further accomplishment. Although the members
when they enlisted in  1915, 1916, and 1917, only pledged
themselves to the French Army for a  limited period, it
is within  the truth to state that, whether  or not they
realized it at the time, they enlisted for life in the service
of France.
   Even before this record has gone to the press, and while
the  United  States is  still nominally at war, the peace
plans of the Field Service are well under way — plans for
the perpetuation under its auspices of fraternal relations
among French and American youth for generations  to
come.  A series of American  Field Service fellowships for
American students in French  Universities  has already
been established, and projects have  been formulated
which it is  hoped will  ultimately  result  in securing  a
permanent endowment for a  Field Service fellowship
in memory of each and  every one of the one hundred
and twenty-six Field Service men who gave their lives
during the war — either  a fellowship for an American
student in a French university,  or a fellowship for a
vii 
PREFATORY NOTE
French student in an American university. These fellow-
ships  not only will furnish fitting memorials of the Field
Service  men  whose lives were sacrificed to the Allied
Cause, but will give living and enduring impulse to the
advancement of understanding and  friendship  between
France and the United States, which was ever the funda-
mental Field  Service aim.

  The section histories, diaries, letters, and sketches com-
prising these  volumes, are entirely the contributions  of
men who were part of the American Field Service. Many
of these were collected at the Paris headquarters during
the early days, but it was not until the Service ceased  to
exist as a volunteer organization that any effort was made
to compile  them with  a view to producing a complete
record comprising all the activities of the Service. While
the volume  published  under the name of  Friends  of
France,  in  1916,  contained  numerous accounts of the
work  of the early days — many of them being here re-
printed — that volume was of necessity more or less pro-
visional and incomplete. The aim of these volumes is  to
fill in the gaps and finish the story, to give the final rec-
ord of all the sections,  new as well  as  old, and of the
work  of  the  many  hundreds of younger volunteers  as
well as of the pioneers of 1915 and 1916.
  As  in Friends of France the stories of the several sec-
tions  have  been composed in the main of excerpts from
articles, diaries, and home letters of different members,
a method of  composition necessarily involving some du-
plication and incoherence. It is believed, however, that
this is compensated for by the veracity of the first-hand
material so presented, and  that whatever  the history
may have lost in smoothness and unity is offset by a gain
in sincerity, animation, and  originality.
  Among those to whom thanks are due for successively
assisting in the compilation of this work are Dr. Ray-
mond Weeks, of  the Paris  staff, Mr. Frank J. Taylor,
of Section Ten,  Mr.  Theodore  Stanton and  Captain
                         viii 
PREFATORY NOTE
Arthur J. Putnam and Mr. Robert A. Donaldson, of Sec-
tion.Seventy. The final selection and revision of the ma-
terial has been mainly the work of Lieutenant James
W. D. Seymour, of Section Seventeen.
   Grateful appreciation is owing to the French artists
Andre Fraye, Charles Huard, and Bernard Naudin, and
to the following men of the Field Service, Waldo Peirce,
S.S.U. 3,  C. Le  Roy  Baldridge,  T.M.U., F. L. Sexton,
S.S.U. 14, George W. Hall, S.S.U. 70, and Harry de Maine,
who contributed the many drawings which decorate and
brighten these pages.
   To those men  of  the Service who have contributed
articles, poems, and photographs, and  to many parents
and friends who have aided by forwarding material from
home letters and diaries, thanks are also due.
                     The American Field Service
  April, 1920 
4* fitLfi* AiW-Sl 
CONTENTS

  Volume I
PREFATORY  NOTE


INTRODUCTION
  The Field Service
  Some of the Early Problems
  The Effort in America
  The Growth of the Service
IX
 A. Piatt Andrew   3
 A. Piatt A ndrew  17
Henry D. Sleeper  38
  Stephen Galatti  60
79
          THE AMBULANCE SECTIONS

SECTION ONE
  Henry Sydnor Harrison, 81. Joshua G. B. Campbell, 91.
  Tracy J. Putnam, 101. Robert W. Imbrie, 108. Roy H.
  Stockwell,  149. John H. McFadden, Jr., 165. W. Yorke
  Stevenson, 168. Edward A. G. Wylie, 188.   0       , .


SECTION TWO                                  201
  James R. McConnell, 203. Leslie Buswell, 212. Carlyle
  H. Holt, 217. Henry Sheahan, 220. Frank H. Gailor, 227.
  Edward N. Seccombe, 232 and 275. Charles Baird, Jr.,
  239. John R. Fisher, 243. William H. C. Walker, 248.
  John E. Boit, 251. Henry D. M. Sherrerd, 255. Harmon
  B. Craig, 259. Ewen Maclntyre, Jr., 272.
                         xi 
CONTENTS
SECTION THREE                                 279   '
  Preston Lockwood, 281. Tracy J. Putnam, 291. Waldo  PCfrhJ*.
  Peirce, 303. Luke C.  Doyle, 309. Stephen Galatti, 312.     u
  Walter K. Rainsford, 314 and 335. Alwyn Inness-Brown,  it ^"*», A *
  318. William M. Barber, 324.  Charles R. Codman, Jr.,
  335. Edward I. Tinkham, 338. Charles Baird, Jr., 341
  and 382. Lovering Hill, 344, 366, and 374. Robert W.
  Imbrie, 346 and 379. Donald C. Armour, 367. J. Mar-
  quand Walker, 369 and 376. John Munroe, 370. Charles
  Amsden, 387. John N. d'Este, 389.

SECTION FOUR                                   393   U
  George Rockwell, Jr., 395.  Richard C. Ware, 399. W.
  de Ford Bigelow, 419. Leon H. Buckler, 429. Charles H.     4 Vf
  Hunkins, 433. Hugh J. Kelleher, 436.

SECTION EIGHT                                  439  £
  William B. Seabrook, 441. Malbone H. Birckhead, 455.    J^~-
  Grenville T.  Keogh, 457.  Charles L. Watkins, 468.    £ 2JF
  Austin B. Mason, 470. Harry L. Dunn, 475.

SECTION NINE                                   483 _JL-
  George R. Cogswell,  485. Carleton Burr, 492. William     £ l9
  C. Sanger, Jr., 496. Harvey C. Evans, 505.

THE VOSGES DETACHMENT                     507
  Joseph R. Greenwood, 509. 
               ILLUSTRATIONS

                    Volume I
LETTER OF MARECHAL JOFFRE                 Frontispiece
Funeral of Richard Hall, Christmas, 1915           6
A. Piatt Andrew                                10
Mysterious Nights at Esnes                      14
Commandant Doumenc                            20
Chart of Typical Ambulance Service              28
The Field Service Ambulance                     34
Henry D. Sleeper                               38
Robert Bacon                                   42
Andover Men who Died                          48
Chart of Subscriptions                           52
Farewell to the California Units                 54
Stephen Galatti                                62
The Garden at 21 Rue Raynouard                 70
Map of Passy (in color)                            76
Dunkirk, 1915                                   92
Flanders — and it Drizzled                      102
Side-Panel  of a Section One Ambulance (in color)    112
Vacherauville near Verdun                      122
Lending a Hand at a " Poste "                     122
                        xiii 
ILLUSTRATIONS
Bloody and Silent, but not Defeated              132
The "Poste" at Cappy, the Somme, 1916             132
Shell-Pocked Road near Douaumont               144
Funeral of Howard Lines                        152
A Forest in Champagne                           152
General Rageneau Conferring the Legion of Honor
  upon Mr. Andrew                              158
The Gentle Hand of the Shell                    166
Ryan's Car at Carriere Sud                      166
The Flag of Section One (in color)                  178
A Muddy Road and an Exposed "Poste"            192
Shells on the Cote de Mousson                   204
An Aeroplane Duel at Pont-a-Mousson            204
On the Road to Bois le Pretre                   212
Fontaine du Pere Hilarion, Bois le Pretre        212
Camouflage on a Road                          220
A Railroad Station as a "Poste"                  220
Soup Kitchens Smoking beside the Road            228
Verdun                                       238
The Courtyard at the Esnes Chateau             238
Marre — where Kelley was Killed               248
The Stone "Abri" at Marre                     248
Panel of a Section Two  Ambulance (in color)        260
Dombasle-en-Argonne, June, 1917                 270
Street "Corvee," Fromereville                   270
What Night Trips without Lights may Mean       282
The Dangers of  the Road                        282
The " Poste" near Hartmannsweilerkopf          292
Richard Hall's Grave                           304
Winter Days in Alsace                          310
An Underground " Poste "                        322
Once an Avenue  of Stately Trees                 322
At a Dressing-Station near Verdun               332
                       xiv 
ILLUSTRATIONS
Section Three's Camp at Sakulevo                346
Type of Sketch Map Used by Drivers              354
Monastir — a Little Girl Killed                 362
Road-Building by Members of Section Three       362
The Encampment at Bistrika                     370
Monastir in Winter                             376
The Burning of Monastir                        388
The "Cat" of Section "Quatre" (in color)          398
Misfortunes of War!                            408
Section Four at Ippecourt                       408
Service in Verdun                               416
Evacuation Hospital at Glorieux                 416
Cars at Ippecourt in Winter                     426
G.B.D. " Poste" at Bras, above Verdun            434
"Poste" at Vacherauville                       434
Stretchers Slung between Two Wheels           444
"Saucisse" above Verdun                        454
"Assis" waiting at Cabaret Rouge                462
Stretcher  Cases  Coming into  the  " Poste "  at
  Cabaret                                      462
The Flag of Section Eight (in color)                474
One of our Cars in Trouble                      486
Coffins at a Hospital in Alsace                   486
General Andlauer's Letter to Section Nine        492
Breakfast at an American Field Service Kitchen   500
Wooden-Barrack Hospital — the "Triage"         500
"Le Service qui ne s'arrete jamais"               512
At a Mountain "Poste" in Alsace Reconquise      512
            Maps  in Color in Pocket at End
The American Field Service in France, 1915, 1916, 1917
The American Field Service in the Balkans
Location of Sections when Federalized, 1917 
 
HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN FIELD
        SERVICE  IN FRANCE


             Introduction
I & II. A. Piatt Andrew
   III. Henry D. Sleeper
   IV. Stephen Galatti 
 
       The American Field Service

                    in France

                          i

                 THE  SERVICE
Les fitats Unis d'Amerique n'ont pas oublie que la premiere page de l'histoire
de leur independance a ete ecrite avec un peu de sang francais.
                                 Marechal Joffre, 1916
The American Field Service may justly claim four titles
of distinction.  It anticipated American troops  on the
battle-fields of France and the Balkans by more than two
and a half years; it contributed appreciably during these
years to the enlightenment of American opinion in regard
to the crucial meaning of the  war; it furnished subse-
quently to the American  Expeditionary Forces  a small
nucleus of officers and men of quality and devotion; and
last, but not least from the viewpoint of its members,
it had the happy fortune of serving with and being part
of the matchless armies of France.
   It is worthy of remembrance that the little group of
American volunteers told  of in  this book, numbering at
no one time much more than two thousand, formed, for
3 
THE AMERICAN FIELD  SERVICE
the first three years of the Great War, the most consider-
able organized  representation which the United  States
had on the battle front. A few of them had seen service
in the first battle of the Marne in September, 1914, and
thereafter,  as their number increased, there was seldom
an important battle anywhere along the French front in
which they had not their little part.
  As early as April, 1915, this volunteer service was or-
ganized in sections of twenty-five or thirty men on the
pattern of the regular ambulance sections of the French
Army and incorporated  for administrative purposes in
the Automobile Service  of  that army.  Each section
was assigned to a particular division of the army, forming
thereafter an integral part of the division, being so con-
sidered  and treated  by its troops and officers, and  or-
dinarily moving by road or by train from one sector in
the line to another with the division. These Field Serv-
ice ambulance  sections multiplied before the American
Army came to  France  until they numbered thirty-four,
which meant that an equal number of divisions of the
French Army depended upon the American Field Service
for practically all of  their sanitary transport.  It may be
said without exaggeration that there was no sector in
which French troops served where they were not known,
and that there was scarcely a poilu who had not seen
the American cars and who had not formed  some  sort
of acquaintance among the American volunteer drivers.
In  1915, the little American ambulances driven by  vol-
unteers could be seen scurrying everywhere over the flat
plains of Flanders during the  battles of Ypres and the
Yser. They were seen also on the wooded hills of north-
ern Lorraine during the  violent engagements in Bois le
Pretre, and they were equally familiar in the mountains
and valleys of reconquered Alsace during the battles of
the Fecht and Hartmannsweilerkopf.
   In 1916, throughout the prolonged and terrible battle of
Verdun, they were in evidence everywhere in that sector
from the Woevre to the  Argonne, and in the  autumn of
                          4 
INTRODUCTION
that year, two of the Field Service sections, endowed with
double equipment, were sent to the Balkans, where they
worked during the following year with the French troops
in the mountainous regions of northern Greece, Serbia,
and Albania.
  The year 1917  found Field Service sections also in
every great engagement from the April battle in Cham-
pagne to the October battle of the Chemin des Dames,
and during this latter year some eight hundred additional
volunteers  of the Field Service,  organized in fourteen
camion sections,  were engaged in the transport of am-
munition and military supplies in connection  with the
last-named campaign. All of  this occurred, let it be re-
membered, while the United  States was officially repre-
sented on the front by only an occasional military attache
or observer.


               French Appreciation
The  actual and direct service to France of these men,
when measured by the monstrous task with which France
had to cope during the first three years of the war, was
of course insignificant, but they rendered an inestimable
benefit to  their own  country, for they helped to  keep
alive  in  France the old feelings of friendship and of re-
spect for us which had existed there since our earliest
days  and which otherwise might easily have disappeared.
They helped to demonstrate to the soldiers and people of
France that, notwithstanding official silence and injunc-
tions  of  prudence, Americans had already begun to ap-
preciate  the meaning, not only to France, but to all the
world, of the issues that were at stake, and that many
American hearts  and hopes were already with France in
her gigantic struggle.
   Numerous and appreciative were the expressions of
this assurance  by representative  men of France at that
time. An officer upon General Joffre's staff in December,
1916, wrote as follows:
                          5 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
  The American Field Service is the finest flower of the magni-
ficent wreath offered by the great America to her little Latin
sister. Those, who like you and your friends have consecrated
themselves entirely to our  cause, up to and including the
supreme sacrifice, deserve more than our gratitude. We can-
not think of them in the future as other than our own.

  The distinguished statesman and  historian, Gabriel
Hanotaux, in a  public address of about the  same date,
paid tribute to the Field Service in these terms:

  Friends  of France! your every act, your every  heartbeat of
the past two years gives the proof! You  have left everything
to live among us,  to share our sorrows and our joys, to aid our
soldiers at the risk of your own lives. Like our Joan of Arc you
have felt"the great pity that there is in this country of France."
For your love and your eagerness to help, accept our benedic-
tion.

  Monsieur  Jusserand,  Ambassador  of France to the
United  States,  sent  across  the ocean  this message of
gratitude:
  Lives saved by thousands, suffering attenuated, amputations
avoided, families  spared their fathers for  after the war; these
form only a part of the French debt toward the American
Field Service.

  Scores  of other equally representative and  similarly
grateful tributes might be quoted, but perhaps no more
convincing evidence of the attitude of France to the Field
Service is to be found than the fact that in the days when
American troops were not yet on the front, the French
Army decorated the American Field Service sections no
less than  nineteen times and conferred  either the Croix
de Guerre, the Legion d 'Honneur, or the Medaille Militaire
upon no less than two hundred and fifty of their  mem-
bers.
  This is  perhaps not surprising if one takes  account of
the character of the  personnel. For, if  America cannot
take pride in the number of her representatives in France
during the first  three years of the war,  she can at least
                          6 
     •WHEN COMRADES WERE LAID ETERNALLY TO REST"
FUNERAL OF RICHARD HALL, KILLED CHRISTMAS MORNING, 1915 
 
INTRODUCTION
be satisfied with  their  quality.  I  doubt whether any
other such group of men could have been found in any
formation in any of the armies engaged in the war. The
English poet,  John  Masefield, after visiting a number
of Field Service  sections in the summer of 1916, de-
scribed them as including '' the very pick and flower  of
American youth."  Many hundreds of the members were
graduates or students of American colleges and univer-
sities and many bore names distinguished in American
literary and political  history.  Some of  them had been
business men, lawyers,  and doctors; some  had  been
architects  and bankers; some had been teachers; and
some even  had been  clergymen; but, not willing any
longer to  remain  inert and distant onlookers in the
great world struggle, they had left their schools and
colleges, their offices, shops,  and pulpits in  order  to
come to France and do what  they could, were it only
in the most humble capacity,  to help her armies.  Presi-
dent Sills,  of  Bowdoin College, well described the char-
acter and motives of the early Field Service volunteers
in his  inaugural address delivered shortly after the first
contingent  of the  United States  Army  had arrived  in
France:

  Long before our troops were in France, earlier even than the
messengers  of mercy from the Red Cross went in large num-
bers, the drivers in the American Ambulance Field Service
showed France that chivalry was not dead in America, and car-
ried to the  gallant and  hard-pressed French people the sym-
pathy of the United States that was never neutral. . .  . They
anticipated  Pershing's admirable phrase, "We are here, Lafa-
yette." And while among them and in the Foreign Legion there
were many  athletes  and many with technical training, there
were also surprisingly many who  were impelled to go by that
idealism that is bred of literature and science and art. Some of
them, like that noble Dartmouth  lad who gave his life Christ-
mas night, lie there, the advance guard of  that goodly com-
pany,
             "Who gave their merry youth away
              For the Country and for God."
7 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
  The Field Service and American Neutrality
A  table  in  the Appendix shows  that approximately
two thousand of the Field Service volunteers came from
one or another of more than a hundred different American
colleges, Harvard leading the list with three hundred and
twenty-five of her sons. Scarcely a State in the Union was
unrepresented on the Field Service rolls, and certainly no
university or college of  note.  It was in fact because of
this that the organization was able to render what was
probably its most important service to France and the al-
lied cause. For during the long years when the American
Government was hesitating, and those in authority were
proclaiming the necessity of speaking and even thinking
in neutral terms, and while the American people were
slowly accumulating the information that was to lead to
the Great Decision, these hundreds of American youths
already in France were  busily writing  and agitating in
terms that were not  neutral,  and were sending to their
families and friends throughout the Union, to their home
papers, to  their college  publications, and to American
weeklies  and magazines the  great  story of  France and
her prodigious  sacrifice. At a Field Service gathering
in New York in September,  1916,  Theodore Roosevelt
summed up their service by saying:
  There is not an American worth calling such, who is not
under a heavy debt of obligation to these boys for what they
have done. We are under an even greater debt to them than
the French and Belgians are. . . . The most important thing
that a nation can possibly save is its soul, and these young men
have been helping this nation to save its soul.
By personal and published letters, by articles, by books,
by lectures,  by photograph  and  cinematograph, they
were bringing the war ever nearer to those on  the other
side of the Atlantic and by the organization of commit-
tees in almost every college and university and in nearly
every city and town in the United States, they were de-
veloping a deeper and more active interest in American
                          8 
INTRODUCTION
participation.  This was the aspect of the Field Service
which in the thought of those of us who were privileged
to direct it seemed heavily to outweigh all others. Herein
lay by all counts the greatest contribution which the men
of the Field Service could make and did  make to France.
Fortunately, as events proved, they were sowers of seed
in a field that  was destined to yield, not  merely an abun-
dant but, in fact, a  prodigious harvest. As Coningsby
Dawson later  expressed it:

  Long before April, 1917, American college boys had won a
name by their devotion in forcing their ambulances over the
shell-torn roads in every part of the French front. The report of
the sacrificial courage of these pioneers had  travelled to every
State of the Union. Their example had stirred, shamed, and
educated the Nation. It is to these knight-errants . . . that I
attribute America's eager acceptance of Calvary,  when,  at
last, it was offered to her by her statesmen.

      The Field Service and the U.S. Army
When at last  America joined forces with the Allies, and
American troops were sent to France,  they found the
ambulance and transport branches of the American Field
Service thoroughly established and functioning as use-
ful parts of the French Army. The ambulance branch
included about twelve hundred volunteers, with nearly
a thousand ambulances built upon a model developed and
perfected in the course of its three years  of active service.
It had its own spacious headquarters and reception park
in the heart of Paris, its  own construction and repair
park and supply dipot, its own training-camp,  its own
share in the French automobile officers' school, its own
home and hospital for men convalescing  and on furlough,
and above  all  it had all of its relations  with the French
Army, of which it was a part, not merely formulated, but
tested and revised by several years of actual operation.
The  transport branch, including about eight  hundred
volunteers, using the same Paris headquarters and home,
and the  same department  of the French officers' school
                          9 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
as the ambulance branch, but with two special training-
camps of its own, was also a tried and working proposition
which had been rendering helpful and appreciated service
with the French Army for several months. The French
authorities were anxious that both formations should be
continued and that the entry of  the  United States in
the war should not result in any interruption of either
of these services upon which  they had come to count.
Marechal Joffre, in his trip to the States in the spring
of 1917, appealed to the American Government to this
end, and as a result of his appeal, it was agreed in Wash-
ington that both branches of the Field Service should be
adopted by the American Army and reloaned to France,
so that  they could go on functioning as they had before,
only under official  American  auspices. During the au-
tumn of 1917, accordingly,  the ambulance sections, then
numbering thirty-three, were incorporated in the United
States ArmyAmDulance Service with the French Army,
and the camion sections, numbering fourteen (the so-called
Reserve  Mallet), were militarized as the American  Mis-
sion with the French Army of the Motor Transport Corps.
A majority of the Field Service volunteer drivers willingly
enlisted in  the United States Army in order that the en-
tity and work of  their  sections  might  continue.  The
Field Service officers were  regularly commissioned.  The
Field Service ambulances  and other  cars, numbering
nearly a thousand, were turned over to the United States
Army, and the sections  thus went on serving with the
French  Army without change or interruption. The only
exception concerned the Field Service ambulance  sec-
tions in the Balkans, which the American Army would
not accept or take over for  the ostensible reason that the
United  States was  not then at war with Austria-Hun-
gary and could not accordingly have even non-combatant
troops in service with the armies that were opposing the
Austrians.  We  were therefore obliged, however reluc-
tantly,  to withdraw the personnel of these sections, but
not before  giving their cars, tents, and  abundant equip-
                          10 
A. PIATT ANDREW 
 
INTRODUCTION
ment directly to the French Army of the Orient, which
thus  continued their service,  in the hands of a French
personnel, until the end of the war.
  It is worthy of note that while  neither the American
ambulance nor transport adjuncts of the French Army,
which rendered  such excellent  service in France dur-
ing the last year of the war,  would probably have ex-
isted except for their previous formation under the Field
Service, both were not only continued under the auspices
of the American Army, but were very considerably en-
larged under those auspices during that final year. Before
the war ended, the American ambulance sections serving
with the French Army had increased to eighty-one and
the camion sections so serving  to twenty-foui\

  With the arrival of the American Army in France, as
more varied opportunities  for participation in the war
became available,  many of the old Field Service volun-
teers  sought service in other branches of the army, such
as aviation, infantry, and the artillery, for which they
felt themselves better qualified by individual endowment
or previous training and experience. In addition, there-
fore, to the hundreds of officers and men which the Field
Service contributed to  the American ambulance and mo-
tor transport corps serving with the armies of France,
it also contributed quotas to almost every  other part of
the American Expeditionary Forces, and in fact to sev-
eral services of the allied armies as well.  The records of
many of the men in these services not only brought dis-
tinction  to  themselves, but reflected some of that dis-
tinction upon the mother organization under which they
began their service in  France. A  hundred and twenty-
seven Field Service men, whose names are listed on a
Roll of Honor elsewhere in these  volumes, gave  in the
course of the  war all that they had or could hope for,
and several  times that number suffered mutilation and
wounds.
  We know of approximately eight hundred former Field
                         n 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
Service volunteers who subsequently held commissions
in the United States Army, Navy, or  Marine Corps,  and
in addition we have record  of  one hundred and three
who were officers or  aspirants in the  French artillery
and aviation,  and of  twenty-two  who were officers in
the British Army, principally in the Royal Flying Corps.
In all, the total  number of Field Service men serving
as officers and  privates in the French  and British Armies
was close to two hundred.


             Builders of  the Service
The success of the Field Service  was  due,  not merely
nor primarily to the hundreds of youths who constituted
its ranks in the field. It was  due, in the first instance, to
the concerted  effort of a multitude of men and women
scattered  throughout the  length  and  breadth of  the
United States. In schools  and colleges, in  clubs  and
churches,  in business houses and  trade organizations of
every sort, with unremitting effort they secured the funds
and recruits which for three years made the Service possi-
ble, and which at  the rate of  their accumulation in  April,
1917 (had America not entered the war at that time), were
destined shortly to make of the Field Service an institution
of very formidable proportions. To these friends of the
Field Service in America, any one of whom would gladly
have welcomed the opportunity to do what the volunteers
on the front were doing, gratitude for the achievement of
the Field Service is as much owing  as to the men who
served in  France. Particularly is appreciation due in  this
connection to Mr. Henry D. Sleeper, the American repre-
sentative of the Service, who during these years with un-
flagging energy organized the committees and spread from
one end of America to the other the information which re-
sulted so successfully in providing men and money for the
work in France.
  W7hatever success the Field Service sections may have
achieved in the field was equally owing to the devoted
                         12 
INTRODUCTION
effort of the staff in France who, during month after
month and year after year, gave themselves without stint,
caring for and training the men  as they arrived from
America in ever-increasing and  often unexpected num-
bers,  looking after the assembling and construction  of
ambulances,  finding and  shipping the  endless supplies
needed by the  sections, handling  perplexing matters  of
personal discipline and complicated relations with various
branches of  the  French administration,  and meeting,  so
far as possible, the innumerable individual problems pre-
sented by several thousand young volunteers in a foreign
army in a foreign land. We passed through many tense
and difficult days together, and I shall never forget their
loyal  and faithful cooperation.  Above  all, and without
any  risk of  invidious distinction, must  be  mentioned
Mr. Stephen Galatti, who reluctantly left his  section  at
the front at the end of 1915 in order to help in the admin-
istration of the Service, and to whose unswerving loyalty,
unfailing optimism,  tireless patience, and wise  counsel
during the years that followed,  the Service owes an in-
estimable debt.

                  Our Memories
In the  narratives and impressions that  follow will be
found something of the life and work of the Field Service
volunteers before American troops had  come to France.
The  participants themselves  tell their own stories, and
by collecting and editing these stories, it is hoped  to
hand down  to the future, not  only the record of what
the Field Service was and accomplished during the first
years of the Great War, but also a considerable number
of first-hand  observations  of  what  life  at  the front
with the French  armies was like during these years.
  Writers of greater training have given the world graphic
pictures of the more famous scenes of  battle, — of the
tragic days of the Yser, of the Somme, of Champagne,  of
Verdun, of the  Chemin des  Dames, — in all of which
Field  Service sections had their small  part;  but there
                         13 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
are less known events and places deeply graven in the
memories of Field Service men which also deserve to be
perpetuated and to be sung. Many of the pages that fol-
low will quicken the recollection of such days and places
among the men who "were there," even though they may
give only faint  impressions  to  those whose reading  is
unsupported by experiences  recalled. What  throngs of
varied memories troop by again as one turns over the
pages! Memories of farewell dinners long ago at old "21,"
when sections, on the eve of their departure for the front,
were bid Godspeed  by well-known men of France and
America; memories of the excitement of section depar-
tures, in particular of the nights in October and  Decem-
ber, 1916, when Section Three and Section Ten embarked
for their great adventure in the Orient, and of that May
morning in 1917 when the first Camion Section marched
down through the Passy grounds, under arms, en route for
Dommiers; memories of days of eager anticipation at the
training-camps by the old water-mill at May-en-Multien,
in the forest at Dommiers, or in the chateau  grounds at
Chavigny, the last two  of which  have  long  since been
reduced to dust and wreckage by the sweep of battle;
memories of  mysterious nights spent under whistling
shells in postes crowded with wounded poilus at Esnes, at
Bras, at Vendresse, at Hartmannsweilerkopf, and scores
of other places; memories of hours of unutterable sorrow
when comrades  who had fallen were  laid eternally to
rest; memories of happy days of decorations  and defiles,
like that last  ceremony in which the Field  Service as
such took part, when  her camion volunteers  were deco-
rated on  the  champ  de manoeuvre  of Soissons in the
cold twilight of November 12, 1917!
  The American Field Service has passed into  history,
and the Great War  itself is a closed volume. Fortunate
is it, indeed, if here are gathered together a few remind-
ers of our work and our companions, of our joys and our
sorrows in the great  days that are no more.
M 
MYSTERIOUS NIGHTS
                     Sk-i-tcheil at the Front bit Herman A. lirhster, S.S.D. 2
UNDER WHISTLING SHELLS AT  ESNES" 
 
INTRODUCTION
          The Field Service and France
When all is said and done, the Field Service volunteers
themselves gained far more than the wounded poilus, far
more than the armies of France, far more than any one
else, from the work which they performed.
  Even in ordinary times it is a^privilege to  live in this
"doux pays de France," to move about among its gentle
and finished landscapes, in the presence of its beautiful
architectural  heritages and  in daily contact  with its
generous, sensitive,  and  highly gifted  people.  Life  in
France, even in ordinary times, means to those of almost
any other  country daily suggestions of  courtesy, refine-
ment, and thoughtful consideration for others. It means
continual suggestions of an intelligent perspective in the
art of living and in the things that give life dignity and
worth.
  But the opportunity of living in France, as we Ameri-
cans  lived  during the first years of  the war,  meant
all  this and more. It meant glimpses of human nature
shorn of self, exalted by love of country, singing and jest-
ing in the midst of hardships, smiling at pain, unmindful
even of death. It meant contact with the most gentle and
most intelligent of modern peoples facing incredible suf-
fering, prolonged and prodigious sacrifices, mortal peril —
facing them with silent, unshakable resolve, victoriously
resisting them with modesty and never a vaunting word.
It meant visions of courage,  resignation, and heroism as
fine as any  that history records. Nothing else surely can
ever offer so much of noble inspiration as those glimpses
of the moral grandeur of unconquerable France.
  The epic and heroic quality of France's whole history,
and especially of that chapter of which we were eye-
witnesses, the quenchless  spirit and  unfaltering will  of
her people,  the democracy, the comradeship, and above
all,  the  calm,  unboasting,  matter-of-fact courage of her
troops,  kindled something akin to  veneration in all  of
us.  The Field Service motto was, '' Tous et tout pour la
                          15 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
France/' We all felt it. We all  meant it.  It is forever
ours.
   In serving with the armies of  France, the men of the
old  Field Service enjoyed  a privilege of unique and in-
estimable value, a  privilege the  memory  of which will
remain not only a cherished heritage, but a living influ-
ence as long as any of us survive.
                                       A. Piatt Andrew 1
  France, March, 1919


  1 Organizer and head of the American Field Service. Served in France
continuously from December,  1914, until  May, 1919.  Commissioned  a
Major, U.SA.  Ambulance Service,  and subsequently a Lieutenant-Colo-
nel.  The Commander-in-Chief of the  American Expeditionary  Forces
awarded him the  Distinguished Service  Medal with this citation: " For
exceptionally meritorious  and distinguished services. Coming to France at
the beginning of the war, he showed remarkable ability in organizing the
American Field Service, a volunteer service for the transportation  of the
wounded of the French Armies at the front. Upon the entry of the United
States into the war, he turned over to the U.S. Army Ambulance Service
the efficient organization he had built up, and by his sound judgment and
expert advice, rendered invaluable aid in the development of that organiza-
tion.  To him is due, in large measure, the credit for the increasingly valuable
work done by the light ambulances at the front."
ACTA    MANE.NT 
II
      SOME  OF THE EARLY PROBLEMS
It is not France alone that they serve.  They are paying for all Ameri-
cans a small instalment on the great debt of gratitude that we have owed
the French" people  since the very beginning of our national life.
                                 Myron T. Herrick, 1916
Most of the American war activities in France that pre-
ceded the entrance  of the  United States into the war
can trace some sort of parentage to the small American
hospital  in Neuilly-sur-Seine, that had been maintained
by members of the  American colony in Paris for some
years before the war. As this semi-charitable institution
was located in the immediate vicinity of Paris, and in-
cluded among its supporters and directors a large num-
ber of the American residents  of the French capital, it
naturally, at the outbreak of hostilities, became the rally-
ing centre for all Americans, who, as residents, travellers,
or students, happened to be in Paris at the time, and who
wanted to do something to help.
  Money and hospital supplies were donated; automobiles
were given and lent; men and women of all  sorts offered
their  services; and within a few  weeks, even before the
Germans had reached the  Marne, a large  hospital for
French wounded had been  equipped and opened in the
Lycee Pasteur in Neuilly, another hospital was in process
of organization near Meaux, and a number of ambulances,
rudely extemporized from  touring cars, limousines, and
automobile  chassis, were ready to bring in the wounded,
which, early in September, the rapidly moving battle
flood brought  close to the city.
  All of these  endeavors began  in the name of and under
the auspices of the little ante-bellum American Hospital
of Neuilly,  which can claim the signal honor of  having
initiated American  war relief work in France. They had
the distinguished support  and active  leadership of the
                          17 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
American ambassador, Mr. Myron T. Herrick, and of
his predecessor, Mr. Robert Bacon.
  In the months that followed, with the crystallization
of the front, and  the resultant prospect of a prolonged
war, the efforts of the American residents in France were
supplemented rapidly and in ever-increasing proportions
by men and funds from  America.  The American effort
began also to  differentiate  itself, to specialize its tasks
and its personnel, and one after another many, who had
been associated with the  American hospital at the out-
set, withdrew  from it,  in order to develop new oppor-
tunities for service, — now  to establish a new American
hospital at Montdidier (Mr. Herman Harjes); tnow to
organize a hospital at Ris Orangis (Dr. Joseph A. Blake);
now to direct a group of  automobile ambulances in Bel-
gium (Mr. Francis T. Colby); now to  head a group of
ambulances with the  British (Mr.  Richard  Norton);
now to institute a service for  the  distribution of relief
(Mrs. Robert Bliss); and now to systematize and facili-
tate the  import of supplies from America (Dr. Watson
and Mr.  Charles Carroll).
  In the winter of 1914-15 a score or two of the donated
automobile ambulances,  which, because  of  the with-
drawal of the front after the battle of the Marne, were
no longer needed by the  American Ambulance Hospital
in Neuilly, had been temporarily lent with American vol-
unteers as drivers, to French and British hospitals some-
what in the rear of the army zone at Paris Plage, Hesdin,
Abbeville, Saint-Pol, Beauvais, and Dunkirk. But this
work, however useful it may have been, was not of a char-
acter to appeal to enthusiastic and  ardent young Ameri-
cans, who were physically able and morally eager to share
more of war's hardships and  dangers. Many young Ameri-
cans were already stirring with the desire to participate
in the great world drama,  yet they could not do so as com-
batants without sacrifice of their nationality. Admirers
of France in America  were becoming  more and more
numerous and generous and were seeking opportunities
                         18 
INTRODUCTION
to contribute aid to the French armies. Every circum-
stance of the time pointed to the possibility of success-
fully  developing an ambulance service, conducted  by
American volunteers, and supported by American donors,
but working directly in the French  army zone as part
and parcel of the French Army.
  This was the goal toward which some of us began direct-
ing our hopes and our energies in the  late winter of 1914-
15. But before launching  an appeal  in America for men
and money  for this special purpose  certain  preliminary
and somewhat  formidable obstacles in  France had to be
overcome. First of all,  the Commander-in-Chief  of the
French Army had to be persuaded of the advisability of
allowing representatives of a neutral  country, not merely
to circulate in the army  zone, but,  what was far more
irregular, to serve as actual members  of a French division.
One can easily understand  that the  French General
Headquarters hesitated before such a proposal, envisaged
the difficulties, and asked for certain assurances.  These
young Americans were coming from  a country  whose
people at that time were, to some extent at least, divided
on the issues of the war, and whose  Government had
given no indication of friendliness to  France.  If they were
not to forego their allegiance to their  native land, they
could not be subjected, like French soldiers, to the sterner
forms of discipline, such as court-martial, nor to the more
severe forms of punishment. They could not, like French
citizens, be asked to engage  themselves for such an in-
definite  period as  the duration of the war. Above  all,
the French  Army had to protect itself against the pos-
sible  presence within its lines of men  of disloyal  inclin-
ations.
   We recognized these grounds for  hesitation and tried
to meet them.  We offered formal assurance  that no can-
didates would  be accepted without at least  three letters
from men  of standing  in their communities,  testifying
to their character and unquestioned  loyalty  to the Allied
cause, which letters would be kept on file at our Head-
                          19 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
quarters subject  at all  times  to examination  by the
French  authorities; that each candidate would  sign an
initial engagement for at least six months' service, to be
renewable thereafter for periods of at least three months;
that he would also sign a promise not to communicate
any information of military significance that might come
to his knowledge during his period of service; and finally,
that during this period he would  "be  subject to French
military discipline." This latter agreement was probably
unenforceable, since any member of the Service, who had
not forsworn his allegiance to his country, might still have
appealed to the American Government for  protection
against  the execution of a French military punishment,
but fortunately it was never put to the test. During our
three years of service  there was never a  question of es-
pionage or disloyalty among our volunteers,  nor were
there any  cases of serious infraction of military  dis-
cipline.  Among all of the thousands of members of the
Service  I  recall  only  one  instance  where  a  volunteer,
imprisoned by French military  authority for some mis-
demeanor, appealed to the American Ambassador for re-
lief from his punishment, and this was settled amicably
by a prompt dishonorable discharge from the Service of
the youthful offender.

         Agreement with French G.Q.G.
Early in April, 1915,  the French General Headquarters
paid us  the gratifying tribute of accepting our offer and
our assurances, and authorized  the  incorporation in the
French Army of such volunteer sections as  we might be
able to provide. These sections were  to be constituted, as
to personnel, material, and equipment, upon exactly the
same model as the regular French Army ambulance sec-
tions (except that the men and cars were to  be furnished
by us), and they were to function in exactly the same way.
The agreement thus signed by the French Headquarters
in the early months of the war is of sufficient interest and
significance to justify the publication of its terms in full.
                         20 
C'( )M MAN I )A NT  DOl MEiNC 
 
INTRODUCTION
The following  translation  was made from  the original
text as slightly modified by subsequent orders.

MEMORANDUM  REGARDING  THE UTILIZATION IN THE
  ARMIES OF THE SANITARY SECTIONS PLACED AT THE
  DISPOSAL OF THE GENERAL-IN-CHIEF BY THE AMERI-
  CAN FIELD SERVICE

General Provisions
  (A)  These sections shall have the same elements (material
and personnel) as are provided  for the French sections of the
same type and shall be similarly constituted in administrative
units.
  (B)  A French  officer of the automobile service will be ap-
pointed commander of each formation. Attached to this officer
will be a representative of the American Field Service in charge
of the relations between the  A.F.S. and the section.  He  will
have the title  of Assistant Commander (Commandant Adjoint)
and will be charged with transmitting to the American drivers
the orders of the  French officer  and  insuring discipline among
the American  drivers.
Enlistment Contract — Discipline
  (A)  The volunteers must enlist for a period of six months
with their Organizing Committee, with the privilege of renew-
ing their enlistment for periods of at least three months. Before
leaving for  the  section they must hand to Captain Aujay
(Office of Foreign Sanitary Sections)  a  signed copy  of  their
enlistment.  From this time they shall  be subject to French
military discipline.
   (B)  In addition to their passports, the American volunteers
must  be  provided  while  in  the army  zone with a "carnet
d' etranger" delivered by the B.M.S.E.
  (C)  They will have  the right to "permissions," regulated
as follows:                             .,<•!_        u >
  Seven days  at the expiration of each period of three months
presence in their  formation.                    .       .
  Fourteen  days at  the  expiration of each period  of nine
months' presence in their formation.           m
  Fifteen days before the expiration of  each period of enlist-
ment, the American drivers will be invited by the French officer
commanding the section to choose between  their liberation at
the end of the current period and the signature of a new engage-
ment  In  the first case no "permission" will be granted before
liberation; in  the second case the usual "permission  will be
allowed.
                            21 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
  (D)  They will wear the uniform adopted by the American
Field Service, with the grenades of the Automobile Service, in
wool or silk for drivers, in gold  or silver for the Assistant
Commander. They should in;no case wear the insignia of rank
in use in the Allied Armies.
  (E) The French Chief of Section will have  the right to re-
quest from the Chief of the Automobile Service of the army
the dismissal of any foreign driver who shall have been guilty
of a serious breach of discipline. The  Chief of the Automobile
Service of the army shall  have the right  to order immediate
dismissal on receipt of a report setting forth  the facts. Such
dismissal involves  the absolute prohibition to enlist  in any
other foreign sanitary section.
Registration and Upkeep of Vehicles
  (A) The cars will be registered and attached to the automo-
bile  service of the army with which these sections are con-
nected.
  (B) Each section will include  a workshop  car with two
mechanics for maintenance and  light repairs. The unit will
always be able to  call upon the  resources of the automobile
park of the army for more important repairs.
  (C) The request for spare  parts will be centralized by the
automobile service of the army which will transmit them to the
Magasin Central Automobile in the form in use for spare parts
for  French cars. (Never followed as the American Field Service
always had its own repair park and supplied its own spare parts.)
  (D)  Gasoline, supplies, and tires will be furnished to these
sections in the same way as to  any other section of the automo-
bile service.

Movements of Personnel
  Foreign volunteers will conform to all rules laid down by the
Commanding General-in-Chief concerning circulation in the
army zone and especially the rules concerning movements of
drivers of the foreign sanitary sections  (particularly the obli-
gatory visit to the office of the  foreign sanitary sections on
going to or returning from the front).

Replacing of Drivers and Withdrawal of Cars
  (A)  In the event of the American Field Service being unable
to maintain the  full  effective force of a section in drivers or
cars, a supplemental force  can be furnished by the  automobile
service of the army in question.
  (B) The cars  can be withdrawn from the armies  by the
Organizing Committee at a month's notice addressed to the
Direction of the Automobile Service.
22 
INTRODUCTION
 Inspection by Delegates of the Organizing Committee
  When members of the Committee wish to visit their forma-
 tions they should make a request to the Commanding General-
 in-Chief (Direction des Services Automobiles).

 List of Personnel
  i  French officer of the automobile service.
  2  Representatives of  the American Field Service who will
     receive the rations applicable to the rank of sub-lieutenant
     to the exclusion of all other pay. These representatives
     will have the title of Commandant-Adjoint and Sous-Chef
     of section and will have the right to officers' billets.
  I  Marechal des logis (Sergeant) ~\
  i  Brigadier fourrier (Corporal) r French
  2  chauffeurs                 )
 40  American volunteers at the maximum
  2  American mechanics
 A minimum of 22 ambulances  }
  1  repair  truck              > furnished by Americans
  I  touring car               )

  \  smaTfruck } furnishe<i by French Army

  Signed: Doumenc              Signed: Piatt Andrew
 Director of the Automobile         Inspector General of the
  Service  of the General           American Ambulance
  Headquarters                     Field Service

  The signing of this agreement at General Joffre's Head-
 quarters marked the transition to a new development of
 American  aid to France. It initiated  direct cooperation
 with the combatant French armies in the advanced zone.
 But it did more than that, for it actually incorporated
 American  volunteer units in the French Army under the
 authority  and  control of French General Headquarters.
 It meant the beginning of a new undertaking which was
 destined to develop rapidly,  and to play a  considerable
 role  long  before, and indeed,  after,  America's  formal
 entry into  the war. The date of the signing of this agree-
 ment has ever since been considered  to mark the com-
 mencement of  the American  Field Service, as a distinct
 organization with functions, relations,  and  a personnel
of its own.
23 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
  So began the American Field Service in France, or the
American Ambulance Field Service, as it was at first
called, an American volunteer formation functioning as
an integral part of the armies of France. The agreement
once  signed,  appeals were immediately  sent out  to
American universities for recruits; committees were or-
ganized in these universities and  in different American
cities to collect funds for the purchase of ambulances and
equipment and for their upkeep;  and before the end of
1915 we were able to offer to the French Army four com-
plete sections, each composed of twenty ambulances and
other appurtenant cars,  a contingent sufficient to handle
all of the sanitary transport of four French divisions.

           The Personnel of a Section
As to the personnel, the  agreement  with the French
Army had stipulated that each section should  have not
more than forty  American volunteers, that being the
customary number in a French ambulance section, al-
lowing two drivers for a car; but, as in the early months
we had no redundant supply of volunteers, and as those
whom we had, were eager for, and  capable of, hard work,
the first sections were sent  out with only twenty-five or
thirty American members, which meant, in principle, one
man for each automobile with a small reserve for special
duties or for relief in case  of sickness, accident, or fur-
lough. In addition  the  French Army attached to  each
section from two to four French  soldiers, nominally to
serve as orderlies  and drivers for  the  French staff, but
practically these  soldiers did the work of cooks and
general handy-men for the  sections. The French officer
attached to the section was  the  intermediary through
whom orders from the French Army were transmitted to
the section, and by him the numerous reports, accounts,
and  other papers required in the French Army  were
prepared and handed over  to the  French authorities. In
the latter  work he was assisted  by  two French  non-
commissioned officers, likewise detailed to the section.
24 
INTRODUCTION
Thus, each section had, in addition to its American per-
sonnel of about thirty members, a French  personnel of
from §ye to seven members. The American Field Service
officer, officially known as the Commandant-Adjoint, was
charged with the enforcement of the orders and the main-
tenance of  discipline within the section. In theory such
a division of responsibility and command  between two
officers of different nationalities might easily have led to
conflicts of authority and friction between the two, yet,
as a matter of fact, during the long history of the Field
Service  instances of such disagreements were rare. The
French  officers assigned  to the American sections were
carefully selected, not  merely for their competence and
training, but for their tact and familiarity with American
character and customs, and  in most of our sections the
relations between the French and American officers were
characterized not only by mutual confidence and respect,
but by  intimacy and  comradeship. Differences of lan-
guage and  nationality counted not at all in  the old Field
Service  sections. French and  American  members were
comrades,  sharing the same life,  working for the same
cause, taking equal pride in  their joint accomplishment.
The sections, in fact, were more like large families than
military formations, the officers and men, whether French
or American, eating together, if not at the same table, at
least  in the same room, and  calling each other not infre-
quently by familiar names rather than by formal  titles.

   For the  information of the reader and as a matter of
record it is perhaps  worth while to explain how the ex-
penses of an ambulance section were divided  between
its members,  the  Field  Service organization,  and  the
French  Army. The volunteer members were expected to
provide their own uniforms, clothing and personal equip-
ment, and  to arrange their own travelling expenses from
their homes in America to France, and at the end of their
enlistment, from France to their homes. Aside from this,
practically  everything was provided for them. The Field
                         25 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
Service furnished board and lodging for the men during
their period of training and when in Paris on leave, or
when returning to America. It made also an allowance of
two francs per day for each man in active  service to
supplement the regular French Army rations. It provided
the ambulances, trucks, trailers, staff cars, spare parts,
car and section equipment, tents, tools, etc. It repaired
the cars that were damaged in its own repair shops, from
which it also replenished the sections with new cars, tools,
and parts as occasion  required. The French Army fur-
nished to the sections the gasoline,  oil, and  tires  con-
sumed by the cars, and provided regular  army  rations
and lodgings for the men and officers  in the field. It also
paid to the volunteers the regular pay of French soldiers
which, during the early years of the war, averaged about
five cents daily per man.  It should be  added that  the
French Army was notably generous in its treatment of
our sections, giving them preference wherever possible
in the assignment of quarters, and detailing to them,  not
merely excellent officers, but, what was equally appre-
ciated, excellent French cooks.

           Finding New Headquarters
The principle of  an ambulance service in the French
Army being established, a pressing question was the find-
ing and establishment of an appropriate base. The four
sections which we were able to send out in 1915 were dis-
tributed at intervals along the  French front all the way
from Flanders to Alsace. Their work had no relation with
the work of the American Hospital at  Neuilly, which was
more than  two hundred miles  distant from the nearest
section, and which received  its wounded, not  by motor
ambulance, but by rail from the army zone. The problems
of these sections were those of motor transport as part
of the Automobile Service of the French Army, and had
nothing to do with surgery and medical work,  as will be
explained in a subsequent paragraph.  The Field Service,
with a  quite distinct work to perform  in a quite different
                        26 
INTRODUCTION
region, with its own special funds, its own committees in
America, and its own staff in France, needed space and
freer opportunity to develop. Inevitably it was bound to
follow the example of other American  ceuvres de guerre
and become a completely independent  entity. The um-
bilical  cord, which at the outset had  bound it  to  the
American Hospital, had to be cut if it was  to undergo
any considerable growth.
  For nearly a year we  continued to use as our Paris
office a small room in an outhouse in the grounds of the
American Hospital in Neuilly, with a small attic in the
main building as a dormitory for the men en route to the
front. Early in 1916, however, after months of persistent
search, we found, with great good fortune, the spacious
and historic property at 21 rue Raynouard in picturesque
old Passy, and this estate, thanks to the munificence of
the French  family who owned it, the Hottinguers, was
placed at our disposal gratuitously for the duration of
the war. Here were not only plenty of rooms for offices
and stores, but adequate dormitory and  messing quarters
for two or three hundred men, a separate building for an
infirmary, and large grounds in which scores of cars could
be parked, hundreds of men drilled, and  numerous sec-
tions organized. This, with two neighboring buildings at
5 rue Lekain, temporarily loaned by the same benefactors
during the period or our greatest activity in 1917, became
the heart and centre of the Field Service, and continued
so to serve during  the remaining three years  of the war.
Thus was another problem of the Field Service solved.
A satisfactory base was  found, and indeed  a veritable
home established about which will ever cluster the grate-
ful memories of  several thousand members who  at one
time or another enjoyed its sheltering comfort. The im-
portance of the step is indicated by the fact that although,
when the change of base was made in  1916,  there were
only five sections in the field, a year later the number had
increased to forty-seven sections serving with the French
armies at the front.
27 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
            Automobiles and Doctors
In connection with the separation of the American Field
Service from the American Hospital, it is perhaps appro-
priate to digress for a moment in order to draw atten-
tion to a fundamental difference between the French and
American  Armies in  regard  to the relation of the am-
bulance sections to the medical service.  As our sections
were with the French Army, it was inevitable that we
conform with the French system which involves much
greater independence between the two services.  In the
American Army the automobile ambulances form part of
the Medical Corps, and their supply, repair, and upkeep
are directed by medical officers. In the French Army, how-
ever, such vehicles are not subject to the medical service
in these respects, but  are assimilated with other motor
vehicles, and entrusted to a special branch of  the army
known as  the Automobile Service, which  provides and
maintains every sort of motor-car used by the infantry,
the artillery, and all other branches of the army, includ-
ing the medical corps.  This  service had its own system
of schools for the purpose of training its officers and men,
its own organization centres, repair and revision parks
and supply depots of various sorts, which served alike all
automobiles no matter what their functions  might be,
whether for the transport of troops, material, or wounded.
  The use of the automobile for the rapid transportation
of wounded, which had reached no considerable develop-
ment  before the great European war,  rendered possible
in this war the surgical treatment of wounded under
much more favorable circumstances than in previous wars.
Its  adoption, however, inevitably suggested many mod-
ifications in the tables  of organization of the army medi-
cal  service, modifications which were not so thoroughly
recognized in the American Army as in that of Franc0.
In the American Army, motor-ambulances were driven,
looked after, and supervised  by men with medical train-
ing, just as had been the horse-drawn ambulances of other
                        28 
CHART OF  TYPICAL AMBULANCE SERVICE AT THE FRONT
              CFor explanation, see reverse of page) 
   note explaining chart on reverse of page

A division of the French Army normally included three infan-
try regiments and an artillery regiment, each of which had
its own sanitary formation of stretcher-bearers and doctors,
who gave hasty dressings at the  first-aid  shelters.  In  addi-
tion  the division had its own corps of surgeons, doctors, at-
tendants,  and stretcher-bearers (G.B.D., Groupe  des Bran-
cardiers Divisionnaire), who maintained at least one central
dressing-station or poste de secours, where reexaminations were
made and,  when necessary, further treatment given, and
who served  as a reserve for the regimental postes.  In  addi-
tion  the divisional corps maintained a mobile hospital unit,
which served as a sorting-station  (triage), assigning cases ac-
cording to their nature and gravity to particular hospitals in
the rear not attached to the division.
  Where conditions of the terrain allowed, motor ambulances
brought wounded directly from the  regimental first-aid shel-
ters, but ordinarily  the  wounded were brought from  these
shelters to the G.B.D. postes by hand, or upon stretchers slung
on a light two-wheeled frame. The ambulances then carried
them back to the triage, and from there again to the base or
evacuation hospitals. ^ 
INTRODUCTION
wars, the assumption being that with long distances be-
tween dressing-stations and hospitals, such as were fa-
miliar in Mexico and the Philippines,  surgical or  medi-
cal treatment might be advantageously administered en
route.  Such  conditions did not exist  when  motor-cars
decimated distance, and above all in France with its com-
plex network of railroads and its closely grouped towns
and villages in which hospitals could be established. Sur-
gical and medical training had, therefore, no part to play
in the ambulance service in France. The French Army
discovered at the very beginning of the war that the only
role of this service was to get the wounded as rapidly and
comfortably as possible from the battle-line to a field
hospital, usually only a few miles back, where they could
receive proper treatment under advantageous conditions.
What was required of an ambulance section was to fur-
nish to the  Division, wherever and whenever required
motor-ambulances in sufficient number, adequately sup-
plied with gasoline, tires, and spare parts, properly looked
after by motor mechanics, and properly handled by ex-
perienced drivers. From  the French  point of view it was
as illogical to expect doctors and surgeons to accomplish
this work successfully as it would be to ask automobile
experts to do surgical and  medical work in the dressing-
stations  and hospitals.  The divisional surgeon in  the
French Army had a certain number of ambulances and
drivers, under  the command of  an automobile officer,
placed at his disposal by the Automobile Service.  The
surgeons decided the daily work to be performed by the
section,  but they had nothing whatsoever to do either
with its  internal administration and discipline or  with
the upkeep of its membership and material.
  The French system of entrusting the supply and main-
tenance of motor material to an especially trained corps,
proved not only efficient, but of marked advantage. In
fact so manifest were its advantages that when subse-
quently the American Army came to  France,  many of
its higher officers perceived the superiority of the French
                         29 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
system and  tried to incorporate in the Ambulance Serv-
ice of the United States Army the principles of organiza-
tion which had already been tested by three years' actual
service in France, both by the French army ambulance
sections and by our American volunteer  sections as well.
Almost a year after the arrival of the American troops in
France a Motor Transport Corps was in fact established
as a department of the United States Army, and it was
based in the main on the French model. The war came
to an end, however, before the plans to incorporate the
American motor ambulance sections in this corps  had
been adopted.

             Standardizing Equipment
But to  return to the Field Service, one other problem
presented itself in the early days, the proper solution of
which seems simple enough in retrospect, but which at
the moment was not without  its  perplexities.  This  was
the question of the kind of ambulance to be employed,
and its decision furnished a distinct technical contribution
to the machinery of the war. During our first months of
effort many generous friends in America and in France
offered to turn over to  us automobiles of diverse makes,
and several such cars were actually sent over from Amer-
ica, equipped as ambulances, with every device employed
by vehicles  of that name  in  American cities. Various
automobile dealers in America also wrote offering to pre-
sent us  without charge new cars  of  their manufacture,
and one firm of considerable standing even promised to
donate cars for an entire section. At a time when the
Field Service was in an incipient and indigent condition,
such offers were decidedly tempting, since they opened
the way to a rapid and immediate development. It was
not, therefore, without initial hesitation that we decided
to reject  such  offers.
  The difficulties, however, attendant upon the utiliza-
tion of such gifts far outweighed any obvious advantages,
as the later experience of other ambulance formations
30 
INTRODUCTION
abundantly proved. Ambulances made in America were
not constructed for war work.  They were not designed
to carry the largest number of cases in the least possible
space, nor  arranged to carry the stretchers upon which
seriously wounded cases are transported in  the army.
Such ambulances had to be completely reconstructed in
France before they could be of any use on the front. But
what was far more serious, it was impossible  to procure
or keep on hand spare parts of every sort for a great
variety of  different automobile types. If an ambulance
service was to function promptly and without interrup-
tion, it must be composed of cars for the repair of which
stocks of interchangeable spare parts were always avail-
able. Uniformity in the type of cars used was, therefore,
a prerequisite of efficiency.
  We decided,  accordingly, at an early date, not to ac-
cept gifts of miscellaneous cars and to limit our service
to not more than two types of automobiles. Each section
would be given two heavy cars (two- or three-ton trucks),
of a uniform make, one to be fitted out as a workshop
with simple machinery, hand tools, and a stock of spare
parts for  the  section's ambulances, the other  to be
equipped as an ambulance with benches for  fifteen or
twenty sitting cases, to  be used in case of heavy evacua-
tions in the rear, and also to serve for the transportation
of tents  and other heavy  section  equipment  when the
section moved from one locality to another. One of these
cars was to be used also to trail a specially designed rolling
kitchen, with which each section was provided, a kitchen
fitted up like a small room on wheels with a stove,  bins
for coal, wood,  and flour, shelves and hooks for pots and
kettles,  drawers  and  cupboards  for  meat, vegetables,
canned foods, and smaller articles, all arranged after the
manner of a gypsy wagon, so that it could be drawn up by
the roadside, or before any cantonment,  and a hot meal
quickly prepared without other installation or shelter.

  As for the ambulances  which were to constitute the
3i 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
main body of the  section, we initiated an experiment
which at the outset was considered by many of doubtful
expediency, but which proved in the end so eminently
successful  that it was adopted by other formations, and
in particular by a large department of the United States
Army when that army came to France. The French and
British Armies had  employed only heavy motors for their
ambulance services, cars equipped to  carry from four
to six lying cases or eight to ten  sitting cases; but there
were certain disadvantages in these cars. Under the usual
conditions of trench warfare wounded did not arrive at
dressing-stations in such numbers, and  the result was,
either that wounded were held at the postes until a suffi-
cient number had arrived to make a load, or that the am-
bulance had to make its run half empty. On the other
hand, in moments of heavy offensive or defensive opera-
tions, when wounded were arriving in large numbers, the
roads were so encumbered with traffic that a heavy ambu-
lance, being unable to slip in  and  out of the convoys, had
to keep its place in  the endless procession of slow-moving
trucks, artillery, supply wagons, and marching troops,
thus prolonging painfully the suffering of the soldier en
route to the surgeon and the  hospital.
  From the point of view of adaptation to the service a
light, small car seemed preferable. From the point of view
of transport from America, it offered the additional  ad-
vantage of occupying less space on the cargo ships, when
such space was precious and difficult to obtain. Moreover,
such cars were less expensive, and this was also a point to
be considered when we had not the financial backing of
any government, or of any widely organized institution
such as the Red Cross. So we adopted the Ford motor for
the standard ambulances, and in the years before  the
United States Government was lending its support to the
Allied  cause, we imported into  France approximately
twelve hundred such chassis. Here let it be said that in
doing so we received no favor or assistance from their
manufacturer,  who with his peculiar  ideas of philan-
                         32 
INTRODUCTION
thropy, was averse to giving any assistance to war ac-
tivities, even to the relief of suffering entailed by war.
From him we could obtain not even the favor of whole-
sale rates in the purchase of cars and parts, and for every
Ford car and for every Ford part imported from America,
in those difficult days before America came into the war,
we were  obliged to pay, not the dealer's price, but the
full market price charged to ordinary retail buyers.

  Each section  then  was endowed with  the  following
material: twenty small Ford ambulances actually in the
field; two such ambulances in reserve; a Ford staff car;
a light repair  car  (Ford) carefully designed to carry an
assortment of spare parts and to make emergency repairs
on the road; a large repair car (two-ton truck) equipped
with workbench, forge, vises, and  other tools  to make
heavy repairs in the cantonment;  a  two-ton truck  ar-
ranged to carry from fifteen to twenty sitting cases and
used  especially  for evacuating lightly wounded «or gas
cases from the hospitals to  the trains; a kitchen  trailer
with  stove and cooking-utensils; and three  tents cap-
able of furnishing living, dining, and sleeping facilities
for the men.

            The  Light F.S. Ambulance
The  ambulance bodies we  had  constructed for us  in
France. On account of the short-wheel base of the Ford.
the bodies projected  far beyond the rear wheels, which
gave them a characteristic,  not to say amusing, appear-
ance. But  this very fact had two compensating advan-
tages. First, the cars  could  be manoeuvred in traffic and
turned around with surprising ease in a very small space.
Second,  by reinforcing  the rear spring,  and  lifting it
above the axle  on specially made  high perches so that
the rear axle was protected against possible bumps from
the loaded body, the  overhang resulted  in an unusually
comfortable suspension  of  the  ambulance, even when
running on very rough roads.
                          33 
THE AMERICAN FIELD  SERVICE
  Gradually, and  after much experimentation, a light
ambulance body was developed  by the Field Service of
such dimensions that it could comfortably accommodate
three lying or five sitting cases, and at a pinch could
carry seven or even eight sitting cases. The design pro-
vided for the utmost economy  of space,  and although
the cubical content was perhaps  not more than half that
of the body of an  ordinary 'ambulance of  the kind con-
structed  to  carry  four stretchers, our cars could carry
three. Letting down the rear gate, two stretchers could
be slid in on the floor of the car,  and the third on ingen-
iously contrived tracks above.  When not in use these
tracks folded up  and  rested flat against the  sides  of
the ambulance, while two seats, which were also folded
against the walls of the car, could be instantly dropped
into position, and the car transformed in a moment into
an ambulance for four sitting cases. In addition to these,
room was provided, by  specially constructed seats placed
outside near the driver, for three more sitters, making it
possible in clement weather to carry three lying and three
sitting cases on each trip. In emergencies as many  as
eight wounded  men have been carried at  one time, the
running-boards and mud-guards serving as  extra  seats
and racks  for the soldiers'  equipment. An ambulance
loaded like this was an interesting  sight.  The driver
seemed almost  buried under his freight; he  had not an
inch of room more than was necessary for  the control of
his car. Covered with mud, blood-stained, with startlingly
white bandages against their tanned skin, with  puttees
loose and torn, their heavy boots and shapeless uniforms
gray from exposure, and with patient, suffering faces still
bearing  the  shock  of bombardment,  these  heaps  of
wounded rolled slowly from the postes de secours to shel-
ter and care.
   In the earliest of our ambulance bodies the walls and
top were made of painted  canvas which had  the ob-
vious advantage of being light;  but canvas  walls could
not be easily cleansed and  disinfected, nor could they
                         34 
  Side view showing sheet-iron apron and canvas storm-curtains to protect driver, top-
rack for spare tires, side-box for tools and gasoline reserves, also front panel  which
swings  open,  allowing  driver to arrange pillows for, or give water to, wounded on
stretchers.
  Rear view showing folding third-stretcher tracks, folding seats, rack on
wall for folded stretcher, holes in front wall and canvas pockets in rear
door for extra long stretcher-handles, folding step to aid in entering.

            THE LICHT FIELD SERVICE AMBL LANCE 
 
INTRODUCTION
be  made  to exclude wind and dust and winter's  cold.
So  after a few  unsuccessful  experiments  with an extra
canvas lining, we  abandoned the  lighter  covering  alto-
gether  and  substituted matched boarding of tough  ma-
hogany for  the  sides and top, and this we continued to
use until the end of the war.
  During three  years the  Field Service ambulance  was
undergoing  incessant adaptation and improvement of de-
tail. In it were gradually incorporated many contrivances,
suggested by experience,  for the comfort of the wounded,
for the protection  of the driver against bad weather, and
for the orderly storage  of stretchers, tools, and reserves
of oil, gasoline, tubes, and tires. Some of these can be seen
on  the accompanying illustrations, but it would  take a
long chapter by itself to call attention to all of them, with
their evolution  and the  reasons therefor.1 It suffices to
say that the Field Service model, which was the product
of so much experiment and thought, was subsequently
adopted by several French ambulance formations  as well
as  by  the  Russians, Roumanians, and  Serbians,  and

  1  We may cite one or two detailed instances to illustrate the way in which
the Field Service model was perfected. For example we had designed our
ambulance interiors to fit the official standard French stretchers, and, both
in order to economize space and to prevent the stretchers from slipping,
the dimensions were trimmed to a close fit. Great was our subsequent dis-
may to find  stretchers at different points on the front varying  in length
and some with  handles even a foot longer than the standard. To meet this
difficulty which would  sometimes  have necessitated the painful transfer
of a wounded soldier from one stretcher to another, we had openings cut
in the front wall of the ambulance under the driver's seat and folding oil-
cloth pockets inserted in the rear door and curtains into which obstreperous
stetcher-handles might  protrude.  Thus the problem was solved without
enlarging the body or increasing the weight of the car, and all our  later cars
were made with these devices.
  Again, although the standard stretchers had wooden legs, one frequently
met stretchers with iron legs which tore the floors of the cars as the stretch-
ers were pushed in. To remedy this and prevent the roughening of the tracks,
the particular boards in the floor and on the upper racks over which the
stretcher legs slid, were replaced by strips of hard oak, which  were left
unpainted and were greased  to facilitate the sliding of the stretchers
in and out. This detail was also incorporated in all subsequently built cars.
Small as it may seem, the absence of this provision in many United States
Army cars sent to France caused much inconvenience.

                             35 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
eventually by the United States Army Ambulance Serv-
ice, but not by the  latter  until several  thousand Ford
ambulances of an inconvenient and less practical model
had been sent to France. We sent over a finished model
to the United States in 1917 which was exhibited in many
cities, and as a result, light ambulances built upon the
Field Service plan are now also widely  used in this
country for civilian work.
  The success of the Field  Service ambulances answered
every apprehension  and  exceeded  every anticipation.
They could travel over roads impossible to other motor
vehicles. They could climb the narrow zigzag mountain
paths of Alsace, where up to that time the wounded had
only been carried on  muleback or in horse-drawn carts.
They could skim over and pull through the muddy plains
of Flanders. They could work their way in and out among
passing convoys, and if they were on a blocked road they
could pull their way through the adjacent fields. If on a
dark night one  of our ambulances ran into a ditch, or
dropped into a shell-hole,  it only required the help of
three or four passing soldiers to lift out the car and set
it again on the road. The advantages of these ambulances
were particularly evident during the great battle of Ver-
dun in 1916, where they attracted favorable comment from
many observers. Among such  comments may be cited
the following excerpt from  the London Daily Telegraph:
  For fully three months, until railways could be built, France
kept up this endless chain of four thousand autos, two thousand
moving up  one side of the roadway from Bar-le-Duc as the
other two thousand moved on the opposite side from Verdun.
The four thousand automobiles included also the ambulance
autos which brought back the wounded. Many of these were
urgent cases, and yet these  ambulances could only move at
the established rate of one yard per second. Hundreds of lives
would have been lost had it  not been for the sections of the
American Field Service stationed at Verdun. Equipped with
small, light, speedy cars, capable of going almost anywhere
and everywhere that the heavy French auto-ambulances could
not go, the "rush" surgical cases were given to these Ameri-
can drivers. They were not given a place in the endless chain,
                          36 
INTRODUCTION
but were allowed to dart into the intervening space of sixty
feet maintained between the cars, and then make their way
forward as best they could. When an open field offered, they
left the road entirely, and, driving across, would come back
into line when they could go no farther and await another
chance for getting ahead. They were able to bring the wounded
down  from Verdun often twice as fast as those who came in
the regular ambulances, and always without ever committing
the one great  error  upon which the life of France depended,
the tying up for a single instant of the endless chain of the four
thousand automobiles  of Verdun.
   It was immediately after this demonstration of the su-
periority of our light Field Service ambulances in the Ver-
dun battle, that the Commander-in-Chief of the French
Army requested two Field Service sections to be sent to
the Balkans  to serve with French troops on the Serbian
and Albanian front  in regions where  roads were some-
times little more than river-beds.
   In  such manner, then, were solved the three principal
problems of  the formative days in  France. The French
Army had adopted  the Field Service as a part of itself.
The Service  had become a full-fledged entity with an es-
tablishment  of  its own. Its tables  of organization had
been  determined and its type of equipment adopted and
tested. The  lines  had been  staked  out along  which its
future might develop. That future, however,  depended
primarily upon the response from America.
                                  A. Piatt Andrew
 
Ill
          THE  EFFORT  IN AMERICA
The root of the plant is not unsightly to science, though for chaplet and
festoon we cut the stem short.
                                            Emerson

           The  Spirit and the Purpose
As the fruition of this four years' effort has proven of
very practical value, and as its increase has been strong
enough to have withstood many temperatures, the proc-
ess of its growth may interest any one of that good legion
in this country which has toiled so steadfastly in the wide
fields of war activity. Out of the great number of Ameri-
cans whose partisanship belonged inevitably to France
after  those incredible days of September, 1914,  there
were many, from East to West, who labored earnestly
and with such science as only determination teaches, for
the building of this Service in France. Even in the first
days, when the effort was still too  near  earth  to give
promise of any such fine branch as it later bore, the mere
appeal of sending  our own men and our own cars to work
actually at the front as a living evidence of sympathy —
and the possibility that we might so help even a little in
conserving life in  the French Army — sufficed to gener-
ate the energy which finally carried us over the long road
to completion. Friendship spent to its best purpose is re-
flected clearly enough in the story of our labor in France,
but here, too, far in the background, from first to last,
were thousands of busy hands creating the opportunity
of which that record is  the  fulfilment. Many  volumes
would not hold the list of generous deeds in the construc-
tion, nor all the sum of  fine desire to which this Service
proved expression. Those of us who saw the first giving,
found in it the revelation of something greater than any
material  contribution, and  it is doubtful if even the
                         38 
HENRY D. SLEEPER 
 
INTRODUCTION
knowledge now of all the good achievement can outweigh
for  us the value in the experience. Those who so gave
need no better recompense than that which they must
find in memory,  and  our only tribute can be the full
acknowledgment that without their spirit a great pur-
pose would have been lost.
  Early in 1915,  when  the prospect of a long war had
become obvious, and when no gleam  of any such help
from this country as it ultimately gave had lighted the
horizon, there came forward, it is good  to  remember,
that creditable host of every age and rank whom neither
the barriers of politics nor distance could hold back from
service. Restless to offer practical expression of their un-
derstanding, and  of their respect for  justice and great
courage,  they each gave, according  to such  means as
was possible — in money generously and constantly, or,
where knowledge  and education could serve, they spoke
and wrote the truth; but most of all, perhaps, those who
were fortunate enough to be able to give themselves, by
going, helped  to  light  our country on its way,  not so
much by example as by the vision many of them were able
to send so clearly back to their own people.
  Among the first of these were a few young Americans
whom chance had found in  Europe at the hour of in-
vasion. Quick to  take advantage of their fortune, they
offered every sort of service, and soon most of them were
detailed to drive such ambulances as could  be put to-
gether with the material available at the moment. Dur-
ing the weeks that followed they labored day and night
to probably as useful and stimulating  a purpose as they
had ever known. Presently their letters written home be-
gan to find their way into local newspapers, and by their
direct and intimate statement of conditions, did much
not only to arouse sympathy,  but to formulate sound
judgments in communities which had previously shown
only passive interest. Later, when the time came for us to
make a general campaign for men and cars, every town
where  such early  publicity  had  been given,  proved
                         39 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
doubly ready to cooperate. Doubtless the writers of these
first letters felt their exploitation to be out of accord with
modesty — or  even a breach of  confidence — but  they
may afford to condone a fault which had so profitable a
result. In response to their story came letters to our head-
quarters from various parts of the country, in most in-
stances  from students at college, expressing interest not
only in joining the effort, but in increasing it by organiz-
ing committees for recruiting and for raising ambulances.
  For those of us to whom a generous destiny had given
the building of the Service, this meant two vital things:
first, that by  the  very  spontaneity and force  of  such
means,  properly utilized, a wide response would surely
be forthcoming and a large work of conservation founded;
second,  and equally stimulating as a possibility, that by
thus enlisting the cooperation of young men  from uni-
versities throughout the country, a way would  be opened
of establishing what might develop into a potent and ac-
tive influence for the Allied Cause, not through the ordi-
nary channel of printed or spoken propaganda, but by
virtue of the daily contact which these men would have
with the French Army in action, where there could be no
foundation for any conviction but truth. We realized in
those first days, as now, after four years of constant and
intimate relation,  does every member of this  Service,
that we could wish our friends in France no surer talis-
man of  support than that  all the world should know the
truth of them.

              Means of Fulfilment
Worth while as such an intention undoubtedly was, the
gulf between desire and fulfilment soon became obvious.
As the  ambition, beyond  maintaining the service  then
existent, was to so increase it as to  be able to meet any
possible need which the French  Army might  express, a
large monthly outlay was inevitable, beside the raising
of a sum sufficient for the  purchase of cars, and all other
equipment.  We had a good cause, an  unusually sympa-
                         40 
INTRODUCTION
thetic means of operation, but at that time no affiliation
in this country on which we had a right to depend for any
large or responsible effort. A way of winning friendship,
a competent organization,  and a considerable fund had
therefore  all to be achieved — and quickly. The  first
step, of course, was to interest a few individuals to such
an extent as might warrant making a general appeal. Al-
though our two first books, Friends of France, and Am-
bulance No. 10, which were soon to prove of indispensa-
ble help, were not published until some months later, we
already had enough letters and records of the days' work
to guarantee its value and justify monetary help. Fore-
most and most zealous in  the  inception of the fund
was Mr. Edward J. de Coppet, of New York. A man of
distinguished  personality and character, he possessed a
rarely generous sense of responsibility toward those with
whom a broad and successful  life had brought him in con-
tact. Whatever his objective, whether in furtherance of
individual talent, of  educational or philanthropic pur-
pose, or some civic interest, his cooperation was both
active and complete.  Most  widely known, perhaps,  as
founder of the  Flonzaley  Quartette, and a patron  of
the best in the musical life of New York, he was no less
a factor in its business  world, as senior partner of de
Coppet & Doremus. A generous guide and cheering phi-
losopher to a large and varied circle of friends, he turned
his influence and power fully toward our Service. From
the moment of our first interview, it was apparent that
rather than having to interest him in  our behalf,  we
should have to strive well to maintain the level of his am-
bition for us. After a kindly but very thorough considera-
tion of the practicability of  the proposed effort, he en-
dorsed it by giving a number of ambulances, a thousand
dollars monthly toward maintenance, and in addition by
setting aside a sum to meet  the immediate needs of or-
ganization. In a letter of July, 1915, expressing his hope
for our future,  he explained that in establishing  this
special fund,  he trusted we might find it not merely an
                         41 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
incentive to maintain the sections then in the field, but
by publishing records of their days' work, and by speak-
ing in various parts of the country, that  so wide an  in-
terest might be aroused as to make possible sending to
France  many hundred  cars, and a greater number of
students from American universities. How accurate his
foresight proved he was not destined to know, for he died
within the year; but  that  his hope was so much more
than fulfilled was in no small measure due to the spirit of
his giving. Many  an  obstacle was later  overcome and
many a trial  won  in memory of our high obligation to
him. All that he had intended was made financially possi-
ble by the generosity  of his son, Mr. Andre de Coppet,
and by the prompt and constant cooperation  thereafter
of Mr. James J. Storrow, of Boston, who had duplicated
Mr. de Coppet's subscription, and had given us his own
office at  Lee, Higginson & Co., for our American head-
quarters.
  Notwithstanding the sound encouragement which two
such benefactions  meant, we could not properly have
succeeded in our larger intention without the approval of
several of the earliest  and most interested friends of the
Service. Mr. Robert Bacon, as President of the American
Ambulance Hospital at Neuilly, under the auspices  of
which we had hitherto  operated, was one of the  first
sponsors  of the Field Service, and logically most deeply
interested in  its successful  increase. He not  only  ex-
pressed confidence in  our undertaking, but gave us the
benefit of his offices  and staff in New York,  became
Treasurer of the Fund, and by wise counsel and frequent
cooperation during the next years, did much in the mak-
ing of our history. Upon  Mrs. Bacon, as Chairman of the
American Committee of the Hospital, there devolved at
this time practically  the  whole  burden of raising the
larger part of a million dollars annually to maintain that
great institution. In spite of the magnitude  of this task,
she found time to do many a generous deed in our behalf,
and by her advocacy of  our cause, established our iden-
                         42 
ROBEUT BACON
Died -May 29, 1919 
 
INTRODUCTION
tity through her committees in various parts of the coun-
try, where we might have had no other affiliations. To
two other friends  the Service owes perhaps as fine an ob-
ligation as to any one. From the hour of our beginning
until the demobilization four years later, Mr. and Mrs.
William  K. Vanderbilt, by quick  endorsement of our
whole purpose, and loyal support  through  every  trial,
were an unfailing  stimulus to our energy. In reminiscence
of our early history in America, there comes ever a pro-
cession of grateful memories of those who helped when
we were surer of our desire than of our capacity. Whether
the need was for recruits, or cars, or effort in some untried
field, to each of them belongs some word or deed indis-
pensable unto the day. So large a part of our structure
were they that even to speak briefly of what they did
would claim too great a share in a story which justly be-
longs to youth and its valiant fulfilment of the trust they
gave into its keeping.

           Recruiting the Volunteers
In establishing the new ambulance sections, it was essen-
tial, if the volunteer spirit  were to be kept alive,  not only
that no salaries be given,  but that in every possible in-
stance an applicant should pay his own expenses.  With
the French Army the fact that these Americans whom
they saw  in so many places, sharing the risks and  labor
of their days, did so wholly by choice, and moreover often
spent their small savings for the privilege, established
the sort of friendship which no minor misunderstandings
could efface. Every member of the Service endorsed and
respected this regulation,  but it occasionally proved  a
barrier to the enlistment of men whose character and ex-
perience exactly fitted them  for the work. Particularly
was this so during 1916 and 1917, when the  need for re-
cruits was much  greater.  A small  subsidiary fund was
therefore  established for such cases, and  in our subse-
quent history appear many proofs that the benefit of
money well spent may be far out of  proportion  to its
                         43 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
quantity.  As the experience of four years shows  that
practically half the wounded carried were saved by the
promptness with which our cars were generally able to
get them to postes de secours, and as an ambulance often
carried ten men a day, a driver who had been given the
three or four hundred dollars necessary to put him through
his six months' enlistment  could  afford some sense of
satisfaction in  having brought back so worth-while a
return on the investment of his benefactor.
   Committees were soon formed to arouse interest in the
Service both as regards finances and recruiting, in more
than a hundred towns and cities throughout the United
States. A few of these in the Middle and Far West had
permanent recruiting  officers,  but  the majority were
temporary, to make necessary arrangements for the illus-
trated lectures. These committees were in  nearly every
case financially independent, raising their own funds to
recruit drivers  or to  donate ambulances,  but sending,
through a local treasurer, upon fulfilment of their effort,
the net sum of contributions to the American Headquar-
ters of the Service. The only exception to this system was
the Chicago office, which was wholly independent, from
first to last, of our American Headquarters, financially
and otherwise. Owing to the liberal contribution of driv-
ers and cars which that city and neighboring places and
universities had offered, it seemed best to establish a per-
manent committee to control directly  all  the business
and personal questions in that part of  the country. To
Mr. Chauncey  McCormick, and later to Mr. Charles B.
Pike, who succeeded  him as Mid-Western  Representa-
tive, as well as  to Mr. Charles L. Hutchinson, the Treas-
urer, and Mr. Samuel Insull, Chairman of the Chicago
Committee, the Service owes one of the most vital and
useful factors in its construction. Recruiting committees
were later organized in thirty-three of the larger colleges
and universities, consisting generally of the President,
members of the faculty, and representatives of the lead-
ing elements in the student body.  As these committees,
                         44 
INTRODUCTION
owing to the limited number of men we were able to pro-
vide for, could choose only about forty per cent of the
applicants, the  character of  the personnel was of the
first order.
   In the journeys of our speakers through various parts
of America with the moving  pictures which the French
Army had taken of our men on duty, the interest in and
knowledge of events in Europe varied much less  than
might have been expected. Wherever there was little en-
thusiasm it seemed generally to have been the result of
even less first-hand information. Although publicity and
businesslike preparation for showing the  pictures natu-
rally increased the size of our audiences, the proportion-
ate returns seem to  have depended more on the  sym-
pathy and revelation of the pictures themselves than on
the size or type  of audiences.
   In the  lecturer's daily report of a  trip which included
nearly thirty of the larger cities and towns through the
Middle West and West, there appear two rather inter-
esting pages  illustrative of this fact,  written from differ-
ent  sections  of  the country,  and describing  the result
of showing the pictures before  two audiences of wholly
different character. He writes the following from Cleve-
land:

   I find  that the utmost forethought  and energy has been
spent here in  regard to our pictures. The films were shown in
the ballroom of the Hotel Statler. Such prominence had been
given to the event through a continued  campaign of publicity
that practically all of Cleveland society came  together for it.
Early in the evening many dinners were given and every pri-
vate dining-room in the hotel was occupied. After the  prelimi-
nary talk and pictures, a ball took place. As entrance was by in-
vitation, with a charge of ten dollars, quite a sum had been
thereby raised. The interest shown in the first two reels was
so keen that an earnest appeal was then  made for ambulances.
Twelve were promptly contributed in this interval, and four
more later. Before the evening was over, numerous others had
been added, so that more than fifty thousand dollars resulted.
Within two days, this amount had risen to eighty-seven thou-
sand.
45 
THE AMERICAN FIELD  SERVICE
A week later there appears this entry, at Butte, Montana:

  This is essentially a mining town, and with foreigners of
every description — some of them whose mother  countries
were of  the Allies, but many whose antecedents were not so.
We arrived just before registration day, and as the authorities
expected trouble, saloons were closed, the militia in readiness,
and the crowds freely displaying the red flag. Our meeting was
held in a large theatre, and the place was jammed. I and several
of the committeemen, on the stage, were at first hissed. Most
of this disapproval seemed to come from the balconies. The
authorities had taken every  precaution to avoid trouble, and
there were plain-clothes men stationed behind the scenery on
the  stage to protect us. Antagonistic, or at best indifferent, as
the  audience had proved itself, as  the performance went on
they became quiet. After the pictures were shown, there was
a strong appeal made. The  result was surprising. When the
committee in charge counted the proceeds, it was found that
seven hundred dollars more had been given by the miners in
the  balconies than by the representative citizens in the orches-
tra, generous though the latter  had been. That this liberal
response was forthcoming as the  result of merely relating our
story, and in spite of preconceived prejudice, seems proof that
any war apathy that may exist in such towns as this in the
West is largely the result of lack of  sympathetic information.

  The final comment of this speaker is accurate enough
as far as it goes, but unfortunately we had evidence of
something more than lack of  information. Misinforma-
tion and  malice,  both covert and obvious,  were  daily
acquaintances, sometimes from  clubs or organizations,
and often from individuals — all of Teuton sympathy.
During  the first two years, when free expression of anti-
Ally opinion involved no penalty of ostracism, as it later
did, we  met at least some spark of enmity in almost every
community, and not infrequently encountered  the real
flame. While we could not hope then to do much toward
stamping this out, we knew that by going  through it and
succeeding in our particular determination, we should be-
come part of the integral triumph. Once or twice, owing
to this enmity,  the appointed  place of showing  our pic-
tures had to be changed,  or an  engagement postponed,
and even  the legality of our sending  men over  to  serve
                          46 
INTRODUCTION
with the French Army was challenged; but such opposi-
tion, it is almost needless to say, kindled only a more de-
termined zeal among those who had our interests in hand,
and the outcome was accordingly always in our favor.
  The press notice and publicity resulting from  these
pictures  lent  a keen  impetus to recruiting. Harvard,
Cornell, California, and many other colleges, and  cities
throughout  the country, contributed large  numbers of
men and cars. The first section of men to go across as a
unit was sent by Leland Stanford University, and sailed
directly after the German declaration of unrestricted war-
fare, two months  before this country entered the war.
Stanford later recruited two more sections, and within a
few weeks Princeton and Dartmouth each sent four com-
plete units.  Harvard, which sent over two units at this
time, contributed  from first to last nearly three  hun-
dred and fifty men to  the Field Service.  The city of St.
Louis gave  the first section of ambulances  and drivers
equipped, and  wherever necessary,  financed, Cleveland,
Chicago, Buffalo, and many other cities showing similar
activity during the spring of 1917. General and civic in-
terest in the departure of these volunteers was evident in
many ways  and places, and even before our actual entry
into the war they met with many  tributes  of approval
and enthusiasm, such as the public presentation of sec-
tion flags, and various other farewell ceremonies  in their
own cities and in New York.
  One of the finest sections (camion) in the service, both
as to character and record, was the youngest as to per-
sonnel.  Phillips Academy, Andover, shortly before the
American declaration of war, organized a unit,  of their
own volition, without  our solicitation, and  despite the
natural reluctance of their families to have them go be-
fore the day of  necessity. The admirable standard of An-
dover's whole war service  was due, at least in part, to
the character and  attitude of the Principal, Dr. Stearns.
Certainly in our relations with the  representatives of a
hundred or  more colleges or universities in America, we
                         47 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
met no finer individual force than his. Among the many
volunteers who crossed on the steamer with this unit,
there were  some who expressed skepticism  as  to such
"boys" being able  to  "see it through." In a  friendly
sparring contest in  settlement of this point  a few days
later,   however, two  of  them,  Frank  Talmage and
Schuyler Lee, proved ready victors. Almost within  the
year of their arrival in France, Lee and three of those
who went with him — Bruce, Taylor, and Dresser — had
died  in battle. Willingly enough they gave their youth,
and their right to the light of life and friendship. We who
knew them, and all  that they were, realize the fulness of
that offering. They never looked back  but  to  quicken
those who followed,  and so perhaps led more  surely than
they knew. Out of their dreams they have left us great
realities — and many tasks to make worthy these days
that are still ours.
  The accumulating pressure immediately following this
success made necessary much greater  staffs  in all our
offices. At this  time there were  many hundred  men
weekly to be dealt with, from each of whom we had to
get six letters of recommendation, a birth certificate, a
guaranty of non-German parentage, a written consent of
parents or guardian when the applicant was under age, a
certificate of inoculation, a driver's license, etc., in addi-
tion to much preliminary  correspondence. During the
later spring it proved necessary to place representatives
in the War Department, to adjust military technicali-
ties; in the Bureau of Citizenship in Washington,  to
attend to the matter of passports;  in the  Compagnie
Generate  Transatlantique,  New York, to arrange details
of sailing;  in the Consulate, and various other offices.
Moreover, during the days of transition which followed,
communication had to be  established between all our
men of draft age at the front and their respective draft
boards in all parts of the  country — entailing a vast
amount of complicated correspondence.
                        48 
 Schuyler Lee
Corp., French Av.
George E. Dresser
Sgt., U.S. Tank Corps
ANDOVER  MEMBERS OF THE FIELD SERVICE
      Who  died in the fulfilment of their duty 
 
INTRODUCTION
  In Boston, by courtesy of Lee, Higginson & Co., our
large staff was amply cared for as to working quarters,
for in this emergency, as well as all others from beginning
to end, the late Major Henry L. Higginson gave us his
support and personal interest. In all the risks and swift
decisions of those days, the Service had no more con-
stant watcher and ally than he. Always when we needed
sound, courageous judgment to justify or  to confute a
seeming obligation, he stood ready both with advice and
with responsibility. Appreciating his many other exact-
ing interests,  we might perhaps have  spared  him our
problems, but all of us who knew him felt that one of the
finest factors of his citizenship was that he cared  more
to share the burdens than the triumphs of his friends.
It would have been unwise, and impossible, to have been
near him and not to have turned to him for advice in the
creation of any great work.
  In New York, as the port of embarkation, a multitude
of recruits had  to be helped through the  exigencies of
departure,  and  an immense number of problems had
daily to be disposed of. In facing this almost limitless
increase of detail, we had looked often, if with inarticulate
longing, at some fine offices close to our own, and belong-
ing to the estate of the late  Mr. J. Pierpont  Morgan.
Large and perfectly equipped as were the offices which
Mr. Bacon allowed us to share, all the American interests
of the Neuilly Hospital had to be cared for  there, so that
the omnivorous demands of our growth seemed an im-
position. Mr. Bacon had already gone to France on Gen-
eral Pershing's staff; so after one most busy and con-
gested morning, we were spurred into calling upon Mr.
J. P. Morgan, and to confiding in him our difficulties.
Within the hour he had arranged that we should take
immediate possession, gratis,  of the coveted quarters.
As  this gave us five large rooms directly across the hall
from where we were, we had only to reinstate ourselves
and were thereby spared the inconvenience and confu-
sion which a change of address would have involved at
49 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
such a crucial time. Of  the  many recollections of our
four years, these days were  perhaps  at once  our most
stimulating and  our most discouraging; at one hour full
of new opportunity too fine not to be met, and the next
moment  facing  some impasse of red  tape or changing
regulations.  The race  to meet  the unprecedented de-
mands upon our energy and resources, before the inevita-
ble arrival of centralized and  governmental control of all
such work as ours, was only won by the younger members
of our staff, who labored voluntarily during long days,
and then met in almost nightly council in order to deal
better with their problems of the morning. Many a thrust
they parried, and many a means they found, where those
who were older  and more  fearful  of result might have
paused, and  so  missed  the good  achievement. Should
there be here and there some one who remembers an in-
convenience to  himself,  or some  inaccurate  direction
in passing through these offices, let him wonder now if
in those days he spent his energy to any better purpose
than did they.
  Upon the  entry of the United States into the conflict,
there swiftly followed for us  complexities great and
small. Foremost, perhaps, was the  question of whether
our volunteers then in France might continue so to serve,
and whether, at  least for the present, we might continue
to accept more recruits. In  view of  the exigencies of mo-
bilization  and conscription, it seemed best to consult
at once with the Secretary  of War. Although Mr. Baker
had shown himself in various ways appreciative of the
Field Service, he naturally had not  felt at liberty to give
any public expression in  this regard until April 7,  when
he wrote as follows:

  Confirming our  conversation of this morning, I beg leave to
say to you, as the Representative of the American Ambulance
Field Service, that the War Department looks with apprecia-
tion and approval  upon the splendid service being rendered by
American citizens in France  in  association with the French
Army. These young men are serving their own country in the
50 
INTRODUCTION
highest way by their courageous contribution to the efficiency
of the armies of those associated in interest with us in this war.
I, perhaps, have no right to urge that they remain in France
now that the United States has entered upon active military
preparation in the conflict, but, at least for the present, a sub-
stantial mumber of these young men will not be needed here,
and the training they are securing, while a mere incident to the
service they are rendering, will qualify them to be of especial
value in the American Army at a later time.
                       (Signed) Newton D. Baker
                                     Secretary of War

To a similar telegram sent soon after by the Secretary of
War  to our California and Stanford Units, he adds, "I
congratulate you that you  are about to join a chosen
company of Americans who have rendered distinguished
service."
  Thanks to these official tributes of approval, we were
able  to continue our  effort; but there quickly followed
the problem of  the release of our men from universities
without the loss of their degrees. Within the week,  how-
ever, Cornell University had passed the following resolu-
tions :
  Resolved, that  the  University Faculty advises that the
several faculties recommend for graduation all members of the
senior class in good standing, who would normally  graduate in
June and who are enrolled or may enroll, in the land or  naval
forces of the state or nation, and whose services require their
absence from the University.
  Resolved, further, that the above provisions apply to those
students who may become members of the American Ambu-
lance Field Service in France.

Immediately thereafter, Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth,
Leland Stanford, and practically all the universities and
colleges throughout the country passed similar  resolutions
granting to the  members of the Field  Service the  same
academic privileges as were given to those entering the
United States Army or Navy.
  During  1915 and  1916 the growth of the Service,
though constant, was very gradual, but during April,
May, and June of 1917 it  exceeded any figures which

                          51 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
 could have been logically foreseen, especially as we had
 made less effort at this period than previously. This per-
 haps resulted from the fact that very many of those who
 had seen our pictures, without responding at the  time,
 felt it the most sympathetic way of giving after this coun-
 try had actually entered the war.  Until this time we had
 experienced no  insuperable difficulties  in  shipping all
 necessary material to France, or in building ambulances
 as quickly as they were given. Realizing that a greatly
 increased output of cars would be necessary to meet the
 increase in enlistments, we had purchased  several  hun-
 dred extra chassis, a great quantity of extra parts, and
 had engaged to send to France a number of mechanics to
 meet the emergency. We had made arrangements in re-
 gard to shipment  with the automobile companies, the
 Clearing House, and steamship lines, and a quantity of
 chassis were on the piers in New York awaiting embarka-
 tion. Just at this period, however, the French Govern-
 ment, to fill an exigent need for aeroplane construction,
 assumed practically the entire use of the staff and shops
 of Kellner, at Billancourt, to which was attached our as-
 sembling and repair park, and where were built our am-
 bulance bodies for the chassis we shipped from America.
 At the same time there occurred an unusual shortage of
 available shipping space from this country  on trans-At-
 lantic liners, owing to exports of a nature vital to the Al-
 lies,  and which had to take precedence over our equip-
 ment, so that we had no alternative but to submit to the
delay at this time. To our further trial, we had just lost a
 large consignment of chassis and parts by the torpedoing
of the S.S. Orduna, moreover, the Red Cross, in the fulfil-
 ment of its titanic task, was obliged to assume complete
 use of the Clearing House. As soon as it became apparent
 that we could not for the time being promise to put large
numbers of new cars into the field, we refused to accept
 further such donations, and offered to individuals  and
organizations that had given cars at this time the prompt
return of their contributions, if they felt unwilling to sub-
                         52 
Dollars	Sep	Oct		Dec	Jan	Feb )7lar		Apr			Jul Mm Sep			Oct	rk>v	Dec	Jan	feb	ilar Ape		17 fflavJun		Jul	*w
37(>000																								
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33^000																					1 1			
328000																								
						Chart illustrating Monthly Fluctuations in Subscriptions | for AMBULANCES																		
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INTRODUCTION
mit to the inevitable delay. Too warm a tribute cannot
be paid to those who had so contributed, and who then
gave proof of very generous understanding and  confi-
dence, for of the several hundred cars received just pre-
viously we were asked for the return of only four. Within
the next few months every car given had  gone into the
field and subsequently served its purpose  well with the
United States Army Ambulance Corps.
  Perhaps the most exigent problem, however, resulting
from  the  unexpected  difficulties of shipment  and con-
struction, was that several hundred drivers who had just
sailed could not be advised of the changed  circumstances
until their arrival in France; also, we had  just accepted
as drivers many men who had left their former addresses
too late to receive the notification before arriving in New
York to sail, and there naturally resulted many personal
equations to  be solved. But the men showed a most gen-
erous spirit of readiness to adapt  themselves  to delays
and disappointments during these weeks, and putting
aside their individual preferences,  did the most helpful
part.

     The Camion Service and Militarization
Just prior to this, during a period  of unusual activity in
the region of Soissons,  we had received, through Com-
mandant Doumenc, Director, at the French Ministry of
War, of the Automobile Service, an urgent appeal  to the
effect that if it should prove possible for us to supply them
with personnel  for transport sections for the carrying of
ammunition  and supplies, we could so render the utmost
service. We were advised that they had a sufficient num-
ber of trucks, but were at this time ten thousand drivers
short where it was proposed we  should  cooperate. In
view of  the  exigency of this  need, and the  temporary
difficulties in the  output of  ambulances,  we could not
have done otherwise than accept this obligation. As soon
as feasible, therefore, this new branch of the Service was
inaugurated, and an appeal made to men who had re-
                         53 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
cently arrived to help in the accomplishment of this pur-
pose. Some of them, who had sailed just before this de-
velopment, of course felt morally bound, on arriving, to
serve only in accordance with the understanding of their
friends in America who had made it possible for them to
come over. Through the courtesy of the French Army,
which soon  after loaned us some  ambulances pending
the assembling and  equipment of the last contingent of
our  own cars, the desire of a majority of the men who
were willing to wait  was accomplished after a few weeks'
delay.
  A large number  of  drivers,  however,  were free  to
choose,  and though perhaps preferring  ambulance,  ac-
cepted the Camion Service. Whatever the value of our
work in  France has been, these men should have the satis-
faction of remembering the double share of credit which
is theirs. To their spirit was no doubt largely due the fact
that, hard and unromantic as this work was, the eight
hundred Field Service men who entered the Reserve Mal-
let later fulfilled  so effectively, as their record proves,  a
highly important purpose.
  The taking over of the Service by the United States
Army was not only to be desired, but for several reasons
was  inevitable.  Our declaration  of war  and the subse-
quent preparations  for sending over our expeditionary
force, which involved strict draft regulations, had placed
members of a volunteer organization at  the front in  a
technically ambiguous  position.  While the  record and
standing of our ambulance drivers with the French Army
was of the highest order, as the honors and citations con-
ferred upon  them testify, it was obvious that the work
that they had undertaken voluntarily had since become
an obligation. The changed circumstances made many
hundred of our men  feel that having fulfilled the original
spirit of their intention, they were now free to enlist as
they chose. During the subsequent months a large num-
ber entered  artillery, aviation, or other branches of the
army. About sixty per cent, however, remained as mem-
                        54 
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INTRODUCTION
bers of the ambulance and transport. More than a hun-
dred of our men, with fine records and long experience,
who were anxious to enlist for the duration of the war,
were rejected on account of slight physical defect.  Be it
said to their credit, the majority of  them subsequently
entered the French Artillery  School at  Fontainebleau,
and  graduating in due course,  became  officers in the
French Army.
  The most potent factor, however, necessitating our
enrolment in the United States National Army, was that
when the first  French commission arrived in Washing-
ton in May, 1917, General JofTre was asked by Surgeon-
General  Gorgas  what immediate  service the  United
States Army Medical  Department could do for France.
His reply was  a request that the United States should
undertake, as far as possible, the responsibility of. caring
for the  wounded of the French  armies  at the front.  A
more satisfying tribute could scarcely have been paid the
Field Service than this request that the work it had car-
ried on  in France for more than two years should  be
supplemented and entirely assumed  by Americans. As a
consequence, General  Gorgas authorized, through the
Secretary of War, the organization of the United States
Army Ambulance Service at Allentown.
   During the period of our transition from volunteer to
regular  service, our staffs offered  the Army as complete
cooperation as  they were  able, recruiting for it through
our University committees, and all our offices, as long as it
proved possible. If we could not, perhaps, wholly repress
a sense of regret in having to yield all rights of adminis-
tration, and the satisfaction which an  intimate knowledge
of each day's achievement in such work as this meant, it
was compensation to remember that the Americans whose
initiative and  energy  during  the first three years had
made so  fine a  record in France, and we whose opportu-
nity it was to stand behind them, were able to turn over
to our own Army at one of the greatest moments of need
in its history, so useful an organization.
                         55 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
          The Debt to American Youth
No true ledger of our account can exist without recording
the one obligation  underlying and supporting all the
traffic of our days. Every one who helped in this country
to make the Service will surely most care to acknowledge
the debt we owe to  American youth. In relation to our
work, certainly, its influence was paramount, and  upon
its desire to be part of a great purpose we were able to
build a very useful structure. Changing needs and  com-
plications  made  many a day's labor seem on moving
sands, but through the unflagging energy and resource of
those who served us  by speaking and recruiting through-
out this country, and by doing their part in France, the
work was at last well accomplished.  To them is truly due
the fulfilment — and they brought back high interest on
all that we were able to contribute. Had they done any-
thing else, or anything less than they did, the rest of the
effort would have proved of little consequence. Those of
us whose chance it has been to have  had a part in the ad-
ministration of the Service, to  have shared its success,
and to have gained  through it much credit and many
friendships, owe to these men all of  this, and more.  Dur-
ing the four years when they passed through our Ameri-
can offices, and later gave fine measure of their character
in France, they were among the first to bear evidence of
a spirit which existed  in this country behind the quies-
cence of the first three years of the war — and afterward
among the foremost of those who made the larger sacri-
fice, and won. The pages and roster of this book are testi-
mony enough of the first and final worth of what  they
gave. Some of them  fought and died as they would  most
have wished.  Many of them had opportunity for leader-
ship, and so distinguished themselves; to others chance
gave the less  inspiring  share  of obscure  service, but
where their part held for them only unheroic  toil and
long months of inaction, they did equally well.
  Through the burdens  which  we have been privileged
                        56 
INTRODUCTION
to assume in their support, most of us have  probably
reached as high a mark of satisfied effort as we shall
know. Remembering that, and realizing how much they
have passed through that was worth while, we may have
sympathy  with  their problem of the future.  If for  us
there is some poignance in having finished an era  of
unselfish labor,  even less  stimulating it  must  be  for
younger men to suspect, as some of these doubtless do,
that they have reached their zenith. In all the pageantry
of war, with its vividness and shadow, many new values
have come before them, and their imagination  has been
quickened  so that their question is no  longer merely
that of "making a living." As we  pause  on finishing a
book that has taken us far out of ourselves, so the major-
ity must feel in  having closed the most stirring chapter
of their lives. Keen enough, as they have proven, to give
their utmost, they are not now content to waste it.
  For whatever of  discomfort and  occasional resent-
ment their days in  France may have held, there was
compensation in the living drama. There, too, duty was
clear, and  they knew that in the end the experience
would be worth all cost. Finally, they had there compan-
ionship and mutual understanding with a greater number
of those about them than any other phase of life could
bring.
  The spirit which led them to France by inclination, be-
fore the time of obligation, is the same that in considering
the future  makes them  hesitate to dedicate themselves
permanently to a purpose with little human interest.  In
the maze of possibilities  they have come home to face,
some may  be fortunate in finding their desire;  but very
many will have to be content with  small monotony, un-
less those  of us whose  lives are more established can
serve them to finer purpose. That they are unconscious
of the debt we owe  makes the obligation doubly ours.
When one of these men cares to bring us the question of
his future, we may rightly feel inclined to stand up, not
only in tribute to what he has done, and the way he has
                         57 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
done it, but because so largely in him lies the solution of
the disorder war has left.  It is for us to make  him com-
prehend  our confidence in his capacity. If  we can put
many such men forward with the knowledge of our reli-
ance on their strength and resource in meeting new prob-
lems in their own country, as they have met the greater
crisis, we shall have done something for them, more for
ourselves, and much for posterity.
  As a useful factor in  Franco-American relations, this
small group of volunteers may still prove of value beyond
their  numerical proportion. With  such influence  as is
theirs by affiliation and training, with their willing sense
of responsibility, and of the debt they each wish to pay
for the fine friendship and example they found in France,
they will do much  to see that that which they have won
shall not be wasted.
  Nor has France  forgotten the spirit of our coming. In
the spring of 1917, when we were soon to become a part
of the American Army, a distinguished French states-
man,  then on a mission to this country,  said: "If in the
course of events which are  to come the Field Service may
seem to lose its identity, that really can never be possible.
To every man in  our Army it is  the finest tribute of
friendship you could have paid us; and your work will be
always a page in the history of France."
  It has become now as  fairly a page of credit in Ameri-
can history, that our future compatriots may gratefully
read, though they perhaps pass over it with little realiza-
tion of many values within the obvious story.  For each of
us who has had even a small part in its making, it is the
chapter we shall ever know best by heart, and in relation
to the whole sum  of our advantage in the doing, these
volumes  can seem but  fragmentary facts and figures,
since between the lines for us there lies unwritten so many
an example to make clearer the problem  of our days.
  In the beginning we sought our task with the will to
help whenever and however it should prove possible; but
just how small our sacrifice was destined to be, in com-
                         58 
INTRODUCTION
parison to that of the friends we meant to serve, nor how
sure our own compensation, we could not have foreseen.
We went  forth  unknowing.  But if we were not deep
enough of vision to first approach with fitting deference
what were to prove ultimate lights for many of us, nor to
suspect how deeply the revelation might govern our per-
spective, now, after these years, we stand in still respect
for what we  have learned.  In weighing all the privilege
and gain this Service must  ever find its greatest asset in
having served from first to  last beside the Army and the
people of France — their  friends through many  dark,
immortal days. Constancy to such a relation would in
itself have been enough to make its members ever zealous
in duty — but even selfishness  could have  sought no
larger  profit  than that which they have gathered. For
most of us it has been truly sic itur ad astra, and on that
far journey there passed before us a standard  good to re-
member and to uphold in facing whatever part each of us
may have yet to do for this country of our own. In going
first to France we took what seemed our best, but now
returning we have brought a finer thing  than ever we
were able to put upon the altar of our good intention.
                               Henry D.Sleeper *
  1 Of Boston, Massachusetts; American Representative of the Field Serv-
ice, 1915-16-17; later Director of the A.F.S. Headquarters in France,
1918-19.
 
IV
       THE GROWTH OF  THE SERVICE
  Bien avant, l'ame de la France, courbee sur la tranchee qui arretait le
flot envahisseur, avait ete profondement emue quand elle avait appris, aux
heures sombres, qu'en Amerique les actes avaient precede les paroles.
                                 Jules J. Jusserand, 1917
The story of the American Field Service will be found
in the section histories and in the narratives that follow,
a story which shows the life that these American volun-
teers shared with their French comrades for upward  of
two  years. The reader will judge for himself what the
Service gave and what its members gained in serving. He
will find there, above all, what these three thousand men
saw  and  learned of the French soldier, with whom they
considered it a privilege to serve, during the years before
America's entry into the war.
  The opportunity which these three thousand men en-
joyed was necessarily the result of the founding and per-
fecting of an organization which could fulfil a need of the
French Army.  It was necessary, not only to foresee its
value,  but, once this was established, so to organize it  as
to meet the demands of the army it was serving. It is the
purpose of this article to show, by following the  growth
of the Service,  the  various steps which had hto be taken
to meet the continual  demands of the Automobile Serv-
ice of the French Army; and it will be seen that these
demands kept growing as the Service gained in efficiency
and  size.
  It is of interest  to  note that not only was there no
precedent  to follow, but  also  that the ever-changing
needs of  war continually called for  unforeseen develop-
ments of the Service. This was a task which required
confidence,  vision,  and  courage in  its leadership.  Mr.
Andrew realized, from the moment of its first success  in
                         60 
INTRODUCTION
1915, that in perfecting the organization in every detail
he was laying a foundation which could be built upon as
money and volunteers were forthcoming. His task from
then on was twofold: first, to maintain  the standard of
efficiency of the sections; and, secondly, to increase the
Service as rapidly as possible. That he accomplished this
task the story of the Service will show.  Its accomplish-
ment meant not only the  transportation of hundreds of
thousands of French wounded, thousands of tons of shells
and supplies, but also, and what was, perhaps, of equal
importance, the exertion of an ever-increasing influence
on American thought and sympathy in  favor of France
and the Allied Cause.
  This chapter can be divided into three distinct parts —
for each of the three years was distinguished by certain
results — results upon which the following year's plans
and work were based. The first year saw the success of the
initial conception of the Service; the second year showed
relatively small but very definite growth, and gave a full
participation of the Service, with the complete confidence
of the  French Army, in the great battle of Verdun. In
addition, the organization in America was developed and
experience was gained in this branch which gave, in the
third year, thirty-three ambulance sections and fourteen
transport  sections to the  French armies at a most  nec-
essary  time, for the hardest of battles were to be fought
this year at many places along the front.  Moreover, it in-
sured the incorporation of both branches of the Service in
the United States Army.

                       1915
In the month of April, 1915, all the preliminary arrange-
ments  for a volunteer ambulance service on  the front
had  been completed.  These arrangements had proved
no easy task,  for the French authorities had had some
bitter experiences with spies masquerading as neutrals
and much disillusionment as to the value of amateur war-
workers. They were slow to be convinced that  an organ-
                         61 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
 ization composed entirely  of  amateur  neutrals  could
 give any real service. They had been perfectly willing to
 use volunteers in the evacuation of hospitals in the rear
 zone, but it was not until Mr. Andrew had succeeded in
 persuading these authorities that young American volun-
 teers were more  fitted  for work  at the  front,  and had
 guaranteed  that only those whose  loyalty to the  Allies
 was unmistakable would be allowed to serve, that at last
 they permitted sections to be formed under army stand-
 ards. So, in April, three sections were partially formed
 from  the volunteers and cars which had heretofore been
 serving in scattered squads.  These sections, when com-
 pleted,  consisted  of  twenty ambulances, a  staff car, a
 supply car, each with a personnel of an American  Com-
 mandant-Adjoint  and about twenty-five  drivers, in ad-
 dition to the French personnel. Section Sanitaire Ameri-
 caine N° I, as  it was officially called, being formed from
 squads already working near Dunkirk, was at first sta-
 tioned in that vicinity; Section Sanitaire Americaine N° 2
 was organized in  Paris  and sent to  Lorraine; Section
 Sanitaire Americaine N° 3 was also formed in Paris, and
 was ordered to the Vosges Mountains.
  The service rendered by these three sections during this
 year was one of real achievement which went even beyond
 what  had been hoped for. Section One, having given an
 excellent account of itself in the long-range bombard-
 ments and air raids at Dunkirk, was rewarded by being
 entrusted with important work in Belgium at  Coxyde,
 Nieuport, Poperinghe, Elverdinghe, Crombeke, and other
postes de secours during the battles along the Yser. Sec-
tion Two had to win recognition in a region already served
by a French sanitary section and to which it was attached
to do secondary work. The Section not only accomplished
its own work,  but made it possible  for the French sec-
tion to  be withdrawn from this sector, the Americans
taking over  the postes de secours in and near Bois  le
Pretre, a sector at that time renowned for its continual
and heavy fighting. Section Three was entrusted with a
                         62 
STEPHEN GALATTI 
 
INTRODUCTION
sector in which, previously, automobile evacuations could
only be performed far back of the  lines owing to the
mountainous country. The Section was able to send its
light cars up over the  narrow  mountain roads to the
postes near Metzeral and at Hartmannsweilerkopf, thus
substituting automobiles for mules which had been, up
to that time, the only means of transporting wounded.
  The  three  sections had faced three separate transpor-
tation problems. In Belgium, the cobblestone roads with
the deep mud had proved no obstacle; at Pont-a-Mousson,
the heavy ravitaillement convoys had not slowed up the
small ambulances;  in the Vosges Mountains,  the steep
grades had given the opportunity for the replacement of
the mule. There could be no doubt that the light car
which  had been selected  was an admirable choice  and
that it had fulfilled every test of front-line work.
  Although the  solution of mechanical  difficulties was of
vital importance, the success of these three Sections was
due at least as much to the type of men who had volun-
teered for this  service.  Already the  universities were
furnishing the largest quota of men.  They brought  to
their work youth and intelligence, initiative and courage.
   In November, 1915, at the request of General Head-
quarters,  a fourth section took its place in  the field —■
perhaps the greatest proof of the efficiency of the three
early sections.
   The year 1915 closed with three sections well estab-
lished  and a fourth finding  its place  on the  line.  The
initial  problems of section organization and section re-
lationship with  the French Army had  been defined, and
four French  divisions  were being officially served by
American volunteer ambulance sections.

                         1916
It was evident at the beginning of 1916 that the Service
now firmly established at the front  was the natural ex-
pression of that desire  to give  active  and personal aid
felt by many Americans. To those who were in the Serv-
                         63 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
ice, and who  knew what man-power meant to France,
even at that time, it would have been a betrayal of their
own action if they had not wished others to follow their
example.
  To  pursue this policy, it was necessary to give pub-
licity  in America to the work the American Field Service
was accomplishing as well as to lay plans for the probable
expansion of  the organization.  It was a suitable period
for this work. The early winter, from the point of view
of the sections, was not  an  active one.  Section One,
attached to a colonial division had moved to the Somme;
Section Two was still at Pont-a-Mousson; Section Three
had moved from Alsace at the end of January to repos
near Nancy; and Section Four was receiving its baptism
in the rather quiet Toul Sector.
  The material for a book, Friends of France, was collected
and sent to America; moving pictures were  arranged for
with the help of the French Government, with a view, not
only of showing at home what the Service was accomplish-
ing, but especially of presenting through the  eyes of these
American volunteers the appeal of the Army with which
they were serving and the truth of its cause.
  As  for the  interior organization of the Service itself,
a new system for the repair work  of the cars was estab-
lished. Previously spare parts and Ford chassis had been
bought from the Ford Company in France to meet the
current demands of the sections.  With an  enlargement
of the Service, this hand-to-mouth  policy was inadequate,
and it was wisely decided to import parts from America
and to organize a repair park, which was not only to serve
as an  overhauling and assembling park for  ambulances,
but also as  a warehouse and distribution point for spare
parts. The office and the quarters for the new men needed
also to be changed. In the American Ambulance Hospital
in Neuilly, which up to this time had served as the Field
Service Headquarters,  there was  only space in a little
outhouse (comprising one room and a telephone  booth)
for the office, while the attic of the hospital was the only
                         64 
INTRODUCTION
 available dormitory for the men.  It was hard to find  a
 place which would be adequate, but fortunately no hasty
 decision was  taken  and the problem was eventually
 solved  by the generous  gift of  the spacious house and
 grounds at 21  rue Raynouard. A  mistake in moving to
 quarters smaller than these would have resulted in  a
 difficult situation later on.
   The  spring and early  summer of 1916 brought great
 activity for the Service.  Late in February Section Two
 moved  to the Verdun sector, where it was assigned first
 of all to the service of evacuation  from triage to H.O.E.
 This service is the hardest test for a volunteer ambulance
 section, for it means long runs on crowded roads without
 the  excitement of front  work, still  harder here  in  the
 Verdun battle, where the first great test of automobile
 transportation was forced on the  French. The faithful-
 ness with which this task was performed  during those
 interminable months proved that, under  difficult cir-
 cumstances, even long evacuations could be handled well
 by the  light Field Service cars.  Section Four moved to
 Verdun from  the Toul sector early in June with postes
 on the  left bank of the Meuse, the poste  at Marre being
 not  two hundred yards from the  German lines. Section
 Three was the next to take its turn. Ordered from  Maxe-
 ville on the 20th of June with its division, it arrived near
 Verdun at one of the most critical periods  of this long
 battle.  Its division was placed  in  the line  on the right
 bank of the Meuse, the Section serving the poste at Bras
 and  evacuating directly to Verdun. It was  at this point
 that the Germans nearly broke through, and the road
 was under continual bombardment, the village of Fleury,
 to which it led, being taken and retaken several  times.
 The  division was taken out after a week and the Section
 went on a well-earned repos, curiously enough to Pont-a-
 Mousson, the old home of Section Two. The Bras poste
 later became familiar to  many  sections; Four,  Eight,
 Nine, Eighteen, Sixty-Four, and Sixty-Nine having  es-
pecially difficult evacuations there. Long after Section
                         65 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
Three had left, Barber's car, smashed by a shell, still stood
as a landmark by the side of the road.
  Section Eight, formed in Paris in June, 1916, and sent
to Champagne for a week, was transferred to Verdun,
with its cantonment at Dugny on the right bank of the
Meuse, and its postes a.t the Fort de Tavannes and the
Cabaret Rouge.
  Section One saw two days of the bombardment which
ushered in the  battle of the Somme, and then, to their
dismay, received orders to move. To have worked for
months in a sector, knowing every road, every position,
not only of one's own  division,  but of the enemy's, to
know an attack was coming,  to prepare for its every
possible phase, and then, just as it was starting, to be or-
dered away, was unquestionably bitter medicine for an
ambulance section. But there was consolation in the fact
that orders were soon picked up to go  to Verdun, and
a day later, Section One drew up  alongside of Section
Eight at  Dugny and instantly ran into difficult and dan-
gerous work.  Section Eight moved en repos to Lorraine,
and Section One soon after received a repos only to go
back to the same position for another hard period.
  The activity at the front was reflected at Headquarters.
The five sections had made necessarily large demands
for material to keep up their efficiency.  New cars and
parts had to  be sent out without delay.  It was at this
moment also that heavy repair cars, kitchen trailers, and
trucks could be issued to the sections, through generous
gifts,  thus insuring their capacity and independence as
units. Headquarters activity, however, was not confined
to the supplying and administration of the sections. The
plans of the winter had become realities. The repair park
at Billancourt was an actual fact. A large building had
been rented within Kellner's  factory, where the  ambu-
lance bodies were constructed. Machinery was installed,
and mechanics were,  by May, at work repairing and as-
sembling cars. A large stock-room within the building with
each spare part in its own numbered bin was already
                         66 
INTRODUCTION
filled with the first direct shipment from America.  In
June the park was no longer an experiment. The proof
was Section Nine, which, one early morning in the latter
part of the month, received its cars there and rolled out
to Versailles — the first step on its long journey to Alsace.
In July the Headquarters were  thoroughly established
and adequate offices permitted independence  of action.
Extensive dormitories and a refectory offered a home,
not only to the newly arrived volunteers, but to permis-
sionnaires1 and to those returning to America. It was at
this time also that Bordeaux and Le Havre became princi-
pal points in our sphere of action. Chassis arriving there
had to be assembled and driven overland.  A group  of
schoolboy volunteers, only able to enlist for the summer,
helped in this necessary work. Thus it was possible  to
take advantage  of those wonderful summer days to lay
the basis for the next winter, for it took at least three
months from the shipment of a chassis from America for
it to be placed in commission as an ambulance.
   It was at the end of this year that we received  the first
tangible  evidence of the fact that our Service was one
that the French felt they could  count on as really be-
ing a part of their army and not simply an auxiliary serv-
ice.  In September, 1916, the  French Automobile Service
asked if we could send a section of our light cars to the
Balkans, it being their opinion that the evacuation work
in that difficult  region could  be most efficiently done by
one of our sections. The request addressed to us to send
a section so far  away from the base was also an indica-
tion of the confidence in which the personnel of our Serv-
ice was held, although  at that time we were only serving
six French divisions. It was a request which we felt we
should meet, primarily because the men of our Service
felt very keenly  that wherever the French  Army must
go, we should go. The French Army had accepted us and
permitted us to participate in the greatest battles: Could
  1 The Field Service volunteers were  treated as French soldiers, receiving
permissions every four months.
                         67 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
we refuse, which was technically easy, to go to the Orient
because it was not a popular assignment? Section Three
did not think so. Their Section Commander,  Lovering
Hill, and the French  Lieutenant, Derode (who  could
have refused on account of ill-health), were as eager as
the men, many of whom had been with the Section since
its formation eighteen months before.
  Twenty-four hours  after the  agreement had been
made, the Section arrived in Paris, having made the trip
from Lorraine. Extra cars and  a supply of spare parts
for  at least six months were furnished out of the stock
which had been ordered for just such an emergency. Not
many days later, the order came for the departure of the
Section, and  that night at a freight station in  the out-
skirts of Paris the men boarded  the train which was to
take them and their material to Marseilles,  the first lap
of their long journey.
  The departure of Section Three marked the inevitable
closing of a chapter in the history of the Service. It was
a chapter of intimate  association made possible by the
throwing together of less than 200 young men of the same
education and ideas at a time when there seemed little
hope that their countrymen would take up the cause they
had made their own. Furloughs brought men from differ-
ent sections together in the comfortable home at rue Ray-
nouard, at a time when, more than at any  other,  Paris
reflected the attitude of the soldiers who were defending
her at the front. This  close association and friendship,
afterwards, when the Service grew to much larger propor-
tions, found  its expression in the sections.
  With the Service in France ready for expansion and the
French Automobile Service insisting not only  that  our
present sections must be maintained, but that it would
be of inestimable value if we could form more  sections,
it was vital that the American Field Service should make
every effort to meet this demand. Since the battle of Ver-
dun it had become evident that the Automobile Service
of the army must be developed; that on it depended the
                         68 
INTRODUCTION
quick movement of troops and supplies which so many
times afterwards turned defeat into victory.  For every
sanitary section that  the American Field Service could
send to the front, an equal number of Frenchmen would
be released for other branches of the Automobile Serv-
ice. With this in view, Mr. Andrew went to America, and
with Mr. Sleeper's aid, laid the basis of an organization
there which was destined to furnish substantial results
soon after.

                        1917
The year 1917  was destined to be one of little rest for
any  one connected with the Service. Very shortly after
Mr.  Andrew's return, two demands came from General
Headquarters which  proved  beyond  doubt  that they
felt they were dealing with a Service which they could
count on as their own. They asked for another section
to go to the Balkans and for a detachment of ambulances
to be sent to the Vosges Mountains in  Alsace. The first
demand  was complied with  by forming  Section Ten,
under the command of Henry Suckley whose long ex-
perience and capacity fitted him well for this task.  The
request for the Vosges Detachment was a tribute to the
effective  service of the type of ambulance modelled by
this  Service, for since  the example set by Section Three,
it was found that no French section could do the work
of this difficult region so well.
  The early winter proved a very hard one for the sec-
tions at the front.  Sections One, Two, and Four were in
line on the left  bank of the Meuse and in the Argonne,
shifting their stations once or twice, but all taking their
turn at the postes of Esnes, Montzeville, Hill 272,  and
Marre, where the roads were always  dangerous even
when there was no attack, and always muddy and difficult.
Section Eight travelled to  the Somme during the last
part of the offensive and then  travelled back to Verdun
on the Bras run. Section Nine  took its turn at Bras and
then went to Lorraine. Section Twelve came to the front
                        69 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
in January, relieving Section One on the Esnes run, get-
ting there its full baptism of fire.
  An interesting custom began this winter with the giv-
ing of farewell dinners to the sections on the eve of their
departure for the front. The custom had been inaugurated
by Section Nine, but the first two dinners were only in-
formal gatherings. Their tone, however, gave the  idea
of making them more formal by  inviting  prominent
Frenchmen and Americans, who by their friendly and in-
spiring speeches made these evenings memorable. What
member of Section Twelve will ever forget M. Hugues
Le Roux's story of his son who had gone to the battle
front with a fresh enthusiasm such as theirs and who, al-
though almost immediately mortally wounded, would not
allow himself  to be carried  back until after his wounded
soldiers had been attended to, thus facing hours of agony
and  torment. A fitting son  to the  father, who, while
thanking these volunteers for the service they were giving
his country, taught us all that great lesson of patriotism
which was making France supreme. Each dinner had its
special charm, but whether the speaker was American or
French, soldier  or civilian, the theme of service and re-
spect for the  country we were serving was always  pre-
dominant. After the United States entered the war, we
heard our  Ambassador, at  last able to  speak  as he felt;
and  at the same dinner, M. Jules Cambon,  and later,
Captain (now General)  Churchill. At other dinners we
heard inspiring addresses by Captain  Puaux, who  had
been on General Joffre's staff; Lieutenant Ren6 Puaux,
who had  served on the staff of  General Foch;  repre-
sentatives of  the French G.H.Q.; Mr. Frank Simonds,
Mr.  Will Irwin, President John H. Finley, Abbe Dimnet,
and  many others. Surely all  honor was  being  paid to
the men as they left for their place at the front.
  In the early spring six more ambulance sections were
placed at  the disposal  of the French  armies; Section
Thirteen, which went to Champagne and took  part in the
great April French offensive; Section Fourteen, to Lor-
                        70 
Boxed chassis waiting to be assembled
Preparations for the departure of a section Section Fifteen
            almost ready to leave for the front
       THE  GARDEN  AT  -1 RUE RAYNOUARD 
 
INTRODUCTION
raine; Section Fifteen to Verdun, its first car being hit by
shrapnel near the poste  at Esnes less than  fifty-four
hours after leaving Paris; Section Sixteen, to the Argonne,
where it stayed for nine months; and Sections Seventeen
and Eighteen, to the Second Army Reserve.
  The  declaration of war by the United States brought
grave decisions for  those who were responsible for the
Service. The physical fact  which stood out on April 4,
1917, was that here in France was a volunteer American
organization growing in size and, as it grew, filling much-
needed  vacancies in the non-combatant branch of the
Automobile Service of the French Army. When on April
5, Mr. Andrew telephoned to Commandant Doumenc,
the Head of the Automobile Service, and  asked him in
what way the American Field Service, now that America
had  come into the war, could help the French Army
best, the answer came back immediately over the tele-
phone  requesting seven thousand drivers for camions as
soon as possible under the same conditions as governed
the functioning of the ambulance sections of the Field
Service.  There was  one indisputable  lesson the three
years of war had taught, and that was, that nothing less
than the greatest effort in whatever capacity was worth
while.  Could the American Field Service, whose record
had always been  to try and meet to its fullest capacity
whatever demands had been made on it, refuse now to
make every attempt to further its capacity in a branch
of service for which it was especially fitted? It would
have been easy to have confined our efforts to ambulance
sections, the field in which the Service had been working,
but its growth would have been restricted to four sections a
month, restrictions due to the average amount of gifts be-
ing received at this time, due to delay in transportation,
due to lack of facilities for building bodies, the only avail-
able builders having diverted most of their energies to aero-
plane construction. By extending its functions, the Service
could be of greater  immediate aid to the French Army,
at the same time keeping up its output of ambulance sec-
                         7i 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
tions, and this at a time when there was no indication as
to whether the United States would send an expedition-
ary force, and even if so, how large a one. The decision
was taken and a cable was sent to America explaining
that volunteers were needed for this new Service, and
that hereafter the two branches of Service would be con-
sidered as one, volunteers being assignable wherever they
could be of most use. The effects of the urgent request
for men from  America soon began to bear results. Volun-
teers began to stream over in May and June, as many as
five hundred  arriving within three days.  To cope  with
this influx, barracks and  tents were erected in the gar-
den at rue Raynouard, and a house near by was put at
our disposal  by the same generous friends to whom we
owed  rue Raynouard.  Three camps were established for
the training of these men, their large numbers making
Paris  now an impossible centre  for this  purpose.  The
ambulance camp  was  established at  May-en-Multien,
a picturesque farm belonging to a friend of the Service,
on the road between Meaux and Soissons, and the trans-
port camps near Dommiers and Longpont, a few kilometres
south of Soissons. Volunteers only remained in Paris for
such time as was needed to obtain uniforms and necessary
papers,  being then sent out  to the respective camps.
  The first unit to go to the transport camp was a  Cor-
nell unit which volunteered to take up this new work.
It was followed by a Dartmouth unit; then by Califor-
nia, Princeton, Marietta, and Tufts units. Dartmouth,
Princeton, Harvard, and Yale units were also sent to the
ambulance camp, and every effort was made to form
them  into sections according to their units.
  Another development of  this period was the opening
of the French Officers' Automobile School at Meaux  to
members of the American Field Service, a privilege ex-
tended only to Field Service men. This action was taken
primarily to train our men so that they would be capable
of commanding transport sections, but it was also in-
tended to give the  American officers of the ambulance
                        72 
INTRODUCTION
sections sufficient  technical knowledge to enable them
ultimately to handle their sections without a French of-
ficer.  It was stated at French headquarters that with
the part the American Field Service was now playing, it
was essential that their American commanders should be
familiar with all the details of the French Automobile
Service. The first  class was more in the nature of an
experiment, and so only fifteen men were admitted, but
the later classes were each opened to forty of our men.
  Now came the period which saw  the  Service at the
height of its development, namely, the spring and summer
of 1917. During these months the sections and individ-
uals did work of which they will always be proud. Let us
take the ambulance sections first. Section One had moved
to the Aisne, just  west of Reims, in a sector which, al-
though quiet, cost them two comrades. Nineteen-sixteen
history, however, repeated itself, and again they came to
Verdun during a great battle, being once  more stationed
at their old poste on the right side of the Meuse. It was a
privilege this time to place their cantonment where for-
merly they had only dared go to advanced postes at night,
but their work was even more difficult and more danger-
ous in this second great battle of Verdun and they well
merited their Army  Citation. Section Two, which had
been in the Fourth Army Reserve, also came back to its
old poste at Esnes and Hill 272, and later at Marre, also
its most trying period.  Section Four was in Champagne
during the French attack of Mont Cornillet with Section
Thirteen as its neighbor, the latter also winning an Army
Citation.  Section  Four then moved to Verdun, running
now  past  Bras, on  to  Vacherauville. Section Eight re-
mained at Sainte-Menehould. Section  Fourteen  came
from Lorraine for the attack in Champagne, then was
sent on repos. Section Fifteen  worked in the Verdun and
Argonne  sectors,  its Commander, Earl Osborn, being
wounded as he was taking  over a new poste.  Section
Sixteen remained  in  the Argonne until relieved  by Sec-
tion Thirty-Three; its poste was to the left of the attack-
                          73 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
ing line, but in  the midst of batteries, which  made it
one of the worst sectors for an ambulance section. Sec-
tion Seventeen at first evacuated to the rear, but later
took over advanced postes to the right of Section Six-
teen.  Section Eighteen got its chance for a week on the
Verdun-Bras-Vacherauville road. Section Nineteen was
in the Argonne  to the left of Section Sixteen. Section
Twenty-Six was in the Saint-Mihiel sector, a quiet one,
but earned a citation during an enemy air raid.  Sections
Twenty-Seven and Twenty-Eight were in Champagne,
the latter having the trying and dangerous sector where
Osborn was killed and two men wounded during their
first week of work. Section Twenty-Nine replaced Section
Two on the  Montzeville-Esnes run, the  nature of the
work  being evidenced by  the loss  of Newlin  and the
wounding of their Chef, Julian Allen. Section Thirty did
evacuation work at Dugny, where its men learned Boche
methods when aviators bombed and mitrailleused the
hospital to which they were attached. Sections Thirty-
One and Thirty-Two were both in the battle before they
were taken over  by the United States Army, the former
on the left bank of the Meuse and the latter on the right
bank. Section Sixty-Four at first did evacuation work, but
it, and  Section Sixty-Nine, took their turn later on the
Verdun-Bras road. Sections Sixty-Five and Sixty-Six were
at the Chemin des Dames, working at postes side by side
and made an enviable record in that active sector. Bent-
ley, Hamilton,and  Gailey gave their lives in this sector.
Sections Sixty-Seven and Seventy were on the Aisne dur-
ing the strenuous  summer activity there which finally
culminated in the battle of  Malmaison, and Section Sixty-
Eight did evacuation work in Champagne. Sections Sev-
enty-One and Seventy-Two were to  the west in Picardy
in sectors which looked out on Saint-Quentin.
  Finally far away on the Balkan front Section Three was
back in the Monastir sector, after having been chosen on
account of its adaptability to the mountainous transport
conditions to follow a French division into Greece, and
                         74 
INTRODUCTION
Section Ten was following an Allied advance in the wilder-
ness of Albania.
  The transport sections, formed in groups in the Re-
serve Mallet, were busy carrying ammunition and supplies
in preparation for the Chemin des Dames offensive. The
work of these eight hundred  men,  although confined to
one area, brought them to all the battery emplacements
in this region, not only difficult  runs, but dangerous as
well.
  The last months of 1917 marked the transition period
when both branches of the Service were transferred to
the United States Army. The organization of the United
States Army did not permit of an automobile service, so
the decision was made that the Reserve Mallet would be
taken over by the Quartermaster Corps and the Ambu-
lance Service would be taken over  by the United States
Army Ambulance Service with the French Army, a spe-
cial bill having been passed by Congress to make possi-
ble this new arrangement.
  There were many volunteers  who, through previous
experience or through desire, wished to enlist or obtain
commissions in the other branches of the American Army.
On the other hand, they had  contracted engagements as
volunteers in the French Army for six months. It was a
difficult situation for all concerned, because the French
Army was dependent on the Service to its full capacity,
especially at a time when hard fighting was going on all
along  the line.  Until the regular army replacements
could reach France in substitution for the volunteers who
did not wish to enlist in the two army branches with
which they were serving at the  time, the French Army
could not release them from their contracts. As it proved
this delay did not  impair the chances of these  men. The
other services were not yet ready to train them and the
long list of commissions in every branch of the United
States Army received by American Field Service volun-
teers  indicates that there was little loss in opportunity
due to the fulfilment of their  pledge.
                         75 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
            The Spirit of the Service
The enrolment  of  the American  Field Service by the
United States Army terminated the history of the Serv-
ice. The record of the organization depended very much
on the spirit of service shown by the early volunteers of
1914 and 1915. Their example and understanding became
the standard which was passed on, not only in the old
sections,  but in  the new ones, a standard which formed
a discipline worthy  of the Army to which they were at-
tached. The names of all these volunteers  are in the
roster, but it seems  fitting to recall a few of them whose
personality and  influence helped especially to shape the
Service: Lovering Hill, who arrived  in France in 1914,
and, beginning with the pioneer days, was  given com-
mand of Section  Three in June, 1915, then after eighteen
months on the western front, took his section to the Bal-
kans for another year, his four personal citations prov-
ing the example he set; Herbert Townsend, whose leader-
ship of Section One installed a standard which won for
that section  four citations; Henry Suckley, who, after
long service as Sous-Chef of Section Three, took Section
Ten to the Balkans, giving his life there  in  the Service
in which, as  a leader, he had set an example of  devo-
tion to the cause he knew to be right; Robert Moss, in
charge of the repair and construction park from its in-
ception until the Service was taken into the Army; John
R. Fisher, who so successfully commanded the Ambulance
Training-Camp at May-en-Multien; Alan H. Muhr, Con-
troller  from   1915 to  1917 and subsequently leader of
Section Fourteen; John  H. MacFadden, Treasurer, who
so successfully aided in the collection of funds in America;
Philip  K.  Potter, who represented the Field Service in
command of the Reserve Mallet; and William de Ford
Bigelow and A.  D.  Dodge,  with  their records of  long
service as leaders of Sections Four  and  Eight, respec-
tively, and subsequently their earnest labors and assist-
ance as aides in the  Paris headquarters.
                         76 
FIELD  SERVICE QUARTERS AND DEPOTS  IN  PASSY AND BILLANCOURT 
 
INTRODUCTION
  This chapter deals only with the part the American
Field Service played as a part of the armies of France.
The record of wounded and supplies carried by the two
Services and the two hundred and fifty decorations con-
ferred by the divisions  served, indicates the character
of work rendered. The recognition by the United States
Army of the two Services for which special provision had
to be made, a recognition which was made at the request
of the French Army, proved conclusively how vital was
the continuation of this aid to the French Army. To judge
further of its importance, one has only  to see the part
the Service was playing  in the two great battles that
were being fought on the western front at the time it was
taken over by the United States Army.
  From July until October,  1917, the Reserve Mallet had
transported ammunition, engineering supplies, thousands
upon thousands of shells day and night in preparation
for  the Chemin  des  Dames attack.  The outstanding
feature of this attack was the complete destruction by the
artillery of all the strong positions of the enemy,  which
resulted in the infantry attack being such a brilliant one,
with few losses. It was the fourteen Field Service sections
of volunteer camion drivers serving with the Reserve Mal-
let,  writh their French  comrades, who  transported from
the railheads to the batteries practically all the ammu-
nition. Recognition of this  fact is seen in Commandant
Doumenc's report to  Mr. Andrew in which, referring to
the Transport Service, he says: " C'est elle qui a assure la
plus grosse part des transports  de munitions,  au moment
des  attaques heureuses qui porterent  la 6e Armee  sur V
Ailette."
  In the Verdun offensive in which the French regained
in a few days all the territory which they had lost to the
Germans  in the  great battle of 1916, American Field
Service sections  attached to  divisions  evacuated  the
wounded in practically every sector of the Verdun front
from Sainte-Menehould through the Argonne on both
sides of the Meuse, and as far as the Saint-Mihiel sector.
                         77 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
Sections One, Two, Four,  Thirteen, Fifteen, Sixteen,
Seventeen,  Eighteen,  Nineteen,  Twenty-Six,  Thirty,
Thirty-One,  Thirty-Two,  Sixty-Four, and Sixty-Nine
took part at one  time or another. The  effectiveness of
their  service gained for them  a place in the headlines
of the Intransigeant, the popular  evening newspaper of
Paris,  where in referring  to the progress of the battle
it was stated: "Et surtout les ambulances  americaines
ont marches & merveille/f
                                   Stephen Galatti1
  1 Served continuously in France from September, 1915, until May, 1919;
member of Section Three in 1915; Assistant Head of the American Field
Service from January, 1916; Commissioned Captain in the U.S.A. Ambu-
lance Service in October, 1917, and later promoted to Major.
 
The Ambulance Sections

              «

       Section One

    THE STORY TOLD BY
   I. Henry Sydnor Harrison
  II. Joshua G. B. Campbell
  III. Tracy Jackson Putnam
  IV. Robert Whitney Imbrie
  V. Roy H. Stockwell
  VI. John H. McFadden, Jr.
 VII. William Yorke Stevenson
VIII. Edward A. G. Wylie 
SUMMARY
Section One left Paris for Dunkirk on January 20, 1915. The
latter part of March it was moved to Malo-les-Bains. From
there it went on April 6 to Wormhoudt, to be ordered back
later to Dunkirk. On April 22  it went to Woesten near Ypres.
Later half the Section went to Elverdinghe.
  In June ten ambulances were at Dunkirk and the remainder
of the Section was transferred to Coxyde, Belgium, the postes
being situated at Nieuport and Nieuport-Bains. On July 20
the entire Section was sent to  Crombeke in Flanders.
  On December  22 of the same year the Section moved near
Beauvais, en repos. In January, 1916, it moved to Jaulzy, in
February  to  Cortieux, and then to  Mericourt-sur-Somme.
From here it was suddenly ordered, on June 22, 1916, to Bar-le-
Duc, behind the Verdun  front, going  from there to Dugny,
where it arrived June 28. On July 13 it went en repos at Tan-
nois, Givry-en-Argonne, Triaucourt,  and Vaubecourt, all in
the Argonne region. On the 15th of August it moved to Chateau
Billemont. On September 11 it spent three days en repos at
Triaucourt, and then moved to La Grange-aux-Bois, between
the Argonne and Verdun sectors.
  On January 19, 1917, the Section again went to Triaucourt
en repos,  following which  it moved to  Ippecourt. January 25
found it at Dombasle-en-Argonne, and the 14th of March at
Vadelaincourt in the Verdun sector,  en repos. On April 17 it
moved to Muizon,  ten kilometres west of  Reims, and  on
June 21 to Louvois.  It spent a repos, beginning July  23, at
Evres. August saw it at Houdainville and later at the Caserne
Beveaux. On September 14 it moved to a peaceful little village
in the Jeanne dArc  country,  where it ended its career as a
part of the Field Service,  becoming thereafter Section Six-
Twenty-Five of the U.S. Army Ambulance Service, with the
French Army. 
                  Section One

                    Mon corps a la terre,
                    Mon ame a Dieu,
                    Mon cceur a la France.

                          I

                Dunkirk and Ypres

In June, 1915, it was the pride of the Section in Flanders,
Section One, to feel that it had come closer to war than
any other formation of the American Ambulance. In
June, 1916, when these lines were written, the point of
pride was  to know that those first intense experiences
had long since been duplicated and eclipsed.
  In Dunkirk we witnessed, and within our powers tried
to cope with, what yet remains, I believe, one of the most
sensational artillery exploits in history.  It is remembered
that the little cars of the Americans often ran those empty
streets, and pursued those deafening detonations, alone.
At  our base,  Dunkirk,  we shared  the life of a town un-
der sporadic, but devastating, bombardment; forward, in
Elverdinghe, we shared the life of a town under perpetual,
and also devastating, bombardment; still farther forward,
in Ypres, we beheld a town  bombarded from the face of
the  earth in a single night. There we shared no life, nor
yet  in Nieuport, for there was none to share. In the salient
around Ypres we played for many days our small part
in that vast and various activity forever going on at the
                         81 
THE AMERICAN FIELD  SERVICE
back of the front. There we saw and learned things not
easily to be forgotten; the diverse noises of  shells going
and coming, of arrivees and departs; the stupendous up-
roar of the "duel"  before the charge, which makes the
deepening quiet of  a run  back come like a  balm and a
blessing; the  strange informality of roadside batteries,
booming away in the sight of peasant families and every
passer; the silence and the stillness, and the tenseness and
the business,  of night along the lines; the extreme diffi-
culty of hiding from shrapnel successfully without a dug-
out; the equal  difficulty of driving successfully down a
shell-bitten road in darkness like ink; the glow  against
the sky of a burning town, and the bright steady dots of
starlight around half the horizon; the constant straggle
of the evicted by the field ambulance's front door, and the
fast-growing cemetery at the back door; the whine and
patter of bullets by the postes de secours and the business-
like ripple of  the machine  guns; the whir of Taubes, the
practical impossibility of hitting them from the ground,
and the  funny  little bombs  sometimes dropped  by the
same; the noises made by  men gone mad with pain; the
glorious quiet of men under the acetylene lamps of the
operating-table; "crowd psychology," and  why  a regi-
ment becomes  a  "fighting machine," and how tender
hearts are indurated with  a toughening of the skin; the
high prevalence of courage among the sons of men; draw-
backs of sleeping on a stretcher in an ambulance; the un-
kemptness of Boche  prisoners; life, death, and war,  and
the values and meanings thereof.
  Such things, as I  know, passed into the experience of
Section  One,  in Flanders.  And these things,  and more,
have similarly  passed into the experience  of scores of
young Americans since, in their life and service  behind
the lines of France.
  It is  the composite experience which the following
pages narrate; it is the composite service which the mind
holds to with most satisfaction. We were the Service Sani-
taire Americaine; a proud title, and we wished, naturally,
                         82 
SECTION ONE
 to invest it with the realest meaning. That the American
 service was rendered efficiently and even valuably, this
 History as a whole attests, I think. That it was rendered
 with the requisite indifference to personal risk is also, I
 hope, supported by  the record. A transient in the service,
 who by no means bore the burden and heat of the day,
 may be permitted,  I trust,  to say these necessary, or at
 least  these  interesting and pertinent  things with com-
 plete detachment.
   I remember the  hour of Section One's "baptism of
 fire." We stood in the lee (or what we hoped was the lee)
 of the Petit  Chateau at Elverdinghe, while German shells
 whistled over our heads and burst with a wicked crash
 about the little church, the typical target, a couple of
 hundred yards away. (WTiat interest we felt when a frag-
 ment of shell, smoking hot, fell almost at our feet, and
 what envy of the man who gathered in this first memora-
 ble "souvenir"!)  We were just down from Dunkirk; we
 were greener than the grass that blew; and that the novel
 proceedings were acutely interesting to us all will never
 be denied. Perhaps each of us secretly wondered to him-
 self if he was going  to be afraid; certainly all of us must
 have wished, with some anxiousness, that those strange
 whistles and roars would turn themselves another way.
 And still, when the  young Englishman who ran the am-
 bulance service there appeared at that moment and asked
 for two cars to go down the road to Brielen (which was to
 go straight toward the trouble), it is pleasant to remem-
 ber that there was no lack of volunteers, and two of my
 companions were cranking up at once. There was never
 any time later, I am sure, when the sense of personal dan-
 ger was so vivid in the minds of so many of us together.

            Bad Quarters of an Hour
 Every ambulance-driver must have his bad quarters of
 an hour, no doubt — and some of the worst of them may
 concern not himself at all,  but his car or his wounded.
And if it is  said that these young Americans, amateurs
                         83 
THE AMERICAN FIELD  SERVICE
and volunteers, have acquitted themselves well in some-
times trying circumstances, there is no intention to over-
emphasize  this aspect  of their service. A volume might
be  written on the  developmental reactions — all  but
mathematical in their  working — of war-time. Nor does
it seem necessary to add that the risk of the ambulanciers,
at the worst,  is small  in comparison with that of those
whom they serve and from whom in turn they get their
inspiration, — the intrepid youths in the trenches.
  We came to know these youths very well — the gallant
and charming poilus who have so long carried  the West-
ern  Front  upon their  shoulders. We  sincerely admired
them;  and on them largely we formed our opinions of
France, and of the war generally, and of war.
  From the  standpoint  of observation, indeed, — and
doubtless it is observation one should  try to  record here,
— I believe we all felt the peculiar advantage of our posi-
tion to have been this,  that we mingled with the soldiers
on something like equal terms. We were not officers; we
were not distinguished  visitors dashing up in a staff car
for  an hour of sight-seeing. We were  rankers  (so far as
we  were anything),  and we were permanent; and in  the
necessities of our work,  we touched the life of the common
fighting man at every  hour of the day and night, and
under almost every conceivable circumstance. We were
with the poilus in the hour of rout and disaster; we were
with them  in the flush of a victorious charge brilliantly
executed. We crawled along roads blocked for miles with
them, moving forward; we wormed into railroad stations
swamped with the tide of their wounded. Now we heard
their boyish fun, and shared their jokes in the fine free
days off duty; and now we heard from the unseen well of
the jolting  car, their faint entreaty, "Doucementf Douce-
ment!" We saw them distressed by the loss of  their pre-
cious sacs,  or elated  by the gift of a button  or a cheese;
we saw them again in silence and the darkness beside  the
Yser, very quiet and busy, with the ping and whine of
many rifles; and again  we found them lying  on straw in
                         84 
SECTION ONE
 dim-lit stables, bloody and silent, but not defeated. Now
 they gave us tobacco and souvenirs, and told us of their
 gosses, and helped us tinker with our cars, about which
 some of them, mechanicians in happier days, knew so
 much more than we did; and now they died in our am-
 bulances, and sometimes went mad.  We saw them gay,
 and we saw them gassed; we found them idling or writing
 letters on the running-boards of our  cars, and we found
 the dark stains of their fading lives upon our stretchers;
 we passed them stealing up like stalwart ghosts to action,
 and we left them lying in long brown rows beside  the old
 roads of Flanders.

         The Dominant  Note of the Poilu
 And to me at least it seemed that the dominant note and
 characteristic quality of the poilu, and all his intense ac-
 tivity, was just a disciplined matter-of-factness, a calm,
 fine, business-like efficiency, an utter absence of all hero-
 ics. Of his heroism, it is superfluous  to speak now. My
 observation convinced me indeed, that fortitude is every-
 where  more  common and  evident, not less, than even
 rhapsodical writers have represented. There seems liter-
 ally no limit to  the powers of endurance of the human
 animal, once he is put to it. Many writers have written of
 the  awful groanings of the wounded. I must say that,
 though I have seen thousands of wounded,  the groans I
 have heard could almost be counted upon the fingers of
 my hand. Only  once in my experience do  I remember
 seeing  any  signs of  excitement  or disorder. That was
 in the roads around Poperinghe, in the first threatening
 hours of the second battle of Ypres. Once only did I get
 any  impression of human terror. And  that was  only a
 reminiscence, left behind by women and children in the
 tumbled empty houses of Ypres. But in all the heroism,
 unlimited and omnipresent, there is observed, as I say,
 little or no heroics. That entire absence  of drum and fife,
which strikes and arrests  all beholders at the front,  is
significant and symbolic. These men muster and move
                         85 
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forward to the risk of death almost as other men take the
subway and go downtown to business. There are no fan-
fares at all, no grand gestures, no flourishes about the
soul and "la gloire."
  It is true, no doubt, that the ambulance-driver views
the scene from a somewhat specialized angle. His princi-
pal association is with the sequelae of war; his view is too
much the hospital view. Yet,  it must be insisted, he be-
comes quickly and strangely callous on these points; and
on the whole would be less likely to overstress the  mere
horrors than some one who had not seen so much of them.
On the other hand, as I have suggested, he has extraor-
dinary opportunities for viewing war as a thing at once of
many parts and of a marvellously organized unity.

          A Fateful Day at Poperinghe
Personally I think that my  sharpest impression of war
as a whole came to me, not along the  postes de secours or
under the guns at  all, but at the station place, in the once
obscure little town of Poperinghe, on  April 23,  1915.
  That, it will be remembered, was a fateful day. At five
o'clock in the afternoon  before (everybody was perfectly
specific about the  hour),  there  had begun the great move-
ment now known as the Second Battle of Ypres  (or of the
Yser). The assault had begun with the terrifying surprise
of poison-gas; the gas was followed by artillery attacks of
a ferocity hitherto unequalled; Ypres had been wiped out
in a few hours; the Germans had crossed the Yser. Thus
the French  and English lines, which were joined, had
been abruptly pushed back over a long front. That these
were anxious hours for the Allies, Sir John French's report
of June 15, 1915, indicates very plainly, I think. But they
were far from being idle hours. To-day the whole  back
country, which for weeks had swarmed with soldiers, was
up. For miles around, Allied reserves had been  called up
from camp or billet; and now  they were rushing forward
to stiffen the  wavering  lines  and stem the threatening
thrust for the coast.
                         86 
SECTION ONE
  At three o'clock on this afternoon, I stood in the rue
d'Ypres,  before the railway station in Poperinghe, and
watched the new army of England go up. Thousands and
thousands, foot  and horse, supply and artillery, gun,
caisson, wagon, and lorry, the English were going up. All
afternoon long, in an unending stream, they tramped and
rolled up the Flemish highroad, and wheeling just before
me, dipped and  disappeared down a side street toward
"out there." Beautifully equipped and physically attrac-
tive — the useless cavalry especially! — sun-tanned and
confident, all ready, I am sure, to die without a whimper,
they were a most likely and impressive-looking lot. And I
suppose that they could have had little more idea of what
they were going  into than you and  I have of the geogra-
phy of the nether regions.
  This was on my left — the English going up. And on
my right, the two streams actually touching and mingling,
the English were coming back. They did not come as they
went, however. They came on their backs, very still and
remote; and all that you were likely to see of them now
was their muddy boots at the ambulance flap.
  Service Sanitaire as we were, I think Section One never
saw, before or since, such a conglomeration of  wounded
as we saw that day at Poperinghe. Here was the railhead
and the  base; here for the moment were the Red Cross
and Royal  Army Medical Corps  units  shelled out  of
Ypres; here was the nervous centre of all that swarming
and sweating back-of-the-front. And  here, hour after
hour, into and through the night, the slow-moving wag-
ons, English, French, and American, rolling on one an-
other's heels, brought back the bloody harvest.
  The English,  so returning to Poperinghe gare, were
very well cared for. By the station wicket a large squad of
English stretcher-bearers, directed, I believe, by a colonel
of the line,  was unceasingly and expertly busy. Behind
the wicket lay the waiting English train, steam up for
Boulogne, enormously long and perfectly sumptuous; a
super-train, a hospital Pullman, all swinging white beds
                         87 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
and  shining nickel. The  French, alas, were less lucky
that day.  Doubtless the  unimagined flood of wounded
had swamped the generally excellent service; for the mo-
ment, at least, there was not only no super-train for the
French, there was no train. As for the bunks of the sta-
tion warehouses, the hopital  d'evacuation, they were, of
course, long since exhausted. Thus it was that wounded
tirailleurs  and Zouaves and  black men from Africa set
down from ambulances,  staggered  unattended  up the
station platform, sat and lay  anyhow about the concrete
and  the sand — no flesh-wounded  hoppers  these, but
hard-punished men, not a few of them struck, it was only
too manifest, in the seat of their lives. This was a bloody
disarray which I never saw elsewhere, and hope never to
see again.  Here, indeed, there was moaning to be heard,
with the hard gasp and hopeless coughing  of  the as-
phyxies. And  still,  behind this heavy ambulance, rolled
another and another and another.
  On my  left was  the cannon fodder going up; on my
right was the cannon fodder coming back. The whole me-
chanics of war at a stroke, you might have said; these two
streams being really one,  these men  the same men, only
at slightly different stages of  their experience. But there
was still another detail in the picture we saw that day,
more human than  the organized machine, perhaps, and
it seemed even more pathetic.

               The Flotsam of War
Behind me as I stood and watched the mingling stream
of soldiers, the little square was black with refugies. Far-
ther back, in the station yard, a second long train stood
steaming beside the hospital  train, a train for the home-
less and the waifs of war. And presently the gate opened,
and these crowds,  old men  and women and children,
pushed through to  embark on their unknown voyage.
  These were persons who but yesterday  possessed a lo-
cal habitation and a name,  a background, old ties and
associations, community  organization, a life. Abruptly
                        88 
SECTION ONE
 severed from all this, violently hacked off at the roots,
 they were to-day floating units in a nameless class, droves
 of a ticket and number,  refugies.  I walked up the plat-
 form beside their crowded train. A little group still lin-
 gered outside — a boy, a weazened old man, and three
 or four black-clad women, simple peasants, with  their
 household goods in a tablecloth — waiting there, it may
 be, for the sight of a familiar face, missed since last night.
 I asked the women where they came from. They said from
 Boesinghe, which the Germans had all but entered the
 night before. Their homes, then, were in Boesinghe? Oh,
 no; their homes, their real homes, were in a little village
 some twenty kilometres back. And then they fixed them-
 selves permanently  in  my memory  by saying,  quite
 simply, that they had been driven from their homes by
 the coming  of the Germans in October, 1914; and they
 had then come  to settle with relatives in Boesinghe,
 which had seemed safe — until last night. Twice expelled
 and severed at the roots — where were they going now?
 I asked the question, and one of the women made a lit-
 tle  gesture w^ith her  arms, and answered stoically, "To
 France," which was,  as I  consider, the brave way of say-
 ing, God knows. As the case seemed sad to me, I tried to
 say something to that effect; and, getting no answer to
 my  commonplaces, I glanced  up,  and all the women's
 eyes had suddenly filled with tears.
  And outside the English were still going up with  a fine
 tramp and  rumble,  nice young clerks from  Manches-
 ter and greengrocers' assistants from Tottenham Court
 Road.

  I have never forgotten  that the very last soldier I car-
ried in my ambulance (on June 23, 1915) was one whose
throat, while he slept, had been quietly cut by a flying
sliver of a shell thrown  from a gun twenty-two  miles
away. But it will not do,  I am aware, to over-emphasize
the purely mechanical side of modern war, the deadly
impersonality which often seems to characterize it, the
                         89 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
terrible meaninglessness of its deaths at times. Ours, as
I have said, was too much the hospital view. That the
personal equation survives everywhere, and the personal
dedication, it is quite superfluous to say. Individual exal-
tation, fear and the victory over fear, conscious consecra-
tion to an idea and ideal,  all the subtle promptings and
stark behavior by which the common man chooses and
avows that there are ways of dying which transcend  all
life, — this, we know, must have been the experience of
hundreds of thousands of  the young soldiers  of France.
And all this, beyond doubt, will one day be duly recorded,
in tales to stir the blood and set the heart afire.
                         Henry Sydnor Harrison *
  June, 1916

  1 The novelist; Columbia, '00; a member of the Field Service from March
to July, 1915.
 
II
              The Year in Flanders

Old Section One had at least one distinguishing charac-
teristic. It was the first section of substantial proportions
to be geographically separated from the American Am-
bulance at Neuilly and turned over to the French Army.
Until it  left for the front, American automobiles  had
worked either to and from Neuilly Hospital, as an evac-
uating base, or, if temporarily detached for service else-
where, they had gone out in small units.
  The Section's story began in the cold, wet days of early
January,  1915, when twenty men with twelve cars left
Paris for the north. En route we spent our first night in the
shadow of the Beauvais cathedral, passing the following
day through  many towns filled with  French troops,  and
then, as we crossed into the British sector, traversed vil-
lages abounding with the khaki-clad  soldiers of England
and her colonies and the turbaned  troops of British India.
The second night we stayed at Saint-Omer, the men sleep-
ing in their cars in the centre of the town square; and the
third morning, passing out of the British sector once more
into the French lines, we arrived  in Dunkirk where our
work began.
  We were at once assigned to  duty. Every school, bar-
rack and other large building — even the public theatre —
in the town, or in the neighboring towns within ten miles
of Dunkirk, seemed to have been  turned into a hospital.
The cars were parked in the railroad  yard near the  sta-
tion where a big freight shed  was fitted up as receiving-
post. The drivers on active duty were quartered in a small
lean-to in the station yard, which lean-to was furnished
with straw-covered bunks, a  table, and a stove. It  was
the principal loafing-place for  the young Americans,  and
being an ill-smelling place, soon  acquired the name of
                         91 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
"Monkey House." The men secured their meals in a near-
by cafe, remembered chiefly for its dirty, dingy  interior.
  The blesses arriving at Dunkirk by hospital trains from
Belgian villages, a few miles away, were unloaded in this
freight-shed and then carried to the twenty-five  or more
hospitals in the city and in the towns roundabout.
  Our first  incident of an exciting nature came on the sec-
ond day. We were nearly all at the station, quietly waiting
for the next train, when high up in the air there appeared
first  one, then three, and finally  seven graceful aero-
planes. We watched, fascinated,  and were the more  so
when a moment later we learned that they were Taubes. It
seemed hard to realize that we were to witness one of the
famous raids that have made Dunkirk even more famous
than the raider Jean  Bart  himself had ever done. Explo-
sions were heard on all sides and the sky was soon spotted
with puffs of white smoke from the shells fired at the in-
truders. The rattle of the  mitrailleuses and the  bang  of
the " 75's" became a background of sound for the more
solemn boom of the shells. A few moments later there was
a bang not thirty yards away and we were showered with
bits of stone. We  stood spellbound  until  the danger was
over and then  foolishly jumped behind our cars  for pro-
tection.

            When Bombing was Young
This  incident  of  our early days was soon  thrown into
unimportance  by  other raids, each more interesting than
the last. One of them stands out in memory above all the
rest. It occurred on a perfect moonlight night, quite cloud-
less. Four of my companions and I were on night duty in
the railway yard; about eleven the excitement  started;
and to say  that it commenced with a  bang is not slang
but the truth. Rather it commenced with many bangs.
The  sight was superb and the excitement intense. One
could hear  the whirr of  the motors, and  when they pre-
sented a certain angle to the moon, the machines snowed
up like enormous silver flies. One had a delicious feeling
                         92 
DUNKIRK, 1915. EFFECT OF ONE SHELL FROM THIRTY MILES AWAY 
 
SECTION ONE
of danger, and to  stand there and hear the roar of the
artillery, the buzzing of the aeroplanes, the swish of the
bombs as they fell and the crash as they exploded made
an unforgettable experience. One could plainly hear the
bombs during their flight, for each had a propeller at-
tached which prevented its too  rapid descent, thus in-
suring its not entering so far into the ground as to explode
harmlessly.  To hear them coming and  to wonder if  it
would be your turn to be hit next was an experience new
to us all. The bombardment continued for perhaps an
hour and then our work began. I was sent down to the
quay and brought back two wounded men and one who
had  been killed, and all my companions had about the
same experience. One took a man from a half-demolished
house; another, an old woman who had been killed in her
bed; and still another three men, badly mutilated, who
had  been peacefully walking along  the  street. An  hour
later all  was quiet — except perhaps the nerves of  some
of our men.
  About this time our work was enlivened by the appear-
ance of the  one and only real ambulance war dog, the
official mascot of the squad, and my personal dog at  that!
I was very jealous on that point and rarely let him ride
on another machine. I got him at Zuydcoote. I found him
playing about, and as he appeared to be astray and was
very friendly, I allowed him to get on the seat and stay
there. But I had to answer so many questions about him
that it became a bore, and finally I prepared a speech to
suit  all occasions;  so when any one approached me and
took up the  dog question,  I used to say, " Non, Madame,
il  n'est pas  americain, il  est frangais. Je  Vai trouve ici
dans le Nord." One day a rosy-cheeked young lady  came
up and called the dog "Dickie"; whereupon  I started
my speech:  "77 ne s'appelle pas Dickie,  Mademoiselle,
mais Khaki,  et, vous savez, il est  frangais." " Je le sais
bien, Monsieur, parce qu'il est &  moi."  I  felt sorry and
chagrined, but not for  long, as a moment  later the lady
presented him to me.
                         93 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
              The Drive for Calais
We will skip over the humdrum life of the next weeks to
a night in April when we were suddenly ordered to the
station at about I a.m. It was, I think, April 22. "The
Germans have crossed the Yser" was the news that sent
a thrill through  all  of us. Would they this time reach
Calais or would they be pushed back? We had no time to
linger and wonder. All night long we worked unloading
the trains that followed each other without pause. The
Germans had used a new and infernal method of warfare;
they had released a  cloud of poisonous gas which, with
a favorable wind, had drifted down and completely en-
veloped the Allied trenches. The tales of this first gas at-
tack were varied and fantastic, but all agreed on the sur-
prise and horror of it. Trains rolled in filled with huddled
figures, some dying,  some more lightly touched, but even
these coughed  so that they were  unable to speak cohe-
rently. All told the same story, of having become suddenly
aware of a strange odor, and then of smothering and chok-
ing and falling  like flies. In the midst of all this had come
a hail of shrapnel. The men were broken as I have never
seen men broken. In the months of our work we had be-
come so accustomed to dreadful sights and  to suffering
as to be little affected by them. The sides and floors of
our cars had often been bathed in blood and our ears had
not infrequently been stirred  by the groans of men in
agony, but these sufferers from the new form of attack
awakened in all of us feelings of pity beyond any that we
had  ever felt before. To see these big men bent double,
convulsed and choking was heart-breaking  and  hate-in-
spiring.
  At ten o'clock we were ordered to Poperinghe, about
twenty miles from Dunkirk and three miles from Ypres,
where a great  battle was just getting under way. The
town was filled with refugees from Ypres, which was in
flames and uninhabitable. Through Poperinghe and be-
yond it we slowly wound our wray in the midst of a solid
                        94 
SECTION ONE
stream of motor trucks filled with dust-covered soldiers
coming up to take their heroic part in stemming the Ger-
man tide. We were to make our headquarters for the time
at Elverdinghe; but as we approached our destination the
road was being shelled and we put on our best speed to
get through the danger zone. This destination turned out
to be a small chateau in Elverdinghe, where a  first-aid
hospital  had been established, and where, all around us,
batteries of French and  English  guns were  thundering
their aid to the men in the trenches some  two miles away.
In front of us and beside us were the famous " 75's," and
"120's," and farther back the great English marine guns,
whose big shells we could hear every few seconds pass-
ing over us.
  Before we reached the chateau, an automobile had just
been put out  of commission by  a shell; so we had to
change our route and go up another road. The  chateau
presented a terrible scene. In every room straw and beds
and  stretchers, with  mangled  men everywhere.  We
started  to work and for  twenty-six hours  there was
scarcely time  for  pause. Our labor  consisted in going
down to the postes de secours, situated in the  Flemish
farmhouses, perhaps four hundred or five hundred yards
from the trenches, where the wounded get their first-aid
attention, and then in carrying the men back to the dress-
ing stations where their wounds were more carefully at-
tended to, and finally in taking them farther to the reai
to the hospitals outside of shell range.  The roads were bad
and we had to  pass a constant line of convoys. At night
no  lights were allowed and we had to be especially careful
not to jolt our passengers. But the best of drivers cannot
help bumping on the pavements of Belgium, and when,
during an hour or more, each cobble  brings forth a groan
from the poor fellows inside, it is hard to bear, especially
as they are often out of  their heads, when they call  for
their mothers,  order the charge or  to  cease firing,  see
visions of beautiful fields or of cool water, and sometimes
die before the trip is over.
                         95 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
                  Anxious Days
The following morning we decided to stay in Elverdinghe
and try to get a little sleep; but no sooner had we turned
in than we wrere awakened by the order to get out of the
chateau at once, as we were under fire. While I was put-
ting on my shoes, the window fell in and part of the ceiling
came  down. Then we were  instructed to evacuate the
place of all its wounded and we were kept busy for hours
getting them to a  place of safety. In the meantime shells
were falling all about us. One great tree in front  of me
was cut completely off and an auto near it was riddled
with the fragments. For two weeks this battle lasted, and
we watched our  little  village gradually disintegrating
under the German shells. Our cars were many times more
or less under heavy artillery and rifle fire and few of them
escaped without shrapnel holes.
  To  most of the  postes we could go only after dark, as
they were in sight of the German lines. Once we did go
during the day to a poste along the banks  of the Yser
Canal; but it was  too dangerous and the General ordered
such trips stopped. These few trips were splendid, how-
ever,  for to see the  men in the trenches and hear the
screech of the shells at the very front was thrilling indeed.
At times a rifle bullet would find its way over the bank
and flatten itself against a near-by farmhouse. One was
safer  at night,  of course, but the roads were so full of
marmite holes  and fallen  trees that they were  hard to
drive along. We  could find  our way only by carefully
avoiding the dark spots on the road. There was not a man
among us, however, who did not feel a hundred times re-
paid for the danger  and anxiety he had gone through
when he realized the delay and suffering he had saved the
wounded. Had we not been there with our little cars,
the wounded would  have been brought back on  hand-
stretchers or in wagons far  less comfortable and much
slower.
  The advantage of our little cars over the bigger and
                         96 
SECTION ONE
heavier ambulances was demonstrated many times. On
narrow roads, with a ditch on  each  side,  choked with
troops, ammunition  wagons,  and vehicles of all  sorts
moving in both directions, horses sometimes rearing in
terror at exploding shells, at night in the pitch dark, ex-
cept for the weird light from the illuminating rockets, the
little cars would squeeze through somehow. If sometimes
a wheel or two would fall into a shell hole, four or five
willing soldiers were enough to lift the car out and send
it on its way undamaged. If a serious collision occurred,
two hours' work sufficed to repair it. Always "on the
job," always efficient, the little car, the subject of a thou-
sand jokes, gained  the admiration of every one.

      The Great Bombardment of Dunkirk
Finally the second battle of the Yser was over, and the
front  settled  down again to  the  comparative quiet of
trench warfare. Meanwhile some of us were beginning to
feel the strain and were ordered back to Dunkirk for a
rest, which we reached in time to witness one of the most
exciting episodes of the war. It was just at this time that
the Germans "sprang"  another  surprise, — the  bom-
bardment of Dunkirk from guns more than twenty miles
away. Shells that would obliterate a whole house or make
a hole in the ground thirty feet across would fall and ex-
plode without even a warning whistle such as ordinary
shells make wrhen approaching. At about 9.30 in the morn-
ing we were in the railway station working on our cars
when,  out of a clear, beautiful sky, the first shell fell. We
thought it was from an aeroplane, as Dunkirk seemed far
from the range of other guns. The dog seemed to know
better, for he jumped off the seat of my car and came
whining under me. A few minutes later came a  second and
then a third shell. Still not knowing from where they came,
we  got out our machines and went to where the clouds of
smoke gave evidence that they had fallen. I had supposed
that by this time I had become something of a veteran;
but when I went into the first dismantled house and saw
97 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
what it looked like inside, the street seemed to me by far
a safer place, for the building was one mass of torn tim-
bers, earth and debris. Even people in the cellar had been
wounded.
  We worked all that day, moving  from place to place
in the town, sometimes almost smothered by dust and
plaster from the explosion of shells  in our vicinity. We
cruised slowly around the streets waiting for the shells to
come and then went to see if any one had been hit. Some-
times when houses were demolished, we found every one
safe in the cellars, but there were many hurt, of course,
and quite a number of killed. The first day I carried three
dead  and ten terribly wounded soldiers, civilians, and
women too.  In one of  the earliest bombardments a shell
fell in the midst of a funeral, destroying almost every
vestige of the hearse and body and all of the mourners.
Another day one of  them hit a group of children at play
in front of the billet where at  one time we lodged, and
one never knew how many children had been killed, so
complete was their annihilation.
  For a time every one believed the shells had been fired
from  marine guns at  sea, but  later it was found that
they came from heavy land  guns, twenty or more miles
away; and as these bombardments were repeated in suc-
ceeding weeks, measures were  taken to safeguard  the
public from  them. Although the shells weighed nearly a
ton, their passage through the air took almost a minute
and a half, and their arrival in later days was announced
by telephone from the  French trenches as soon as the ex-
plosion on their departure had been heard. At Dunkirk a
siren was blown on the summit of a central tower, giving
people at least a minute in which to seek shelter in their
cellars before the shell arrived. Whenever we heard  the
siren, our duty was to run into the city and search for
the injured, and during the  succeeding weeks  many
severely  wrounded were carried  in our ambulances, in-
cluding women and children, so frequently the victims
of German methods of warfare. The American Ambulance
                        98 
SECTION ONE
cars were the only cars on  duty during these differ-
ent bombardments and the leader of the Section  was
awarded the Croix de Guerre for the services which they
performed.

                  Quieter Times
In the summer a quieter period set in. Sunny weather
made life agreeable and in their greater leisure our men
were able to enjoy sea-bathing and walks along the sand
dunes. We kept up a regular ambulance service in Dun-
kirk and the surrounding towns, but part of the Section
was moved to Coxyde, a small village in the midst of the
dunes  near the sea, between  the ruined city of Nieu-
port and La Panne, the residence of the Belgian King
and Queen, where we worked for seven weeks, among the
Zouaves and the Fusiliers Marins, famous the world
over as the "heroes of the Yser."
  Then once more we were moved to the district farther
south known as Old  Flanders, where our headquarters
were in a Flemish farm adjacent to the town of Crombeke.
The landscape thereabout is flat as a billiard-table, only
a slight rise now and again breaking the view. Our work
consisted in bringing back wounded from .the vicinity of
the Yser Canal, which then marked the line of the enemy
trenches; but owing to the flatness of  the country we
had to work chiefly at night.  Canals dotted with slow-
moving barges were everywhere, and as our work was
often a cross-country affair, looking for bridges added to
the length of our runs. Here we stayed from August to the
middle of December, 1915, during which we did the am-
bulance work for the  entire French front between the
English and the Belgian sectors.

              Winter — and a Move
Just as another winter was setting in and we were once
more beginning to get hordes  of cases of frozen feet, we
were ordered to move again, this time to another sector.
The day before we left, Colonel Morier visited the Sec-
                        99 
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tion and, in the name of the Army, thanked the men in
glowing terms, not only for the work which they had
done, but for the way in which they had done it. He re-
called the great days of the second battle of the Yser and
the Dunkirk bombardments and our part therein; how
he had always felt sure that he could depend upon our
men and how they had always been ready for any service
however arduous or dull or dangerous it might be. He
expressed officially and  personally his regret at our de-
parture. We left on a day that was typical and  remi-
niscent  of  hundreds of other days  we  had spent  in
Flanders. It  was raining when our  convoy began  to
stretch itself out along the road and it drizzled all that
day.
                          Joshua G. B. Campbell1

  1 Of New York; member of Section One from January, 1915, to Decem-
ber, 1916; subsequently first lieutenant in the U.S.A. Ambulance Service.
 
                         Ill
               Notes from a Diary
                                 Dunkirk, May 16, 1915
We started out in four Fords from Paris yesterday and
arrived here at about 4 p.m. The journey was one of the
most beautiful I have ever taken. The sky was blue, with
puffy white clouds,  the rolling country a bright green
dotted with red and white houses. The villages we passed
through were almost deserted except for a few women
and children. Once we came across a lot of men working in
a field; but they  were digging trenches, not ploughing.
The children would  shout  " Vivent les  Anglais!" as we
passed, and once an old woman tossed me a bunch of
lilacs.

                                 Malo-les-Bains, May 20
We are billeted, twenty of us, in a tiny villa here, just
outside the city and right on the beach. We draw rations
from  the  French Army and a red-haired Flemish girl
cooks them for us. Work is rather slack just now. Occa-
sionally a train full  of wounded comes in and we take
them out  to the hospitals in the vicinity. Some German
blesses arrived yesterday, all that were left of four com-
panies. Poor devils! How  melancholy they looked. An
officer among  them, though shot through the shoulder,
was still full of nerve and kept his head up; but the others
were too miserable.
  There is another squad of us at Poperinghe, near the
firing line, and I shall be sent there soon.

                                     Saturday, May 22
I  was "chow  orderly" day before  yesterday  and spent
all day setting or clearing the table and flirting with the
cook.
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                                      Sunday, May 23
They say that the gun is broken down and that is why
it does not  shoot at us any more. But I doubt it. Took
two couches from Hondschoote to  Zuydcoote,  really a
pleasant  trip, for the weather,  road, and scenery were
beautiful. I  gave a lift to a bicyclist who had been billeted
near the English. It is noticeably more difficult to under-
stand or talk to French soldiers who have had intercourse
with the  Tommies because these men have acquired the
habit  of  saying only a few words in a sentence in the
hope of making the meaning clear. I don't know whether
the Tommies can  understand such men, but I am sure I
cannot. A motor truck I saw the other day was mottled
in greens, reds, blues, grays, and browns, so that it looked
at a distance like a mass of foliage — camouflage, I sup-
pose.

                                     Monday, May 24
I am beginning to think that for once news  unfavorable
to the Germans is true and the  big gun is broken. A red,
white, and  green flag flew from the  town  hall to-day, for
Italy has entered the war.  In the morning, at Malo Ter-
minus, I  had a hot and bitter dispute with a Turco officer
because I insisted that the Ford could not carry eight.
They say, though no one seems  to know for certain, that
an aeroplane dropped a bomb here last night. To-morrow
I leave for  Poperinghe.

                            Poperinghe, Tuesday, May 25
Started for this place at 10.30 and arrived about 12.30.
A warm, dusty road. Roads partly  good and partly vile.
Most all of the Belgian roads are paves, very much worn
from  heavy motor convoys and are thick with dust, too,
which in wet  weather turns to deep mud. Our billet,
which I  had some trouble in finding, is  an old Flemish
farmhouse. The rooms are low-studded and have beamed
ceilings.  The cooking is done over  an open  fire. All this
is  picturesque,  but most of the men prefer to sleep in
                         102 
FLANDERS —AND IT DRIZZLED ALL THAT DAY" 
 
SECTION ONE
their cars rather than in the house. Day and night one
hears continual cannonading.
                                    Thursday, May 27
Very raw and windy. Sky overcast. I regret that I con-
sidered overcoats too expensive in Paris.  I think I will
make one out of a blanket. We went up to Woesten about
7.30 p.m. I closed up my ambulance as tightly as possible
and lighted a lantern to keep warm, with fair success.
An Algerian miner gave us some coffee. About midnight
some wounded came in and in the shadowed moonlight
I took two to West Vleteren.

                Veterans of Mons
                                     Sunday, May 30
I awoke this morning from a rather chilled sleep to see a
long file of khakied soldiers coming up to our farm. They
were the 2d Durham Regulars, being sent to the upper
end of the British sector after a few days' rest. Some of
them had been fighting since September, with no fur-
lough. This is the type of soldier that has built the em-
pire — tough, coarse, rather stupid, well-drilled, and with
beautifully kept rifles. They did not look bloodthirsty and
most of them wrere married. But they had become used
to killing people and being killed, as  a trade,  and their
point of view seemed rather strange when the enemy was
concerned. However, we became very good friends. They
were all lamenting the fact that most of their officers had
been transferred to the newer regiments  and they had
been given amateurs. One of their lieutenants seemed
no more than sixteen or seventeen. Several of the men
confirmed the report in the papers of the Prussians de-
liberately firing upon the Saxons when the latter tried to
surrender. There is no great love between them. They say
that frequently the Saxons would shout over to them to
save their ammunition for the Prussians and there would
occasionally be an exchange of tobacco and canned stuff
between the trenches. The French, on the  other hand,
hate the Saxons. It's a strange wrar.
                        103 
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                                     Monday, May 31
 The Durhams left about 5 o'clock. One poor fellow who
 was on sentry duty last night, found our wine barrel too
 attractive and had  to be taken  away under guard.  The
 next time there is a dangerous but unimportant job to be
 done he will be given it and will probably get shot. After
 they had gone, I found and appropriated a raincoat which
 one of them had left. They also  left some bully beef and
 biscuits which were confiscated by the ambulance. In
 the evening we saw a Zeppelin flying over the Belgian
 lines. It was fired at but not hit. Another was seen at
 Dunkirk about the same time — probably both bound
 for London.

                                     Tuesday, June 1
 I woke from a deep sleep about noon, to  find the farm
 once more full of soldiers — this time the Buffs. They did
 not, however, swarm all over it as the Durhams did. They
 lay down in a neat column in the shelter of the hedge
 and stayed there. But one or two non-coms came over to
 talk to us and make us some very welcome presents of
 Bovril and marmalade. One told  us of finding in the field
 a wounded German he had known in London, who begged
 to be put out of pain. But the Britisher refused to do this,
 and the poor fellow died a few minutes later on an Eng-
 lish stretcher.

                                   Wednesday, June 2
The Buffs left in the afternoon. They were not so sociable
as the Durhams, but neater and  better drilled.

                   Easy Times
                                      Friday, June 4
 The irrepressible Budd  seeing an old gentleman squint-
 ing  at an aeroplane through a very long telescope, sud-
denly cried: "Ne tirez pas, c'est  un frangais 1" The  old
man was very indignant.
104 
SECTION ONE
                                      Saturday, June 5
I was "chow " to-day. Except that one has to get up early,
the job is a "cinch." The loaf was welcome. About 6.15
there was a very heavy call and I deserted my duties and
took five assis to Zuydcoote.

                                       Monday, June 7
Warm, hazy day. The scarlet poppies are suddenly out
and the fields are gay with them. At midnight, one trip
to Rosendael. As  I was about to leave, the pleasant old
janitor ran into the garden and came back with a little
bunch of white wild carnations growing there in the star-
light. At 5.30 in the morning there was a false  alarm  for
all the cars to go  to Zuydcoote. Stebbins and  Ferguson
answered it; but we found there were only six  blesses to
be carried.

                                   Poperinghe, June 11
There is a pretty little light-haired girl here about four-
teen years old, who can run like a deer, even in sabots.
She runs races with Johnson and Budd and beats  them!
She does most of our work, and is very pleasant and in-
telligent  and understands  a little  English  as well as
French and Flemish. I think she is a little higher class
than the rest, and is, of course, a refugee.

                                    Saturday, June 12
In the morning Haney got  a trip to Ypres. He reports
that there is not a single undamaged house in the  city.

                                      Sunday, June 13
In the afternoon, just after lunch, two joy-riding doctors
strolled over to the billet and asked for some one to take
them to Nieuport and  Ypres.  I took them. The doctors
were very much afraid of being seen by some one from the
hospital, so they hid inside the car until we were out of
Poperinghe. We went through Saint-Sixte, Oostvleteren,
Furnes, to Coxyde, one of  our new postes; and then up
105 
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the coast to Nieuport.  The vicinity of the Yser was
flooded. As we came near the  city,  the road and  fields
were frequently dotted with marmite holes. Occasionally
wretched farmhouses would also be  seen, and when we
reached the city itself we found it a ruin. There is scarcely
a block that does not contain several ruined houses, and
in the middle of the town every building is wrecked.
Sometimes]only the front door and the windows of a house
are broken in; sometimes a corner or a side is taken off,
giving a sort of diagrammatic view of all the floors; some-
times nothing is left but a pile of plaster and bricks. Leav-
ing the city we drove along the east bank of a canal to
Ypres, which was even more of a ruin than Nieuport. It
seems as if not a house  were untouched. We entered a
rather small church — Saint Pierre, I think, was its name.
We moved cautiously for the roof had been blown in.
The two doctors proceeded to  help themselves to the
carvings over some confessional booths,  while I  rum-
maged around with the best of them  and found a pewter
collection  plate, an old  Dutch prayer-book and  some
little waxen images. The whole proceeding seemed to me
a trifle unscrupulous. But after all we were only robbing
the next looter and the value of the pilfered articles was
almost purely intrinsic. We got back to Poperinghe about
half-past six. The doctors were much alarmed because
they were seen by two of the men from the hospital out
walking in the town. They made me drive up a  back
road and sneaked home on foot.

  Coxyde — The Dunes of the Belgian Coast
                               Coxyde, Tuesday, June 15
This morning about 10, twelve of us started for this place
where we arrived in perfect convoy without  accident.
Like Malo, it is on the shore; many dunes and much wind-
driven sand. We are billeted in a hay-loft, from which we
have removed the hay, and we eat at a house near by.
The place is full of marines, territorials and zouaves —
a cheerful bunch. We have all the poste de secours  work
                        106 
SECTION ONE
around  Nieuport — shifts — also one car at Oost-Dun-
kerke. Our meals are excellent. The two chief outs about
the place are that  it is obtrusively sandy and is infested
with dirty, prying children, who shout the ugliest Flemish
in shrill harsh French voices — an ineffable nuisance.

                                       Friday, June 18
Went down  to Adinkerke about 8.30, where I met two
young Belgian chauffeurs one of wrhom spoke English.
They were very cordial and pleasant. A  lot of Belgian
soldiers were there and I had my first opportunity to see
them near to. One is struck by their youthfulness, as com-
pared with the French and English, due partly to their
being blond and clean-shaven. Some of the cavalry have
a most brilliant uniform; the breeches are magenta  with
a yellow stripe. I must get a pair.  The Belgians are all
very grateful to America, but are afraid that if we go into
the war, their countrymen under German rule will starve.
                          Tracy Jackson Putnam l
  1 Of Boston; Harvard, '15; was in the Field Service from April, 1915, to
January, 1916, serving in Sections One and Three.
CwW wi—— 
IV
              In Action — The Aisne

As you come along the Compiegne-Soissons road, pro-
ceeding in the direction of Soissons, about midway be-
tween  the two  cities you sight a small cluster of gray
stone buildings. It is the village of Jaulzy. Here it was we
had cast anchor. Before reaching the village you will have
noticed a dark round spot in the walls. As you approach,
this resolves itself into an arch. Passing through you will
find  yourself in a muddy stable-yard.  I say "muddy"
advisedly, for I firmly believe that whatever the season
or whatever the  weather conditions are,  or may have
been, you will find that courtyard muddy. Whether the
mud is fed from perennial springs or gathers its moisture
from the ambient atmosphere, I  do not know.  The fact
remains, that courtyard  wras, is, and always  will be,
muddy. Facing the arch on the farther side of the yard,
stands  a single-storied  building of one room. Its  inside
dimensions are, perhaps, fifty by twenty-five feet. Access
is had  by a single door and three windows admit  a dim
light. We found it simply furnished with a wire-bottomed
trough, raised about three and a half feet above the floor
and extending about double that from the walls on three
sides of the room. This left free floor space enough to
accommodate a table of planks stretched across essence
boxes,  flanked on either side by  two benches belonging
to the same school of design. Such was our cantonment.
In the trough twenty of us slept, side by side. At  the table
we messed, wrote, mended tires, played chess, or lanced
boils. Two  of  the windows  lacked  glass, so there was
plenty  of cold air; a condition which a small stove did its
inefficient best to combat. The galley was established in
a tiny hut on the left of the yard and from here the food
was  transported to the mess by the two unfortunates
                        108 
SECTION ONE
who happened to be on "chow" duty. Since the court-
yard was not sufficiently large to accommodate all the
cars, half were placed in another yard about two hundred
metres down the road, where also was established the
atelier. At night a sentry was posted on the road between
these two points and "le mot" was a condition precedent
to passing, a circumstance which sometimes gave rise to
embarrassment when the password was forgotten.

                     At Jaulzy
The village of Jaulzy is made up of some twoscore forbid-
ding-looking houses. It is situated on the south bank of
the Aisne and is bisected  by the road from Compiegne
to Soissons.  At this time, February, 1916, it was, as the
shell travels, about four kilometres from the line. Though
thus within  easy reach of the enemy's field artillery,  it
showed  no signs of  having been bombarded, and during
our entire stay only five or six shells were thrown in. This
immunity was probably due to the insignificant size of
the place and the fact that no troops were ever quartered
there. Back  of the village proper, on the top of a steep
hill, was Haut Jaulzy, or Upper Jaulzy. Here a large per-
centage of the houses was partially demolished — from
shell-fire, one of the few remaining inhabitants informed
me. Halfway up the hill, between Upper and Lower Jaulzy,
stands an ancient stone church. A line of reserve trenches,
crossing the hill, traverses  the churchyard.  Here are
buried a number of soldiers, "mort pour la patrie." Above
one grave is a wooden cross  upon which appears the in-
scription: "To an unknown  English soldier; he died for
his father's land." And this grave is even better kept and
provided with flowers than the others.

         PlERREFONDS —"VEAL CUTLETS"
The region roundabout Jaulzy is surely among the most
beautiful in  all France. Hills, plateaus, and wooded val-
leys, through which flow small, clear streams, all combine
to lend  it natural charm, a charm of which even winter
                         109 
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cannot rob it. Numerous villages are everywhere scattered
about, and while those near the front had a war-worn
aspect, in proportion to their distance from the line their
freshness and attractiveness increased. Railhead for this
sector was Pierrefonds, a pleasant town overshadowed by
the fairylike castle from which it takes its name. It was
at Pierrefonds we obtained our supply of essence and huile.
Off to the southwest, in a magnificent forest bearing the
same  name, is the quaint little city of Villers-Cotterets
— by the Squad rechristened "Veal  Cutlets."  It was
here Dumas was born and lived. The city owed its chief
interest to us, however, to the fact that here was lo-
cated one of the field hospitals to which we transported
wounded. Some twenty kilometres to the west of Jaulzy
is the old city of Compiegne, reminiscent of Robert Louis
Stevenson, and here too were located evacuation hos-
pitals. Its curious town hall,  its venerable  houses, and
dark,  mysterious shops are interesting,  but our most
lasting memories  of the city will be of its silent, wind-
swept streets through which we carried our wounded on
those dark, icy nights.
  The day began at 6.30 a.m.  when the detested alarm
clock  went into  action,  supplemented  by shouts  of
"everybody out" and sleepy groans of protest. A quick
shift from flea-bag to knickers and tunic, and a promis-
sory toilet was accomplished by 7, by which time, also,
the two orderlies for the day had set the table with coffee,
bread, and jam. This disposed of, the cars were cranked
— and a bone-wrenching job this usually was, the motors
being so  stiff from the cold it was next to impossible to
"turn them over."  There was a Squad rule for  "lights
out"  at 9.30 p.m., but as there were always some indi-
viduals who wished to write or play chess or read after
this hour, excellent target practice was nightly furnished
to those who had retired in the trough and who objected
to the continued  illumination.  Thus I have seen a well-
directed boot wipe out an intricate chess match as com-
pletely as did the German  guns the forts of Liege. The
                         no 
SECTION ONE
"gunner" in these fusillades always endeavored to see
that the ammunition employed — usually boots — was
the property of some one else and the joy which a "direct
hit" engendered was apt to suffer abatement on discovery
that they were your boots which had been employed.

  Evacuation — Vic-sur-Aisne  and Compiegne
The schedule under which the Squad operated while on
the Aisne was a varied one, and yet so systematized that
a driver could tell a fortnight in advance,  by the list of
sailings posted on the order board,  where he should be
and what his duties at any given day or hour. There were
three regular-route runs, to each of which were assigned
two cars a day. These were known as "evacuation runs"
from the fact that the blesses were picked up at regularly
established field dressing-stations, from  two and a half
to fifteen kilometres back of the line, and transported
to an "evacuation hospital," either  at Villers-Cotterets,
Compiegne, or Pierrefonds. The longer  of these routes
was made twice each day, a run of about forty kilometres.
  About two kilometres to the east of Jaulzy, on the north
side of the river, is the village of Vic-sur-Aisne,  at this
time not much above a kilometre back of the line. Here
was established our picket post and here we maintained
always  three  cars, serving in twenty-four-hour shifts.
From this station we served nine frontal postes de secours,
or line dressing-stations, some of which were within five
hundred metres of the German line.  Such were the postes
of Hautebraye and Vingre. The crossing of the Aisne to
reach Vic is made by a single-spanned iron bridge, over
which passed all the transport for this portion of the line.
Because of the importance thus given it, the bridge was
a continual object of the enemy's fire, being  within easy
range. The village itself, considering the  fact that it was
within rsight of the Germans and had been under more
or less continuous fire for months, was not so complete
a wreck as might be imagined. This was due to the fact
that the buildings were  of stone and the shelling was
                        in 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
usually  done with small-calibre guns. To obstruct  the
enemy's view and prevent his spotting passing traffic, the
roads leading from the village were screened with brush
and poles. These served their purpose in winter when the
roads were muddy, but when the roads dried, the rising
dust betrayed the passing of the transport and then the
enemy was able to shell with a greater degree of accuracy.
Our station at Vic was located in the carriage-house of a
chateau which  stood  on an eminence overlooking  the
river, about a quarter  of a mile to the east of the village.
When on duty there, we messed with some sous-officiers
in the cellar of the chateau, the place being fairly safe
from shell eclats though not from a direct hit.
  Besides the three route runs described and the  Vic
service,  the Squad was subject to special calls at any time
of the day or night from any part of our sector or the
surrounding country. This service was known as "bureau
duty," from the fact  that the cars assigned to it were
stationed at our office  or bureau, which was in telephonic
communication with the line and region about. Twice a
week one  of the cars  on bureau service was despatched
to Compiegne on "chow" foraging, an assignment much
coveted, since it meant a chance for a hot bath and a good
feed.
  Under this schedule a driver  had  one day in every
seven for repos. This was more in theory than actuality,
however, as the seventh day usually found work  needed
on his car.
  We had reached Jaulzy on the 27th of January.  On the
first day of February we took over the sector from the
retiring French Ambulance Section,  and  that day went
into action. Heretofore we had watched the passing pano-
rama of war; now we  were of it. My first voyage was an
evacuation route and hence wholly  back of the line. I
went in company with another  car, and as there were
only four assis which the other car took, I had no  passen-
gers. Coming back from Cceuvres, the road leads across a
plateau which overlooks the Aisne Valley, and the coun-
                         112 
PANEL FROM THE SIDE (JE A SECTION ONE AMBCLANCK WITH
           THE ORIGINAL  INDIAN'  HEAD INSIGNIA 
 
SECTION ONE
try behind the German lines was plainly visible. It was
from this plateau road that for the first time I saw shells
bursting. The French batteries in the valley below were
in action  and over there in Boche-land white puffs of
smoke showed where the shells were breaking.
  Though I had several times been very close to the line,
it wras not until February was nine days old that  I received
my baptism of fire. On that day I was on twenty-four-
hour duty at Vic and my journal written just after I came
off duty, will, perhaps, give an idea of a typical shift at
this station:

                  Notes of a Call
"Jaulzy,  February 10. Relieved the other cars at Vic
promptly at eight o'clock yesterday morning. The French
batteries were already  in action, but  there was no re-
sponse from the enemy till about ten, when a number of
shells whistled by  overhead, dropping into the village of
Roches, about a half mile down the  road. Toward noon
the range was shortened, and as we went to mess in the
dugout an obus struck  the wall  back of the chateau, a
hundred yards away. After lunch I went out with  a sol-
dier to look for the fusee, as the bronze shell-head is called.
To my surprise, the man suddenly dropped flat on his
face. Then I heard an awful screech, followed by a crash,
as though a  pile of lumber were falling, and a cloud of
dust rose  in a field, perhaps ninety metres away. Almost
immediately two more crashed in. I am unable to analyze
or  describe my sensations and I  question whether a
trained psychologist would be much better off. There is
something "disturbing" about shell-fire which is not con-
ducive to abstract or analytical thought.  I do not believe
I was especially frightened; my feelings were more of
curiosity. I knew this shelling would soon mean work for
us, so I got back to my car and  saw that everything was
ready for 'marching.' Meanwhile a shell had dropped just
back of the chateau, getting one of the stretcher-bearers.
Joe carried him to  the dressing-station at Roches where he
                          H3 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
died a little later. My first call came at two o'clock, from
Roches. Here I got three men, just wounded by shell eclats,
evacuating them to  the  field hospital  at Attichy. Got
back to Vic about four. Found the village still under fire,
both our own and the  enemy's  fire having, if anything,
increased. Both of the other cars were out, which meant
I was due for the next  call. Got into my sleeping-bag to
try to get warm, but was hardly settled before a Mede-
cin Major came in announcing a call for Vingre. In five
minutes we were on our way. After leaving Vic the road
wras a sea of mud. An enemy observation balloon had
the way in full view, so the word was vite.
  "Through   deserted,   shell-shattered   villages  we
ploughed, the mud spraying  us from tires to top and
filling our eyes, over the wind-break. It was nearing dusk
as we reached the poste,  a dugout in the side  of a hill.
Just above us, on the crest was the line and we could hear
distinctly the popping of hand-grenades between the bat-
tery salvos. Our men, one shot through the leg,  the other
hit in the chest, were brought in from a boyau and we
started back, this time going more slowly. It was a deso-
late scene through which we passed, made more desolate
by  the fading light of  a  gray day. The miry, deserted
road, the stricken villages,  the overgrown fields — it
seemed the very stamping-ground of death and  the voice
of that death passed overhead in whining shrieks. There
was little of life to dispute its reign. Now and then, at the
nozzle of a dugout, there appeared a soldier's head, but
that was all, and, for  the rest,  there might not have been
a soul within a thousand  miles.
  "One of my blesses required an immediate operation,
so I passed on through Vic and headed for Compiegne,
reaching there about seven o'clock and evacuating to St.
Luke's Hospital.  At once started  back to my station.
Found the cook had saved me some dinner, and  after
stowing this crawled into my flea-bag. The blankets were
barely around me when a brancardier came in with a call
for the poste at Hautebraye. The moon gave a little light,
                         114 
SECTION ONE
but not enough to drive fast with safety, so we drove fast
and  let safety  look out for itself, our motto being not
"safety first," but "save first." We found our man ready,
shot through the body, raving with delirium, his hands
bound  together to  prevent him tearing his  wound.
Though a part of our  way was exposed to the enemy's
machine-gun-fire, the road was too pitted with shell-holes
to permit of fast driving with so  badly wounded a man
and  so  we crept back to Vic. The order was  again to
Compiegne. It was close to midnight when, numbed with
cold, we rolled through  the  silent streets of the town.
On my return trip I twice found myself nodding over the
wheel. Nevertheless, we made the thirty-two kilometres
in less than an hour. Found Vic quiet, the shelling having
ceased,  and save for an occasional trench-flare,  little to
indicate it was the front. At one o'clock I turned in on
the stone floor,  this time to rest undisturbed till morning.
   "Roused out at 6.30 to greet a gray winter  day and
falling snow. The batteries on both sides were already in
action and the put-put-put of machine guns came to us
through the crisp air. The relief cars rolled in at eight and
we at once cranked up and set out for quarters. As we
crossed the Aisne, the Germans were shelling the bridge,
with *l5o's,'  I  think. They had the exact range, as re-
gards distance, but the shells were falling about a hun-
dred yards to one side, throwing up great geysers of water
as they struck the river. On reaching the other side I
stopped and watched them come in. They came four to
the minute. Reached  quarters  here, Jaulzy, at 8.30 —
completing the twenty-four-hour shift."

  So it was I had my baptism of fire. Perhaps I was not
frightened by those first shells;  curiosity may have sup-
planted other sensations, but as time went on, and I saw
the awful destructive power of shell-fire, when I had seen
buildings levelled and men torn  to bloody  shreds, the
realization of their terribleness became mine, and with it
came a terror of that horrible soul-melting shriek. And
H5 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
now after a year and a half of war, during which I have
been scores of times under fire and have lived for weeks
at a time in a daily bombarded city, I am no more recon-
ciled to shell-fire than at first. If anything, the sensation
is worse,  and personally I do not believe there is such a
thing as becoming "used" to it.

         The Sensation of Night Driving
It was early in February that I got my first experience
at night  driving without lights. To you gentlemen who
have  shot rapids, great game, and billiards, who have
crossed the Painted  Desert and the "line," who  have
punched  cows in Arizona and heads in  Mile End Road,
who have killed moose in New Brunswick  and  time in
Monte Carlo, who have tramped and skied and trekked,
to you who have tried these and still crave  a sensation,
let me recommend night driving without lights over un-
familiar shell-pitted roads, cluttered with traffic, within
easy range of the enemy, challenged every now and then
by a sentry who has a loaded gun and  no compunction
in using it. Your car, which  in daylight never seems very
powerful, has  now become  a very Juggernaut of force.
At the slightest increase of gas it fairly jumps  off the road.
Throttle down as you may, the speed seems terrific.  You
find yourself with your head thrust over the  wheel, your
eyes staring ahead with an  intensity which makes them
ache — staring ahead into  nothing.  Now and then the
blackness seems, if possible, to become more dense, and
you throw out your clutch and on your  brake and come
to a dead stop, climbing out to find your radiator touch-
ing an overturned caisson. Or mayhap a  timely gun-flash
or the flare of a trench light will show that you are headed
off the road  and straight for a tree. A little farther on,
the way leads up a hill — the pulling of the engine is the
only thing that tells you this — and then, just as you top
the rise, a star-bomb lights the scene with a  dense white
glare and the brancardier by your side rasps out, " Vite,
pour Vamour de Dieu, vite! Us peuvent nous voir!" — and
                        116 
SECTION ONE
you drop down the other side of that hill like the fall of a
gun-hammer. Then,  in a narrow, mud-gutted  lane  in
front of a dugout, you back and fill and finally turn; your
bloody load is eased in and you creep back the way you
have come, save that now every bump and jolt seems to
tear your flesh as you think of those poor, stricken chaps
in behind. Yes, there is something of tenseness in lightless
night driving under such  conditions. Try it, gentlemen.
  On the afternoon and night of February 12, there was
an attack on the line near Vingre, preceded by drum-fire.
As such things go, it was but a small affair. It would per-
haps have a line in the communique; as, "North of the
Aisne the enemy attempted a coup upon a salient of our
line,  but  we repulsed him with loss." That and  nothing
more. But to those who were there it was very real. The
big guns  spat their exchange of hate; rifle-fire crackled
along the line;  the machine  guns sewed the air with
wicked staccato sounds, and men, with set jaws and bayo-
nets, charged to death through barbed entanglements.
As night  closed down, the flare-bombs spread their fitful
glare on mutilated things which that morning had been
living men: now set in the bloody back-wash of wounded.
With the coming of the night, the enemy lengthened the
range of his artillery, so as to  harass the transport, and
the zone back of the line was seared with shells. The field
dressing-station at Roches, near Vic, suffered greatly, and
it soon became apparent that its evacuation was necessary.
  I had already been on duty fourteen hours when the
call reached quarters for the  entire Squad.  My journal
for the 13th reads: "I'm too tired for much writing  as
I've  had but two hours'  sleep in the last forty, during
which I have driven close to  three hundred kilometres,
been three times under fire, and had but two hot meals.
The entire Squad was turned out just after I got  into the
blankets last night. Roches was being bombarded, and it
was necessary to take out all the wounded. There were a
number of new shell-holes in  the road and this made
interesting driving. It was 1.30 when  I reached Com-
                         117 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
piegne, 3 when I had completed my evacuation, and 4.15
this morning when I  reached quarters. Up at 6.30 and
working on my 'bus.  This afternoon made route 3. To-
night  I am bien fatigue.  Firing  light to-day, possibly
because of sleet  and rain.  The  attack was  evidently
repulsed."
  The Squad  did good work that night. Afterwards we
were commended by the Colonel in command. It was in
this attack that  "Bill" won his  Croix de Guerre when
"d  un endroil particulierement  expose,  au  moment oil
les  obus tombaient avec violence, a  arrete sa voiture pour
prendre des blesses qu'il a  aide  avec  courage  et sang-
froid." A week later he was decorated, our muddy little
courtyard being the setting for the ceremony.
  In celebration of his decoration, "Bill" determined to
give a "burst." There would seem to be few places less
adapted to the serving of a  banquet or less capable of
offering material than poor little war-torn Jaulzy. Never-
theless, at six o'clock on the evening of February 27,  the
Squad sat down to a repast that would have done credit
to any hotel. "Bill" had enlisted the services of a Paris
caterer, and not only was the food itself perfection, but it
was served in a style that, after our accustomed tin cup,
tin  plate service, positively  embarrassed us. Our dingy
quarters were decorated and made light by carbide lamps;
a snowy cloth covered our plank table; stacks of china
dishes — not tin — appeared at each place; there were
chairs to sit upon. Even flowers were not forgotten, and
"Bill," being a Yale man, bad seen to it that beside  the
plates of the other Yale men in the Squad were placed
bunches of violets. The artist of the Section designed a
menu card, but we were too busy crashing into the food
to pay any attention to the menu. For a month past we
had been living mostly on boiled  beef and Army bread,
and the way the Squad now eased into regular food was
an  eye-opener to dietitians.  Hors d'ceuvres, fish, ham,
roasts, vegetables, salads, sweets, wines, and smokes dis-
appeared like art in a Hun raid. Twenty men may have
                        118 
SECTION ONE
gotten through a greater quantity and variety of food in
three hours and lived, but it is not on record. And through
it all the guns snarled and roared unheeded, and the flare-
bombs shed their fitful glare. Verily, in after years, when
men shall foregather and the talk flows in Epicurean
channels, if one there  be present who was at "Bill's
burst," surely  his speech shall prevail.
  February, which had come in with mild weather, lost
its temper as it advanced; the days became increasingly
cold and snow  fell. The nights were cruel for driving. One
night I remember especially. I  had responded to a call
just back of the line where I got my blesse, a poor chap
shot through the lung. It was snowing, the flakes driving
down with a vicious force that stung the eyes and brought
tears. In spite of the snow it was very black, and to show
a light meant  to  draw  fire. We crept along, for fear of
running into a  ditch or colliding with traffic. At kilometre
8 my engine began to miss. I got out and changed plugs,
but this did not help much and we  limped  along. The
opiate given the  blesse had begun to wear off, and his
groans sounded above the whistling of the wind. Once in
the darkness I  lost the road, going several kilometres out
of my way before I realized the error. The  engine was
getting weaker every minute, but by this time I was out
of gun range and able to use a  lantern. With the aid of
the light, I was able to make some repairs,  though my
hands were so  benumbed I could scarcely hold the tools.
The car now "marched" better and I started ahead. Sev-
eral  times a "qui vive?" came  out of the darkness,  to
which  I ejaculated a startled "France/1 The snow-veiled
clock in Villers-Cotterets showed the hour was half after
midnight when we made our way up  the choked streets.
But  "the load" had come through safely.
  Uncomfortable  as these  runs were — and every mem-
ber of the Squad made them not once, but many times —
they were what lent fascination  to the work. They made
us feel that it  was worth while and,  however small the
way, we were helping.
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  It was about this time that the Service was militar-
ized and incorporated into the Automobile Corps of the
French Army. Thereafter, we were classed as " Militaires"
and wore on our tunics the red-winged symbol of the
Automobile Corps. We were now subject to all the rules
and regulations governing regularly enlisted men, with
one exception — the duration of our  enlistments. We
were permitted to enlist for six months' periods with
optional three months' extensions, and were not compelled
to serve "for duration." As incident to the militarization,
we  received five sous a day per man — the pay of the
French poilu — and in addition were entitled to "touch"
certain articles, such  as  shelter tents, sabots, tobacco,
etc. We had already been furnished with  steel helmets
and gas-masks. We were also granted the  military fran-
chise for our mail.
  While  at Jaulzy, the personnel of the Squad changed
considerably. The terms of several men having expired,
they left, their places being taken by new recruits. Thus
"Hippo," "Bob," "Brooke," and "Magnum" joined us.
Nor must I forget to mention another important addition
to our number — the puppy mascot "Vic." He was given
to us by a tirailleur, who being on the march could not
take care of him, and one of the fellows brought him back
to quarters in his pocket, a tiny  soft, white ball who in-
stantly wriggled himself into the Squad's affections.
  When  we got him, he could scarcely toddle and was
never quite certain where his legs would carry him. Yet
even then  the button,  which he fondly believed a tail,
stuck belligerently upright, like  a shattered mast from
which had been shot the flag.  For he, being a child of
war, had fear of nothing, no, not gun-fire itself, and as
he grew older we took  him with us on our runs and he
was often under shell-fire. He was always at home, in
chateau or dugout, always sure of himself,  and could tell
one of our khaki uniforms a mile  away,  picking us out of
a mob of blue-clad soldiers. Such was "Vic," the Squad
mascot.
120 
SECTION ONE
                  Leaving Jaulzy
On the evening of March 3, orders came in to be pre-
pared to move, and the following afternoon, in a clinging,
wet snow, we left Jaulzy and proceeded to the village of
Courtieux, some three kilometres distant. The village is
in the  general direction of Vic-sur-Aisne, but back from
the main  road. For months successive bodies of troops
had been quartered here and we found it a squalid, cheer-
less hole,  fetlock deep in mud. Our billet was a small,
windowless house, squatting in the mud and through
which  the wind swept the snow. There was also a shed,
with bush sides and roof wherein our mess was established.
  WThy we had been ordered from Jaulzy to this place but
three kilometres  away, it would be impossible to say.
We were maintaining the same schedule and Courtieux
was certainly not so  convenient a place from which to
operate. We cogitated much on the matter, but reached
no conclusion.  It was just one of the mysteries of war.
The three  days succeeding our arrival were uncomfort-
able ones. The weather continued bad with low tempera-
ture. When we were off duty  there was nowhere to go,
save to bed, and there were no beds. What Courtieux
lacked in other things it made up  in mud, and our cars
were constantly mired. As a relief from the monotony
of the  village, three of us, being off duty one afternoon,
made a peregrination to the front-line  trenches, passing
through miles of winding,  connecting boyaux until we
lost all sense of direction. We  really had no right to go
up to the line, but we met with no opposition, all the sol-
diers we met greeting us with friendly camaraderie and
the officers responding to our salutes with a bonjour. We
found  the  front line  disappointingly quiet. There was
little or no small-arm firing going on, though both sides
were carrying on a desultory shelling. Through a sand-
bagged loophole we  could  see a low mud escarpment
about ninety metres away — the enemy's line. It was not
an exciting view, the  chief interest being lent by the fact
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that in taking it you were likely to have your eye shot out.
All things considered, the excursion was a rather tame
affair, though we who had made it did  our best to play
it up to the rest of the Squad upon our return.
  We remained at Courtieux but three days, and then,
at nine o'clock on the morning of the 4th, assembled in
convoy at Jaulzy. It  was one of the coldest mornings of
the winter; the trees were masses of ice and the snow
creaked beneath the tires, while our feet, hands, and ears
suffered severely. As usual, we had no idea of our destina-
tion. That our Division had been temporarily withdrawn
from the line and that we were to be attached to another
Division, was the extent of our information. By the time
the convoy had  reached Compiegne we were all  rather
well numbed. When the CO. halted in the town, he had
failed to note a pdtisserie was in the vicinity, and the mo-
tors had hardly been  shut off before the Squad en masse
stormed the place,  consuming gateaux and stuffing more
gateaux into its collective pockets. Meanwhile, outside,
the "Lieut" blew his starting whistle in vain.

             MONTDIDIER — MOREUIL
Shortly before  noon we made  the city of Montdidier,
where we lunched in the hotel and waited for the laggard
cars to come up. About three we again got away, passing
through a beautiful rolling country, and as darkness was
falling parked our cars in the town of Moreuil. It was too
late to find a decent  billet for the night.  A  dirty, rat-
infested warehouse was all that offered, and after looking
this over, most of us decided, in spite of the cold, to sleep
in our  cars. Our mess was established in the  back room
of the town's principal cafe,  and the fresh bread, which
we obtained from a near-by bakery, made a welcome addi-
tion to Army fare. Moreuil proved to be a dull  little town,
at that time some twenty-five kilometres back of the line.
Aside from an aviation field there was little of interest.
  On the third day of our stay we were reviewed and
inspected by the ranking officer of the sector.  He did  not
                        122 
\ V( IIKKAl \ILLE THAT WAS A CHEERFUL VILLAGE NEAR VERDUN
LENDINCi A HAND AT A •■ POSTE" 
 
SECTION ONE
appear very enthusiastic, and expressed his doubt as to
our ability to perform the work for which we were des-
tined, an  aspersion which greatly vexed us. Our vindi-
cation came two months later when, having tested us in
action, he gave us unstinted praise and spoke of us in the
highest terms.
  After the review, the CO. announced that  we had
received orders to move and would leave the following
day for a station on the Somme. He refused to confirm
the rumor that our destination was "Moscow."

                    The Somme
It was  10.50  on  a snowy,  murky morning — Friday,
March 10 — that our convoy came to a stop in the village
of Mericourt, destined to be our Headquarters for some
months to come. There was little of cheer in the prospect.
One street — the road by which we had entered — two
abortive side streets — these lined with one- or two-storied
peasants'  cottages — and everywhere,  inches deep,  a
sticky, clinging  mud: such was Mericourt.  This  entry
from my journal fairly expresses our feelings at the time:
"In peace times this village must be depressive; now with
added grimness of  war it is dolorous. A sea of mud, shat-
tered  homes, a cesspool in its centre, rats everywhere.
This is Mericourt: merry hell would be more expressive
and accurate."
  Our first impression  was  not greatly  heightened by
viewing the quarters assigned to us, and we felt with Joe
that "they meant very little in our young lives." Two
one-and-a-half-storied peasants' cottages, with  debris-
littered floor and leaking roof, these rheumatic structures
forming one side of a sort of courtyard and commanding
a splendid view of a large, well-filled cesspool, constituted
our cantonment. It would have taken a Jersey real-estate
agent to find good points in the prospect. The optimist
who remarked that at least there were no flies was cowed
into silence by the rejoinder that the same could be said
of the North Pole. However, we set to work, cleaned and
123 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
disinfected, constructed a stone causeway  across "the
campus,"  and by  late afternoon  had,  to some extent,
made the place habitable. A bevy of rats at least seemed
to consider the place so, and we never lacked for company
of the rodent species.
  The twenty of us set up our stretcher-beds in the two
tiny rooms and the attic, and were at home. One of the
ground-floor rooms — and it had only the ground for a
floor — possessed a fireplace,  the chimney of which led
into the attic above. Here it became tired of being a chim-
ney, resigned its duties, and became  a smoke-dispenser.
It was natural that the ground-floor dwellers, having a
fireplace, should desire fire. It was natural, also, that the
dwellers above, being imbued with strong ideas on  the
subject of choking to death, should object  to that fire.
Argument ensued.  For a time  those below prevailed, but
the attic dwellers possessed the final word, and when their
rebuttal — in  the shape  of  several cartridges — was
dropped down the chimney on the fire, those  below lost
interest in the matter and there prevailed an intense and
eager longing for the great outdoors.
  We established our mess in  what in peace times was a
tiny cafe, in the back room of which an adipose proprie-
tress, one of  the few remaining civiles, still  dispensed
pinard and hospitality. It was  in the same back room one
night that a soldier, exhibiting a hand-grenade, acciden-
tally set it off, killing himself, a  comrade, and wounding
five others, whom we evacuated. Incidentally  the explo-
sion scared our zouave cook who at the time was sleeping
in an adjoining room. He was more frightened than  he
had been since the first battle of the Marne.
  The front room, which was our mess hall, was just long
enough to permit the twenty of  us, seated ten to a side,
to squeeze about our plank table. The remaining half of
the room was devoted to the galley, where the zouave
held forth with his pots and pans and reigned supreme.
The walls of this room had once been painted a sea-green,
but now were faded into a bilious, colicky color. Great
                        124 
SECTION ONE
beads of sweat were always  starting out and trickling
down as though the house itself were in the throes of a
deadly agony.

               Mericourt-sur-Somme
Mericourt is situated about a fifth of a mile from the
right bank of the river Somme, and at this time was
about seven and a half or eight kilometres from the front
line. The Somme at this point marked the dividing line
between the French and English armies, the French hold-
ing to the south, the English to the north. Though within
easy range of the enemy's mid-calibre artillery, it was
seldom shelled, and I can recall but one or two occasions
during our entire stay when shells passed over.
  As on the Aisne, we got our wounded from a number
of scattered postes, some close to the line, others farther
back, some located in villages, others in mere dugouts in
the side of a hill. Evacuations were usually made to the
town of Villers-Bretonneux where were located a number
of field hospitals, or to an operating hospital at the village
of Cerisy about fifteen kilometres from the line. A regular
schedule of calls was maintained to certain postes, the
cars making rounds twice a day. Such were the postes at
the villages of Proyart, Chuignes, Chuignolles, and in the
dugouts at Baraquette and Fontaine les Cappy, all some
kilometres back of the line, but under intermittent shell-
fire. Besides these postes there were several others which,
because of their close proximity to the enemy and their
exposure to machine-gun-fire,  could only be made at night.
There was Rainecourt, less than half a kilometre from the
enemy's position; the Knotted Tree, four hundred metres
from the Germans, and actually in the second-line trench,
where,  in turning, the engine had to be shut off and the
car pushed by hand, lest the noise of the motor draw fire.
There, too, was the poste at the village of  Eclusier, a par-
ticularly fine run, since it was reached by a narrow,  ex-
ceedingly rough road which  bordered a deep canal and
was exposed throughout its  length  to mitrailleuse fire.
                         125 
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Besides this, the road was lined with batteries for which
the Boches were continually "searching."

         Villers-Bretonneux — Proyart
We went into action on the afternoon of the same day we
reached Mericourt. My orders were to go to a point indi-
cated on  the map as the Route Nationale, there pick up
my blesses and evacuate them to the town of Villers-
Bretonneux. I was further instructed not to go down this
road too far, as I would drive into the enemy's lines. How
I was to determine what was "too far" until it was "too
late," or how I was to determine the location of the poste
— a dugout beneath the road — was left to my own solu-
tion. With these cheering instructions I set out. I reached
the village of Proyart through  which my route lay, noted
with interest the effect of bombardment, passed on and
came to the  Route Nationale.  Here, as were my instruc-
tions, I turned to the left. I  was now headed directly
toward the line which I knew could not be very far away
and which transversed the road ahead. I pushed rather
cautiously up  two small hills, my interest  always in-
creasing as I neared the top and anticipated what sort of
greeting might be awaiting me. I was on my third hill and
feeling a  bit depressed and lonesome,  not having seen a
person since leaving the sentry at Proyart, when I heard
a shout somewhere behind me. Looking back I  beheld a
soldier wildly semaphoring. It did not take me long to
turn the car and slide  back down the hill. Reaching the
bottom, I drew  up by the soldier, who informed me that
the crest of  the hill was in full view of the enemy and
under fire from the machine guns. I felt that the informa-
tion was timely.'
  The poste proved to be a dugout directly beneath where
I had stopped my car.  Here I secured a load of wounded
and by dusk had  safely evacuated them  to the hospital
at Villers-Bretonneux. Consulting my map at the hospital
it became evident that there was a more direct route back
to quarters,  and I determined on this. As  I  was by no
                        126 
SECTION ONE
means sure of the location of the line, I drove without
lights, and as a result crashed into what proved to be a
pile of rocks, but which I had taken to be a pile of snow,
the jar almost loosening my teeth-fillings. The car was
apparently none the worse for the encounter and I reached
quarters without further mishap.
  The aftermath of the mishap occurred next day. Driv-
ing at a good pace up a grade — fortunately with  no
wounded on board — I suddenly found the steering-gear
would not respond to the wheel. There was half a moment
of helpless suspense, then the car shot off the side of the
road down a steep incline, hit a boulder, and turned com-
pletely upside down. As we went over I managed to kick
off the switch, lessening the chance of an explosion. The
Quartermaster, who was with me, and I were wholly un-
able to extricate ourselves, but some soldiers,  passing at
the time,  lifted the car  off us and we crawled out none
the worse. "Old Number Nine,"  save for a broken steer-
ing rod, the cause of the spill, and a small radiator leak,
was as fit as ever, and half an hour later, the rod replaced,
was once more rolling.

                       Cappy
Our picket poste was established  at the village of Cappy.
To reach  the village from Mericourt  we passed over a
stretch of  road marked with the warning sign, "This road
under shell-fire: convoys or formed bodies of troops will
not pass during daylight."  Continuing, we crossed the
Somme, at this point entering the English line, and pro-
ceeded to  the village of Bray. Thence the road wandered
through a rolling land for a kilometre or so, again crossing
the river and a canal at the outskirts of the village.
  Cappy  lay in a  depression  behind a rise  of ground
about a kilometre and a half from the line. In peace times
it was doubtless a rather attractive little place of perhaps
three hundred  people.  Now, devastated  by  days and
months of bombardment, and the passing of countless
soldiers, deserted by its civil  population and  invaded
                         127 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
by countless rats, it presented an aspect forlorn beyond
imagination. On a gray winter's day, with sleet beating
down and deepening the already miry roads, and a dreary
wind whistling through the shattered houses, the place
cried out with the desolation of war. And when, at night,
a full moon shone through the stripped rafters, when the
rats  scuttled about and  when,  perhaps, there was  no
firing and only the muffled pop of a trench-light, the spirit
of death  itself stalked abroad and the ghosts of the men
who  had there met their doom haunted its gruesome,
cluttered streets. And then, while the silence hung like
a pall until it fairly oppressed one, there would come the
awful screech, and the noises of hell would break loose.
There was no  way of telling when the bombardment
would come. It might be at high noon or at midnight, at
twilight or as the day broke.  Nor could the duration be
guessed.  Sometimes a single shell crashed in; sometimes
a single salvo  of a battery; or again, the bombardment
would continue for an hour or more. It was this uncer-
tainty which gave the place a tense, uncomfortable atmos-
phere so  that even when there was no shelling the quiet
was an uncanny quiet which  was almost harder to bear
than the shelling itself.
  In Cappy no one remained aboveground more  than
was  necessary. Nearly every house had its cellar, and
these cellars  were deepened,  roofed with  timbers, and
piled high with sandbags. A cave so  constructed was
reasonably bomb-proof from small shells—"77's" —
but offered little resistance to anything larger, and I recall
several occasions when a shell of larger calibre, making a
direct hit,  either killed or wounded every occupant of
such a shelter. The resident population of the town was
limited to a group of brancardiers, some grave-diggers,
the crews of several goulash batteries, and some doctors
and surgeons.  I must not forget to mention the sole  re-
maining  representative of the civil population. He was
an old, old man, so old it seemed the very shells respected
his age and war itself deferred to his feebleness. Clad in
                         128 
SECTION ONE
nondescript rags, his tottering footsteps supported by a
staff, at any hour of the day or night he could be seen
making his uncertain way among what were the ruins of
what had once been a prosperous town — his town. With
him, also tottering, was always a wizened old dog who
seemed the Methuselah of all dogs. Panting along behind
his master, his glazed eyes never leaving him, the dog,
too, staggered. There, alone in the midst of this crucified
town, the twain dwelt, refusing to leave what to them
was yet home. And daily as their town crumbled, they
crumbled, until at last, one morning, we found the  old
chap dead, his dog by his side. That day was laid to rest
the last citizen of Cappy.
   The dressing-station was located in what in peace times
was the town  hall, or mairie, a two-story brick building
having a central structure  flanked by two  small wings.
The building was banked with sandbags which, while not
rendering it by any means shell-proof, did protect it from
shrapnel and eclats.  The central room was devoted to the
wounded, who were brought in from the trenches on little
two-wheeled, hand-pushed trucks, each truck supporting
one stretcher. A shallow trough was built around the sides
of the room and in this,  upon straw, the wounded were
placed in rows, while awaiting the doctor. In this portion
of the building was also located the mortuary where those
who died after being brought in were placed preparatory
to burial. The bodies were placed two on a stretcher, the
head of one resting on the feet of another. It was a ghastly
place,  this little room, with its silent, mangled tenants,
lying there awaiting their last bivouac. On one side of the
room was a small,  silver crucifix above which hung the
tricolored flag of the Republic guarding those who  had
died that it might live.
   In the left wing was  the  emergency operating-room
where the surgeons worked, frequently under fire. At the
opposite end of the building was the room we had for our
quarters and  where we slept when occasion  permitted.
The place was  quite frequently hit — on  five separate
                         129 
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occasions while I was in the building — and its occupants
suffered many narrow escapes. The location was regarded
as so unsafe that an elaborate abri was finally constructed
back of the mairie. This was an extraordinarily well-built
and ample affair, consisting of several tunnels seven feet
high in the centre, walled and roofed with heavy galvan-
ized  iron  supported  by stout beams. The roof at  the
highest point was fully ten feet below the surface of the
ground. There were  two rows of shelves running along
both sides of the tunnels which had a total capacity of
forty stretcher cases. At one end was a small operating-
room, and there were two exits, so that, if one became
blocked,  the occupants might find egress through  the
other. Both  of these exits were winding so as to prevent
the admission of flying shell fragments and were draped
with curtains to keep out the poison gas. Beside these
curtains stood tubs of anti-gas solution for their drench-
ing. This structure was proof against all save the heaviest
shells and took some eight weeks in building.

  The Human Shell — "Huit Jours de Prison "
When on duty at Cappy we messed with some medical
sous-officiers in a dugout, entrance to which was had by
descending a steep flight of steps. Down in this cellar, in
the dim twilight which there prevailed, we enjoyed many
a meal. The officers were a genial lot, like most French-
men  delightfully courteous and much given to quaffing
pinard. Their chief occupation was  the making of paper
knives from copper shrapnel bands, and they never lacked
for material, for each day the Boche threw in a fresh
supply.
  One of these chaps, through constant opportunity and
long practice, could give a startling imitation of the shriek
of a shell, an accomplishment which got him into trouble,
for happening one day to perform this specialty while a
non-appreciative and startled  Colonel was passing, he
was presented with eight days' arrest.
  The cook of the mess was a believer in garlic — I might
                        130 
SECTION ONE
say a strong believer. Where he acquired the stuff amidst
such surroundings was a mystery beyond solution, but
acquire it he certainly did. Put him in the middle of the
Sahara Desert and I am prepared to wager that within
a half-hour that cook would dig up some garlic. He put it
into everything,  rice, meat, whatever we  ate. I am con-
vinced that, supposing he could have made a custard pie,
he would have added garlic. His specialty was beef boiled
in wine,  a  combination hard on the beef, hard on the
wine, and hard on the partaker thereof.
  Coming out of the cellar from mess one noon — a wet,
dismal day I remember — I was startled into immobil-
ity to  hear the  splendid strains of the "Star-Spangled
Banner," magnificently played on a piano. I was still
standing at attention, and the last note had barely died
away, when the one remaining door of a half-demolished
house opened and a tall, handsome young  fellow with the
stripes of  a corporal appeared,  saluted, and bade me
enter. I did so, and found myself in a small room upon the
walls of which hung the usual military trappings. Stacked
in the corners and leaning against the walls were a num-
ber of simple wooden crosses with the customary inscrip-
tion, " Mort pour la patrie." Five soldiers rose and  bade
me welcome.  They were a group of grave-diggers and
here they dwelt amid their crosses. Their profession did
not seem to have affected their spirits,  and they were as
jolly a lot  as I have ever seen, constantly chaffing each
other,  and when the chap  at the piano — who, by the
way, before the  war had been a musician at the Carlton
in  London, and who spoke excellent  English — struck
a chord,  they  all automatically broke into song. It was
splendidly  done  and they enjoyed it as thoroughly as did
I. The piano they had rescued from a wrecked chateau at
the other end of the  town and to them it was a godsend
indeed. Before I left, at my request, they sang the Mar-
seillaise.  I  have  seldom heard anything finer than when
in that little, stricken town,  amidst those gruesome tokens
of war's  toll, these men stood at attention and sounded
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forth the stirring words of their country's hymn. When I
left it was with a feeling that surely with such a spirit
animating a people, there could be but one outcome to
the struggle.
  We had another twenty-four-hour station at the vil-
lage of Cerisy some fifteen or more kilometres back of the
line, where was located an operating hospital.  Here we
maintained always one car for the transportation of such
wounded as required evacuation to the railhead. At this
station we were privileged to sleep on stretchers in  the
same tent with the wounded. Personally I found one night
in their quarters was quite enough for me. The groaning,
the odor of anaesthetics, the blood, the raving of the de-
lirious, and "the passing" of two of the inmates before
morning  drove me out to my car, where  I often slept
when on duty at the station.
  We soon began to feel completely at home  at Meri-
court. Our schedule kept us busy without overworking
us, and there was just enough risk  in the life to lend it
spice. We had a splendid Commander, an efficient Chef,
and as a result the Squad worked in entire harmony. At
this time we were attached to the 3d Colonials, a reckless,
hard-fighting bunch, as fine a lot as serve the  Tricolor.
The relations existing between ourselves and the French
could not have been more cordial.  The innate  courtesy
and kindness, which is so characteristic of the people,
found expression in so many ways and their appreciation
so far exceeded any service we rendered that we could
not help  but be warmly drawn toward them, while their
cheerful devotion and splendid courage held always our
admiration.
  Perhaps a few entries taken at random from my journal
will serve as well as anything to give some idea of our life
and the conditions under which we worked.

               Notes at Mericourt
"Tuesday, March 14.  After a rat-disturbed night,  got
away on  Route No. 3 to Proyart and Baraquette, evacu-
132 
BLOODY AND SILENT,  BUT NOT DEFEATED'

THE "POSTE DE SECOURS"  AT CAPPY,  THE SOMME, 1916 
 
SECTION ONE
ating to Cerisy. At four this afternoon, with Brooke as
orderly, made same route, evacuating to Villers-Breton-
neux. There were so many blesses that I had to return to
Baraquette for another load. We are just in from Villers-
Bretonneux at 10 p.m. after a drive through the rain.
  "Saturday, March 18. On route No. 2 to  Chuignolles.
Road was under fire, so sentry  refused to let me return
over it, as the way was up-grade and with a loaded car I
could not go  fast. Ran down it  this afternoon, evacuat-
ing by another route. Put in  an  hour to-day  making
an almost bedstead out of old bloody stretchers and now
the rats will have to jump a foot or so off the floor if they
want to continue to use me as a speedway.
  " Thursday, March 23. Slept well in the car at Cappy,
but lost all inclination for breakfast on opening door of
stretcher-bearer's room and seeing two bodies, one with
its jaws shot  away, the other, brought in from No Man's
Land — half  eaten  by rats. Got a call to Chuignes be-
fore noon, evacuating to Cerisy. Of course worked on my
car this afternoon; that goes without saying — the work,
not the car.  To-morrow we have another one of those
dashed inspections, this time the General commanding
the Division.
  "Thursday, March 30. To Cappy early, with as many
of the  Squad as were off duty,  to attend the funeral of
the Medecin Chef. He was killed yesterday when peering
over the parapet. It was a sad affair, yet withal impres-
sive. We walked from  the little shell-torn town, Cappy,
to the cemetery just beyond the village, following the
simple flag-draped box upon which rested the tunic and
kepi; and then, while the war planes circled and dipped
above  us and all around the guns spoke, we paid  our last
respects  to a very gallant man. Waited till  ten for
wounded. At the exact minute I was leaving, three shells
came in. One burst by the church and the other two just
back of my machine as I crossed the bridge. They must
have come from a  small-bore gun, possibly  a mortar, as
they were not preceded by a screech as with a rifle shell.
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Visited regimental dentist this afternoon and found him
operating on a poilu whose teeth had been knocked out
by a Boche gun butt in a recent charge. To-night the guns
are going strong.
  "Wednesday,  April  5. The mess-room presented a
ghastly sight this morning, a hand-grenade having been
accidentally exploded there last night, blowing two men
to bits which bits are still hanging to the walls. Got my
spark-plugs in shape this morning. This afternoon  at-
tempted to take a nap, but a confounded battery just
stationed here insisted  on going into action, and as the
shots were at half-minute intervals I got to counting the
seconds  in the intervals,  banishing all chances of sleep.
Two of the Squad are down with the gale — a skin dis-
ease contracted from the blesses, and which seems almost
epidemic with the Division."

      Amiens — The British Headquarters
It was toward the end of March, and hence some three
months after leaving Paris, that one morning I received
orders to evacuate a load of wounded to the railroad hos-
pital at  Amiens,  some forty kilometres from Mericourt.
Amiens  is a modern  city, one of  the most pleasant in
France, a city of about one hundred thousand inhabitants
with up-to-date shops, tramways, tea-rooms, and a de-
cided air of gayety. As I drove my mud-spattered ambu-
lance down its main street I felt singularly out of place.
An hour and a half before I had been within rifle range
of the German trenches where men were battling to the
death and big  guns barked  their  hate, and now,  as
though transported on a magic carpet, I found myself in
the midst of peace, where dainty women tripped by, chil-
dren laughed at play, and life untrammelled by war ran
its course. After the weeks amid the mud and turmoil of
the front, the transition  was at first stupefying.  After
evacuating my wounded,  I parked my car, and being off
duty for the rest of the day I strolled about gaping like a
countryman. A  "burst" at  the  best restaurant  I could
134 
SECTION ONE
find and a good cigar put me in an appreciative frame of
mind and my impression of Amiens will always remain
the most favorable. Though the city  had been in the
hands of the Huns for nearly  a fortnight in  the early
part of the war, and had several times been the object of
air  raids, there was little indication of either. The beau-
tiful cathedral was piled high with sandbags and the
beautiful windows  were screened as precaution  against
bomb eclats, but of the precautions such as I  later saw
in Bar-le-Duc, there were none.
  Amiens at this time was the administrative Head-
quarters of the English Army of the Somme. Its streets
were  alive with English officers and  Tommies. There
were  many "Jocks" in their kilties, besides, of  course,
many French officers. Being well back of the lines it was
a great place for swanking, a condition of which the
English officers especially  took full advantage,  and in
their whipcords and shining Sam Brownes, they were the
last word in military sartorialism.

                     Permission
Having now been at the front for three months I became
entitled to la permission, the six days' leave,  in theory
granted the soldier once every three months. George's
permission was also due, and we managed to arrange  it so
that we secured leave simultaneously. One of our  cars
was so well wrecked that it had to be sent to Paris, and
accordingly we secured the assignment  of taking this in.
This car had lost its mud-guards and part of the top of
the driving-seat; its lockers were gone  and its  sides had
been  pierced  by shell splinters. It certainly looked as if
"it had been through the war." It was afterwards  sent
to New York and there put on exhibition at the Allied
Bazaar.
  We set out for Paris on the morning of April  15. It was
a fearful day for driving, hail and rain and a piercing wind,
but we were en permission, so what cared we.  It was on
this voyage that, for the first and only time during my
                        135 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
service in the Army, I saw lancers. This group was some
seventy kilometres back of the line. With their burnished
casques, graceful weapons, and fluttering pennons they
have left me one of the few memories of the picturesque
which the war has furnished.
  We made Beauvais in time for luncheon; found the
little restaurant, and our mere appearance was sufficient
to set the little waitress off into a severe attack of giggles.
By  four that afternoon we were in Paris. After one hun-
dred days in the war zone, it seemed like another world.
We took the military oath not to reveal information likely
to be of value to the enemy and were free to do what we
liked for six days. Personally,  as I remember it, I pretty
well divided the time between taking hot baths and con-
suming unlimited quantities of white bread and fresh
butter. Often we found ourselves subconsciously listening
and missing something, — the rumble of the guns. We en-
joyed the respite, but the end of our permission found us
willing, almost eager, to get back "out there."
  It was after midnight — Easter morning — and the
rain was falling when we ploughed our muddy way across
"the campus"  at Mericourt.  It was cold, and the rat-
infested garret, in the flickering  light of an oil lamp,
looked dismal enough as we felt our way across its dirty
floor. Outside the sky was now and then lighted by a flare
and from all around came the boom of the guns. We were
home.

             Spring and Hectic Days
May opened with delightfully warm weather, a condition
that was not to continue. The brown fields were clothed
in green. Up to within a few  kilometres of the line the
land had been cultivated, and wheat and oats flourished
as though  shells  were not  passing over and the grim
Reaper himself were not ever present.
  Early in  the month our  Division moved, going into
repos some  fifteen kilometres  back of the line.  It is a
simple statement — "our Division moved."  But think
                        136 
SECTION ONE
of twenty thousand men plodding along, twenty thou-
sand brown guns bobbing and twenty thousand bayonets
flopping against as many hips. Think of twenty thousand
blue steel helmets covering as many sweaty, dusty heads;
think of  the transport for the men, the horses straining
in their traces,  the creaking wagons,  the rumbling artil-
lery, the clanging soup-wagons, the whizzing staff cars,
and the honking of camion horns — think of this and you
have  some idea of what is  embraced in the statement
"our  Division moved." We did not follow them, though
we did assign four cars to serve them during repos, and
to take care of the sick.  Instead we were attached to the
incoming Division, the 2d Colonials.
   My journal shows there were some hectic days in May.
In the record of May 2  I find: "Rolled pretty much all
night, one call taking me to ficlusier. The road was shelled
behind me while I was at the poste, knocking a tree across
the way so that on my way back, the night being so dark,
I could see absolutely nothing and I hit the tree and bent
a guard.  It's as nasty a run as I have ever made, a canal
on one side, batteries on the other, and the whole way
exposed to machine-gun-fire. Expected to be relieved here
this morning, but one of the replacement cars is out of
commission so that I am on for another twenty-four hours.
To-day I measured the distance from  where I was sitting
last night to where the shell hit. It was exactly fourteen
paces."
  Again  a week later: "Two cars out of commission, so
I am  fated for another forty-eight hours' shift here in
Cappy. Last night was uneventful. To-day we have been
bombarded five times. So far have made but two runs,
returning from  second under fire. We have been  ordered
to sleep to-night in the partially completed dugout, so  I
am writing this fifteen feet underground, with sandbags
piled high above my head. Verily the day of the cave man
has returned. Now for the blanket and, thanks to the
dugout, a reasonable assurance  of greeting to-morrow's
sun."
                        *37 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
  It was in May that "Josh" won his recognition for
bringing  in his wounded from Eclusier under machine-
gun-fire.  I was not there, but I know he could not have
been cooler had he been driving down Broadway.

               Leaving Mericourt
On the 30th of May we received orders to change our
base. The Squad was genuinely sorry to leave Mericourt.
The village, which had looked so forbidding to us when
we  had first arrived,  through the familiarity  of three
months' residence had grown to mean home. The peace-
ful canal with its graceful poplars where we used to swim,
"the campus," the scene on moonlight nights of many a
rousing chorus, the lane where the cars were parked, the
little cafe, all held pleasant memories.  Here we had en-
dured  the rigors  of winter,  had seen the coming  and
passing of spring, and now as summer was upon us we
were leaving.
  We left in fleet, about one in the afternoon,  and an
hour later drew up in the village of Bayonvillers on the
farther side of the Route Nationale.  We found it an
attractive place, having two  squares well shaded with
fine trees. In peace times its population probably num-
bered about four  thousand.  The town was far enough
back of the line to be out of range of field artillery and
showed no sign of bombardment. Being only slightly off
the main road and about midway between the line and
Villers-Bretonneux, the location was a convenient one for
us, as for the present we were maintaining the same sched-
ules and routes which prevailed at Mericourt. We were as-
signed quarters in the loft of a brick barn, but some of us
preferred more airy surroundings and pitched a tent under
the trees  in a little park in the centre of the town, thus
establishing the "Bayonvillers Country Club."  Later,
because of the arrival of a fleet of camions, we moved the
club to a  meadow  on the outskirts of the town. Mess was
also established in a tent.
138 
SECTION ONE
         Preparing the Somme Offensive
Early in the spring it  had become apparent that some-
thing was in the air. Ammunition depots began to appear,
placed just out of gun range; genie pares, with enormous
quantities of barbed wire, trench-flooring, and other con-
struction materials were established; a new road was
being built  from Bray to  Cappy;  additional aviation
fields were  laid  out, and rows of hangars,  elaborately
painted to represent barns and ploughed fields, to deceive
the enemy airmen, reared their bulky forms. Back of the
line numerous tent hospitals  sprang into being. Near
Cappy immense siege guns,  served by miniature railways,
poked their ugly noses  through concealing brush screens.
Through the  fields several new  standard-gauge  tracks
made their way. The roads back of any army are always
cluttered with supporting traffic, and as the spring wore
on  the traffic in the Somme increased day by day. There
were huge  five-ton  camions loaded with  shells,  steam
tractors bringing up big guns,  caterpillar batteries, ar-
mored cars, mobile anti-aircraft guns, stone boats, mobile
soup-kitchens, oxygen  containers to combat poison gas,
field artillery, searchlight sections,  staff cars, telegraph
and telephone wagons, long lines of motor  busses now
used as meal vans, horse wagons piled high with  bread,
portable forges, mule trains carrying machine-gun ammu-
nition,  two-wheeled carts  carrying  trench mortars. All
the transport of war was there until by the first of June
the roads back of the Somme front presented a congestion
of traffic such as the world has never before seen. To the
most casual observer it could not but be apparent that
all  this tremendous activity, the  enormous supplies, the
preparations,  were not solely for defensive purposes. It
could connote but  one thing — an  offensive  on a great
scale.
  Directly opposite Cappy, within the German lines, lay
the little shell-riddled village of Dompierre. Between the
sandbags of the first-line trench I had peeped forth at it,
                         139 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
and as early as April I knew that the village was mined,
for the electrician who wired the mine was a friend. I felt
sure, therefore, that our Section was to be in the offensive
when it came. But as to the day of the attack, of course
that was a matter of speculation. As the days wore on all
the talk was of "the attack." There was no longer any
doubt as to the fact that an attack was to be launched;
the question now was, simply, when? Both the firing and
activity in the air had increased. Sometimes for hours at
a time there would be continuous drum-fire and scarcely
an hour passed without a fight  between planes.
  The opening days of  June were wet and sodden. The
weather was raw, almost cold, with frequent hailstorms,
so that it was difficult to determine just what season was
being observed.  The roads, trodden  by thousands of
hobbed feet and cut by horses' hoofs and by tires, were
deep with mud. It was sale temps. We found Bayonvillers
teeming with troops. But if we thought the place already
crowded,  it  was nothing compared to  the congestion
which the succeeding days brought. Day  by day, almost
hour by hour, the troops continued to come in, colonials,
chasseurs, the famous zouaves, the Senegalese; and the
sound of drum and bugle scarcely ever died.

                    Senegalese
The Senegalese  were an amusing lot. I have been in
Senegal, and when in the Congo, had a Senegalese for a
headman, so I know a few words of their language. When
I hailed them in this, they would immediately freeze into
ebony  statues, then their white teeth would flash in a
dazzling smile as they  hailed me  as a white chief who
knew their home. They were armed with deadly bush-
knives, and for a dash  over the top made splendid sol-
diers. In the trenches, however, they were nearly useless,
as artillery fire put fear into their souls. It was said they
never took or wrere taken prisoners, and many gruesome
tales were current regarding this.  Most certainly they
must have been useful in night manoeuvres, for with that
140 
SECTION ONE
complexion it would be a matter of impossibility to deter-
mine which wras the Senegalese and which was the night.
  The lot upon  which the "Country Club"  had been
the original and only squatter began to fill. A " 155 " bat-
tery moved in alongside us, and several "75" batteries
with their ammunition transports became our neighbors;
some horse transport convoys also creaked their way in.
Horses by the hundred  plunged and pulled at restrain-
ing ropes or stood  with downcast  heads — bone-weary
of the  struggle. All around us rose the little brown dog-
tents and at night countless small fires flickered. It was
like camping in the midst of a three-ring circus.

                   The Waiting
We mingled with our neighbors  and talked with them,
but no matter howr the conversation started, it was sure
to come around to the one, great, all-important subject —
the attack. Even for us, who were not to be "sent in,"
but whose duty  it would be merely to carry those who
had been, the delay and suspense were trying. How much
worse, then, it must have been for those men who "were
going over the top," waiting, waiting, many of them for
their chance to greet death.  I remember one afternoon
talking with a chap wrho  before the war had kept a restau-
rant in Prince's Street  in Edinburgh, a restaurant at
which I  remember having dined. He was an odd little
Frenchman,  alert and bright-eyed, and every now and
then as he talked he would pat me on the shoulder and
exclaim, "Oh, my boy." He assured me that very soon
now we should see the attack. "Oh, my boy, the world
very soon will talk of this place. You will see the name
of this village on  maps" — a true prophecy, for when
the New York papers came to us weeks after the attack
had started, I saw a map with Cappy marked upon it.
"Soon greater than Verdun we shall see great things,
and oh, my boy, we are  here to see them; we are part of
them.  Cest magnifique! but the waiting, the waiting; why
can't  they end it? Send  us in! Quant a moi— I go with
                         141 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
the second wave, and if I come out aprls la guerre, you
will come to my place, my place in Prince's Street which
you know,  and for you I will open the finest champagne
of la belle France and we will raise our glasses and drink
to these days; but oh, my boy, the waiting, c'est terrible!"
   My journal  for these days reflects the feeling of sus-
pense : " Tuesday, June 13. En repos to-day for which I was
thankful, since the rain still continues, with a low tem-
perature. Spent most of the day in my bag reading, as
being about the only place I could keep warm. The 20th
zouaves marched into town to-day, their bugles playing.
Their arrival  and the presence  of the Senegalese can
mean but one thing: the attack  will soon be launched.
Well, if it's coming it can't come too soon. This suspense
is  trying. If this weather  continues  I will  have trench
foot again,  as my shoes are leaking. Firing has been un-
usually heavy to-day, and  to-night a terrific bombard-
ment is in progress.
   "Thursday, June 15. Encore  this  ghastly  weather.
More Senegalese coming in  until  the place looks like a
Georgia camp-meeting. Three runs to-day; slow progress
working through the traffic.  Surely attack cannot be far
off. Passed  wreck of plane near Villers-Bretonneux which
was fired on, falling and burning to death both pilot and
driver.
   "Sunday, June 18. To Fontaine les Cappy, which inci-
dentally was being shelled, evacuating to Villers-Breton-
neux. Changed rear spring on my 'bus this afternoon,
other having proved too  light. Have fixed  some hooks
and straps  on the  car so that I  can carry  blanket roll
and dunnage bag in event the line breaks and we follow
the advance. 'New Number Nine' is ready for  attack.
Rumor says it will start in three days.  Now that the
clock has been set ahead — this  occurred several  days
ago — we turn in by daylight."
   Dry, hot weather succeeded the rains and in a day the
mud of the roads had been  beaten into dust.  A khaki-
colored fog hung over the sinuous line of never-ceasing
                        142 
SECTION ONE
traffic and  choked man and beast. It was trying work
driving now but still it was exhilarating, the feeling of
being a part of a great push. By the middle of June the
advance position from which we should operate from the
time the first wave went over the top had been  chosen.
It was close back of the line near the boyau of Fontaine
les Cappy.  It was very much exposed and much in ad-
vance of the position usually taken by transport sections,
but it appeared the spot of greatest usefulness and this
being determined, our CO. was not the man to question
further.

              Bitter Disappointment
On the morning of June 20 I left for duty at  Cappy.
My journal for that date reads: "Left quarters at eight
this morning, reaching Cappy an hour later,  taking on
a load, evacuating at once to Villers-Bretonneux. This
afternoon evacuated to Chuignolles. So  far I have heard
but one shell come in to-day. Our batteries, too, have
been singularly quiet. The calm before the storm. If pos-
sible, the roads to-day were more congested  than ever
with every sort of vehicle  from bicycle to steam  tractor.
It's now nine o'clock, though owing to change  of time
not nearly  dark. Am a bit tired to-night, but have small
idea of getting much rest."
   Nor was I disappointed, for throughout the night the
wounded came in and we drove almost without pause.
From my last evacuation  I got back to Cappy about six
in the morning, and as our relief was due at eight I did
not consider it worth while to turn in. The day promised
to be hot and clear. Already the shelling  had  started. It
was a point of  honor among the Squad to be prompt in
our relief, and Gile and I  were therefore surprised when
no cars had appeared by  8.30. It was about ten o'clock
and we had exhausted our conjectures when two cars of
a French Section rolled up. We sensed at once that some-
thing had  happened.  One of the drivers climbed down
from his car and came over to where we were standing.
                         143 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
We exchanged salutes. "Messieurs," he said, "your Sec-
tion has been replaced by ours. I am directed to instruct
you to report at once at your quarters." The concussion
from a "210" could scarcely have stunned us more than
the announcement, "Replaced." It was impossible; there
must  be some mistake.  After all our months of work,
which we knew had been efficient,  after all our prepara-
tions for the attack. Replaced? No, it could not  be. Wre
would find out there had been a misunderstanding. In a
daze we cranked our cars and drove slowly away from
the familiar old poste.
  Several shells had passed us as we had stood talking,
and as I reached the canal bridge  I found one had hit
there. Beside the road lay a dead man, and three wounded
were being dressed. I got out my stretchers and evacuated
them to the field hospital at Cerisy. It was my last evacu-
ation from Cappy. I reached quarters about noon, find-
ing the Squad at mess.  One glance at the fellows con-
firmed the morning's news. I have seldom seen  a more
thoroughly disgusted bunch of men. It was true;  we had
been replaced and were leaving for parts unknown to-
morrow. Somewhere back in Automobile  Headquarters
in Paris a wire had been pulled, and that wire attached
to us was to pull us away from the greatest offensive in
history. W;e felt rather bitter about  it at first, for we felt
that in a way it reflected on our ability or even our nerve,
but when we learned that the Medecin Divisionnaire and
even the General of our Division had protested  against
our removal,  had  spoken of  our work in the  highest
terms, our disappointment was softened,  and  so with
the philosophy which army  life brings we said, "Cest la
guerre," struck our tents and prepared for the morrow's
departure.

                 The Voie Sacree
Whatever may  have been the aspect of Bar-le-Duc in
normal times, now it impressed me  as a city  utterly
weary, a city sapped of vitality. As a weary  man, ex-
                        144 
SHELL-POCKED ROAD NEAR DOUAUMONT OYER WHICH THE  AMBULANCES
            ROLLED ALL THROUGH THE BATTLE OE VERDUN 
 
SECTION ONE
hausted by  constant strain and tension to a condition
of listless  indifference — thus  did  Bar-le-Duc  impress
me. And well might it be weary. For months troops had
poured through its streets, men of a score of races, men
from far countries and from the heart of France. Here
they had passed on their way to the Vortex, and  through
these streets the bleeding wrecks of the same men had
been borne  back. Day and night without ceasing  the
munition camions had rumbled  by. While winter ended,
spring  came and passed, and  summer blossomed,  the
thundering guns had not ceased to sound. For five months
this unrelenting strain had endured  and Bar-le-Duc was
like a weary soul.
  It was close to midnight, and "dark as the inside of a
cow," when the camp was startled  into wakefulness by
the cry,  "Show a leg!  Everybody  out, we're  called!"
Outside the rain beat against the cars and a mournful
wind slapped  the branches overhead. It was a painful
transition from the warm comfort of the blankets to the
raw chill of the night, but no  one  hesitated. Lanterns
began to flicker; figures struggling into tunic and  knickers
tumbled out of cars; objects were pulled forth and piled
on the ground, bedding was thrown under ground-sheets;
stretchers shot into places; engines  began to cough and
snort, and searchlights pierced the night. The CO., mov-
ing from car to car, issued the order, "In convoy order;
gas-masks and helmets; head-lights  till further  orders."
In twenty minutes after the first  call, every  car was
ready,  every man in his place,  and  the convoy formed.
" WTiere are we going?" was the inquiry which shot from
car to car, and, though no one knew, the answer was in-
variably "Verdun."
  Presently the whistle blew and we moved  out. Down
through the sleeping city of Bar-le-Duc we went, and
there, where the transparency blazoned the legend, "Ver-
dun," we obeyed the silent injunction  of the pointing
arrow and turned to the left. We passed through  the out-
skirts of the city and presently entered upon a broad,
                        145 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
pitted road. Well might the road be pitted, for there was
the  Voie Sacree — the Sacred Way — over which had
passed every division of the French Army, the way over
which thousands of the men of France had passed never
to return.
  Beyond question one reason why Verdun was chosen
by the Germans as the point against which their  great
offensive was launched was the weakness of the support-
ing railroad facilities. Normally the city is  served by two
lines of railways, one running north from Saint-Mihiel,
the other coming in from the west by Sainte-Menehould.
Since Saint-Mihiel was in their hands, the first road was
eliminated, and though the second was not in the enemy's
hands, it was commanded by his batteries. This left the
position of  Verdun without supporting railroads, hereto-
fore considered necessary for maintaining  an army. But
the Hun had reckoned without two things,  the wonderful
organization of the French motor transport, and the Voie
Sacree. Never  had a road been called upon to bear the
burdens which now  were thrown  upon this  way. An
armada of  ten thousand motor camions was launched,
and day and night in two unbroken lines  this fleet held
its course and  served the defending armies of Verdun.
  Now we, too, passed down the road, privileged to be-
come part of that support.
  A half-moon, blood-red as though it, too, had taken on
the hue of war, appeared in the broken sky, described a
half arc and disappeared. Once a tremendous light illu-
minated the whole northern sky. Possibly  it was the ex-
plosion of a mine. We never knew what. The noise of the
guns grew louder as we went on. The gray fore-tone of
dawn was streaking the east when we halted by a group
of tents at the  roadside. We were beyond Lemmes, some
one said, but this meant nothing to us. It was a field hos-
pital and here we found our men,  a hundred of them.
They were all gas victims as their wracking, painful
coughs indicated.
  The rain  had ceased. The sun rose and warmed things
                        146 
SECTION ONE
a bit. It was seven o'clock in the morning and Bar-le-Duc
was beginning to stir itself for another weary day as we
reached the evacuation hospital.  Three quarters of an
hour later we straggled into Veel,  having covered over a
hundred kilometres since midnight.
  After the hard rolling of the last few days there was
much to be done about the cars. Bolts needed tightening,
grease-cups had to be filled, and many minor repairs were
to be made. This consumed most of the day and with only
a couple of hours' sleep to our credit from the night before
we were genuinely tired when we rolled into our blankets
that night and fervently hoped for an undisturbed rest.
  But  such was not to be our fortune. At 2.30 in  the
morning  it came — the call.  In  the gray of dawn we
wound through  Bar-le-Duc.  In  the doorways  and on
street benches we could just discern the motionless forms
of soldiers wrapped  in chilly slumber. Once more we
turned out upon the Sacred Way. Our destination was
the village of Dugny, of which I shall have more to  say
later, — perhaps seven kilometres from Verdun.  A blow-
out just beyond Bar-le-Duc lost me the convoy, which in
turn lost me  the road, and I wandered through a series
of half-demolished villages,  not  knowing how near I
might be to the line, before I finally again emerged on the
 Voie Sacree and reached Dugny. Here I was surprised to
see another section of the American Ambulance. It proved
to be Section  Eight which we were shortly to replace.
  Wre  found  the driving station  at Dugny overflowing
with wounded and the men placed in rows on straw in a
stable. Again we filled our cars,  this time  mostly with
couches, as before gas victims. It was now broad daylight.
The roadway even at night was a mass of traffic, mostly
convoys of heavy camions. These  followed each  other in
an endless belt, the loaded ones coming toward  Verdun,
the unloaded going away. They proceeded at an average
speed of eighteen kilometres an hour at a distance of sixty
feet from each other. It became  necessary for us, if we
were to make any progress  at all, to squirm our way
147 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
through the maze, continually dodging in and out of the
convoys to avoid staff cars, yet always working by the
slower moving vehicles. It was the most trying kind of
driving and required extreme care lest our cars be crushed
beneath the giant munition trucks or lest the unforgiv-
able sin of causing a block be committed.  It was dis-
heartening to work by a convoy of eighty camions, dodg-
ing in and out to avoid cars coming in the opposite direc-
tion, and then just as the head of the line was reached to
have a tire go bang. It is such happenings that try the
soul of the ambulancier.
  Not till two o'clock in the afternoon did we reach Veel,
having completed the evacuation, and get our first meal
of the day. We were content to rest the remainder of the
day and the day following, doing only such work as the
cars required, and we  were very glad that  no demand
came for our services.  On the third  morning a number
of us secured permission  to go  into Bar-le-Duc in the
"chow" camion. We had just completed a hot bath and
were making for a patisserie when the Lieutenant's car
came up. "Get everybody together!"  he shouted; "we're
leaving for Verdun at one o'clock."
  At camp we found the tents already struck and a cold
singe lunch awaiting us. Promptly at one we formed in
convoy and again headed for the Sacred Way. At four
o'clock that afternoon we reached the village of Dugny.
This was the 28th of June. The trek from the Somme to
Verdun was finished.
                         Robert Whitney Imbrie *
 1 Of Washington, D.C.; George Washington and Yale Universities; served
in Sections One and Three, 1915-17; subsequently with U.S. Army. The
above extracts are from his book, Behind the Wheel of a War Ambulance
(McBride, 1918). 
V
           Dugny — The Verdun Front

On June 21, 1916, like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky,
came the order from General Headquarters, commanding
the Section to proceed immediately to Verdun, where the
great battle had been raging constantly since February.
When Section One arrived on the Meuse the Boches were
making their final great attempt to capture Verdun and
the inner line  of forts — Tavannes, Saint-Michel and
Souville — as well as the  city itself. The roads in the
vicinity were under heavy bombardment and gas  hung
for days in the low places, all of which added to the
strenuousness of our work.
  By June 28 the Section  was quartered at Dugny, a
tumble-down town a few miles south of Verdun, where we
relieved Section Eight on .the right bank of the Meuse,
the postes being located at Fort de Tavannes, the Caba-
ret Rouge and the Mardi-Gras redoubt. The cantonment
at Dugny left much to be desired. The sleeping quarters
for the entire Section, including the French personnel,
were in a barn  loft, beneath which horses were stabled.
What  with  the  coming  and going,  the noise from the
"Atelier Club," as the poker players called themselves,
the coughing of gas victims, frequently  placed in the
entrance of the barn, and  many other disturbances, the
situation was not conducive to rest. Then, too, it rained
most of the time, except when it drizzled, and mud was
not among the things which the place lacked.
  Nor at the poste of the Cabaret Rouge could conditions
be said to be cheery. The  festive  name which the  place
bore was scarcely justified. It was a stone barn with a
straw-covered floor and a leaky roof, the walls pierced in
three places with  shell  holes, and mud  ankle-deep  all
around. Then there were the wounded who were stretched
149 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
by the walls; and the air was heavy with the smell of wet
clothing, disinfectants, and drying blood. In the only
other room of the barn were the dead awaiting burial, their
rigid mangled forms lying in rows on brancards. In addi-
tion the poste was entirely surrounded by batteries whose
din was unceasing, and furthermore there was hardly a
minute when German shells were not coming  in.
  Although there was not a man in the squad who was not
repeatedly under fire during the Section's stay at Dugny,
it remained for Brooke Edwards, of Philadelphia, to ex-
perience the most remarkably close call. While en route at
night to "Cabaret," a shell exploded by the side of his car,
blowing off two tires, the eclats passing entirely through
both sides and the roof of the car, and some of the frag-
ments lodging within six inches of  Edwards, who never-
theless was unscratched. A day or so later, when Tingle
Culbertson was pushing along the  Belleray Road in his
little car, he heard a crash, and a column of earth, not
twenty  yards off  the  road, spouted into the air.  Two
more shells came in quick succession, but they wrere, so
to speak,  unneeded, for Culbertson  was doing all that
essence and an intimate knowledge of a Ford could do to
make " numero douze" exceed any  previous records.
  On the  morning of July 12 the Section completed its
work at Verdun, every ambulance having served up to
the last moment to the limit of its capacity. Exceptional
luck  had followed the Section. The French Section, with
which it shared the work, had lost two men, one by gas,
another by shell-fire; the American Section which pre-
ceded us had had one man wounded,  and the English
Section, up to the time when we left, had been five days
in the field with the loss of one man.
  An account of our stay at Dugny could not be perfect
without mention of the Section's Chef, Herbert Townsend.
Instead of remaining out of the zone of fire, as he might
have done, he was probably under fire more than  any
other member, remaining at "Cabaret" for hours at a
time, putting new spirit into his men by his presence and
                        150 
SECTION ONE
giving them confidence and encouragement when they
most needed it. As though  this were not enough, he in-
sisted on accompanying the ambulances on their most
dangerous run, the nightly trip to Fort de Tavannes.

      Leaving Verdun — Chateau Billemont
The Section left the Verdun sector on July 13 and went
en repos, but returned there on August 15, taking up its
quarters in a handsome country house north of Dugny,
known as Chateau Billemont.  The trip to the  poste —
Caserne  Marceau — though it could  scarcely  be de-
scribed  as enjoyable,  proved very interesting.  Leaving
Billemont, the cars ran  some  two miles over excellent
roads, entering Verdun  by the  Porte Neuve.  On the
right, and dominating the ruined city,  lay the imposing
citadel, constructed by Vauban for Louis XIV.  Farther
on, the cars passed the huge shell-wrecked market, the
slightly damaged theatre, then on through a blackened,
chaotic mass of stone, bricks, and twisted steel, past the
fine old gray stone tower of the Pont Chaussee.  Leaving
the city by the Pont Chaussee, the ambulances followed
the Faubourg Pav6 to the Fort de Souville road, where
the poste was located, near the shattered buildings of the
Caserne Marceau and a wrecked cistern — a cement tank
mounted on a tower — on account of which the poste was
often called La Citerne and considered at this time the
most important one on the Verdun front.

             Verdun again — Fleury
The German trenches were just across the ridge  from La
Citerne, about half a kilometre distant, where the battle
of Fleury was in progress,  the village changing  hands
some ten times before it finally  remained in possession of
the French. Here the entire Section worked almost day
and night for about three weeks, the hardest strain it had
yet been under.
  On September 9  the  Section  was  relieved,   having
served at Caserne Marceau longer than any preceding
151 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
 section. Two days later two French ambulances were de-
 stroyed at this poste and several drivers and brancardiers
 were killed, in consequence of which the poste was aban-
 doned for a location farther back.
   On account of the service rendered at Caserne Marceau,
 Herbert Townsend, Giles Francklyn, Robert  Bowman,
 Brooke Edwards, and James M.  Sponagle, and the Sec-
 tion as a whole, received citations.
   Leaving the Verdun sector on September 11, three days
 were spent en repos at Triaucourt, when we moved into
 the  Argonne,  being quartered at La Grange-aux-Bois,
 just east of Sainte-Menehould. The work was  light
 and without special  incident  during  the  four months
 there,  which, with  the beautiful scenery, furnished  a
 very pleasing contrast to our experience at Verdun.

         The Death of Howard B. Lines
 The first death in the Section occurred during this period,
 when, on December 23, 1916, Howard B. Lines, of Dart-
 mouth, succumbed to pneumonia. The funeral took place
 on Christmas morning. A Protestant chaplain of the divi-
 sion read the burial service in the open entry way of the
 house where Lines had died, and  the body accompanied
 by French soldiers and the members of the Section, and
 Inspector-General Andrew, and Hon. Robert Bacon, who
 had  come from Paris, was carried to the snow-covered
 military cemetery on a neighboring hill. Young Lines was
 with the Section in Belgium from September, 1915, to
 January, 1916, when he returned to America to complete
 his work at Harvard Law School;  he had  rejoined the
 Section in October, 1916.
  On January 19, the Section  left La Grange-aux-Bois
 for Triaucourt where we were quartered in a large room
on the  lower floor of a hospital. The place was cheerless
and quite cold. Our meals were served in an old stable
several blocks distant. We soon  discovered that the facil-
ities for recreation and amusement in Triaucourt in  win-
ter were  limited in the extreme.  About the only relief
                        152 
FUNERAL OF HOWARD LINES  AT LA GRANGE-AUX-BOIS
               CHRISTMAS MORNING, 1916
A FOREST IN CHAMPAGNE 
 
SECTION ONE
  from continual strolling about the village were the two or
  three little cafes where a few of the hours might be whiled
  away and the canteen conducted by some English women
  where  hot coffee, tea,  and cocoa were served  free and
  where English papers might be read in comparative com-
  fort. The many little courtesies shown us by these ladies
  will be long remembered.

                Hill 304 - Mort Homme
  After three days were spent en repos at Triaucourt, we
  went into the Hill 304 - Mort-Homme sector, with postes
  at Esnes, Montzeville, the Bois de Recicourt and the Bois
  d'Esnes. The combination of extremely cold weather and
  very poor quarters at Ippecourt gave the section another
  taste of the hardships of war,  until, two weeks later,
  better quarters were found at Dombasle.
     Ippecourt, by the way, is a village situated twenty-one
  kilometres southwest of Verdun, and our quarters were
  located a kilometre  east of  it, on the  road  to Souilly.
  They consisted of a long shed, set on a hillside,  and con-
  structed of rough boards and branches of trees. The ar-
,  chitect's predominating idea seems to have been  to secure
  ample ventilation, and in this he was highly successful.
  The  shed was divided by partitions, even more flimsily
  constructed than the walls of the  structure, into small
  rooms with space — shelter is hardly the word — for from
  three to five men each. A larger room at the north end
  served  as a  dining-room. Light was admitted  through
  windows  which  were covered  with glazed  cloth  and
  through numerous cracks as well. The heating apparatus
  consisted of a  number of home-made stoves left behind
  by our predecessors in Section Four, but which they re-
  claimed three or four days after our arrival, so that even
  the modicum of comfort which these stoves afforded was
  thereafter denied us. We  did manage, however, by hook
  or crook, to secure stoves for two or three rooms which
  radiated, at times, enough heat  to  thaw out half-frozen
  fingers  or toes. Our fuel consisted of scraps of green tim-
                          153 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
bers secured from a near-by sawmill and whatever under-
brush we were able to find in the vicinity. One of the
vivid, if unpleasant, memories of these days is the sound
of the bell at 7 a.m., which  called us from between
comparatively warm blankets to the dining-room which
was devoid of even the  small amount of heat that a
bright sun contributed to the world outside. At breakfast
the bread  was warm, that is,  it had been placed in the
oven long  enough to raise considerably the temperature
of the exterior, but the inside of the loaf was always
frozen. The coffee seldom was hot. After breakfast the
most effective means of becoming comfortably warm was
to attempt to crank  one's Ford. Two hours was the
average length of time required to start a car. The water
in the radiators froze  in an incredibly short time if the
motors  were  allowed  to  cool. On one occasion  when
the radiator on the staff car had become overheated, the
boiling water which was thrown out turned to ice before
it struck the windshield. During the seventeen days we
were quartered  at Ippecourt, the thermometer was al-
most constantly below zero (Fahrenheit).
   The feature of the work at this time was the German
attack on  Hill 304 which began on January 25, after a
violent  bombardment. The attacks and counter-attacks
continued  for about a week,  during  which time every
car that was not disabled by the miserable roads and the
even more miserable weather was running almost con-
stantly.
   After these attacks  had subsided, we had a moderate
amount of work, an average of six cars a day running.
But the sector was never entirely quiet, there being  more
or less artillery activity at all times, considerable gas sent
over by the Boches and a coup de main occurring every
few days.  Montzeville, Esnes, and  the road between
these two  villages received shells quite often, and narrow
escapes were common  enough to relieve the monotony of
camp life.  This road, in fact, was exposed to the view of
the Germans whose trenches were barely two kilometres
                        154 
SECTION  ONE
distant on Mort Homme, and merely to go over it was
always something of an adventure.

           The Section's "Blue Book"
The following description of this road from Jubecourt to
Esnes, taken from the Section's "Blue Book," will give
the reader a good idea of the troubles and trials of our
rolling:
  "Leaving the poste des brancardiers at Jubecourt, turn
right on sharp grade. This is Ringwalt Corner; for it was
here that Ringwalt went  over the bank on  the  night
that we took over the sector, his car turning over twice.
How he managed to get over on the left-hand side of the
road and slip over the bank while going up hill on low
speed, nobody knows; but he did it. Continue north over
fairly level  route,  part  of  it very rough, to Brocourt
(3.5 km.) entering  the village over miserable piece  of
corduroy road after left turn at cemetery. Bear right,
passing to rear of church. Beware of other roads leading
to Auzeville, Brabant, and Jouy. Sentry at corner. Pass
sign, ' Eteignez vos lumieres,' descending steep hill, cross
small railroad, — munitions depot down gulch to the
left, large gun to the right. Ascend steep grade and con-
tinue along level road, cross old Roman road and pass on
the right a genie camp situated in a small wood — Bois de
Foucheres.  Continue over very rough stretch of road to
sentry box (6.5 km.) turn sharp to right.  Country imme-
diately surrounding the sentry box is quite bare.  From
this point there is a very good view of Clermont-en-
Argonne, due west; and the eastern slope of the Argonne
Forest, as far south as the C6te des Cerfs near Brizeaux,
is also visible. Continue along winding road — fine view
of Dombasle and  country  to the  northeast,  especially
the Bois de Bethelainville— downhill into Dombasle-en-
Argonne (11.1 km.) cross Sainte-Menehould -Verdun rail-
road, turn  left over small bridge and cross Paris-Metz
Grande  Route (elevation 235 m.) passing on the right a
picturesque ruin with tall chimneys and extensive garden;
                        155 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
bear left through the village and continue on gentle up-
grade. Barracks on hillside to left; Bethelainville poste de
secours in cave on hillside on right. Road from this point
is extremely rough. Pass source on right and enter Bois
de Bethelainville — ammunition depot resembling stone
quarry on right. Continue through wood — batteries on
both sides of the road. Emerging from the wood (eleva-
tion 328 m.), we have good  outlook, including view  of
hills near Chattancourt, le Mort Homme, Hill 310, Hill
304, and vicinity of Montfaucon and other points beyond
the German lines. Descending from this point by  easy
grade along tree-lined road with shell-holes on either side,
enter Montzeville (17.8 km. elevation 240 m.). The poste
de secours is situated in a cave on the left. Along the left
or west side of the village  lies Hill 310 on which many
batteries are planted. Pedestrians may take path across
Hill 310 to Esnes — 2 km. Leaving Montzeville, road
bears slightly left and enters the ' Bad Lands' road —
extremely rough passage over slight rise and stretch  of
uncrushed stone. In field to left are batteries of soixante-
quinzes  disguised  as pig-sties.  Road  is  bordered  by
stumps. Beware of extremely rocky place, which must be
crossed  on low speed, and  a  short distance farther on,
another one even worse. Bear left at fork — road to right
goes  to  Chattancourt. Ascend  easy grade; road very
rough, soixante-quinze batteries to left, camouflage made
of branches erected on right side of road. In this vicinity
drivers may expect to meet field kitchens and droves  of
burros at any  hour after  dark, until 3 a.m. Pass in-
verted fork in road where highway from Marre joins  at
acute angle. Now we are at Toy's corner. The road from
this corner to the next corner — about half a kilometre —
is within plain  view  of the German trenches on le Mort
Homme, two kilometres to the north. Begin gentle descent,
watch for  new shell-holes, turn abrupt  left (elevation
234 m.) probably the most dangerous point on the road,
the corner being subject to indiscriminate shelling at all
hours, and extremely skiddy in icy weather. We are now
                         156 
SECTION ONE
overlooking the village of  Esnes.  Continue gentle de-
scent, pass wrecked ambulance on right, where is fine view
of Hill 304 about a kilometre to the right, ruins of houses
on either side, dead horse on the right, dead donkey
and pile of wire and other genie material on left. At this
point the road becomes a perfect morass of mud and ice,
which can be crossed only on low speed and by the exer-
cise of the utmost caution to  avoid crevices, boulders,
and sink-holes. Pearl, Tyson, and Hibbard  became fast
in this hole on the night of January 25-26, and Farlow,
Kurtz, Flynn, and Wood on the night of February 16-17.
Arriving at corner with tower of ruined church on right
(elevation 225 m.) cross bad ditch and turn into narrow
lane passing to left of church. Avoid large shell-holes on
left side of road and 15 metres farther on, another shell-
hole on left, opposite stone watering trough on right. Con-
tinue 10 metres over rocks to ruined  chateau on right
(21.8 km.). Turn car in small yard covered with rubbish.
End of route."

           Vadelaincourt — Champagne
On March 14, 1917, the  Section went  en repos near by,
at Vadelaincourt. While there Benjamin R. Woodworth
became Chef of the Section, James M.  Sponagle  being
made Sous-Chef. The men were quartered in an aviation
field and became well acquainted with many of the avi-
ators, a  pleasant feature of our sojourn there. We re-
mained at  Vadelaincourt one month and then departed
for  the Champagne front,  stopping, however, for two
days at Dombasle, to renew acquaintance with familiar
scenes around Cote 304.  Here General Herr, command-
ing the Sixteenth Army Corps,  reviewed the Section,
shaking hands with each man and expressing his appre-
ciation of our work and his keen regret at our departure.
A short time later the Section was cited  by order of the
Sixteenth Army Corps, and four of its members were
cited individually.
  It was with the anticipation of great  things that the
                        157 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
Section departed for the Champagne front where, it was
rumored, we were to take part in the great offensive just
beginning in the neighborhood  of Reims. But instead,
we found ourselves once more en repos, this time in the
sector where every one had looked forward to the  most
stirring times in the Section's history. The keen disap-
pointment of the men was hardly allayed by  the fact
that they were quartered in a seventeenth-century cha-
teau and that they were able to make occasional visits
to Reims and the historic cathedral. Some of the men
witnessed the burning, on May 3, of the Hotel de Ville,
after a large number of incendiary shells had been thrown
in the vicinity.

     The Legion of Honor for Mr. Andrew
On April 29, 1917, Inspector-General Andrew received
the Cross of the Legion of Honor,  the ceremony being held
in front of the chateau at Muizon. If the presentation had
taken place  at the Invalides the setting could not  have
been more impressive. There was a military band which
supplied music, punctuated by the thundering of some
big guns located near by. The presentation of the Cross
was made by General  Ragueneau, of General Nivelle's
staff. In front of  an imposing group of French officers
stood two standard bearers, one a French  Lieutenant
carrying the tricolor and the other James M. Sponagle,
carrying our Section flag on which appeared the Croix
de Guerre and the names of the campaigns.
  While we were at Dombasle, by the way, we enjoyed
several visits from Mr.  Andrew. On March 1, he and
Sponagle inspected the cars with a view to possible im-
provement in the construction of the bodies. Townsend
offered the suggestion that the side boxes should be en-
larged to provide ample space, not only for tools, but for
personal equipment which drivers require while on serv-
ice. Mr. Andrew argued that there was already plenty
of room;  in fact  if more space were  provided it would
simply mean that many of the cars would be loaded down
                        158 
iiii r-.bs■.$&■■'■
GENERAL RAGENEAU CONFERRING UPON MR. ANDREW THE CROSS OF THE LEGION OF HONOR
        IN THE QUARTERS OF SECTION ONE AT MUIZON (NEAR REIMS), APRIL 29, 1917 
 
SECTION ONE
with souvenirs and junk. But Townsend  insisted that
more space was necessary, whereupon Mr. Andrew said,
'*\\ell, Ned, let's see what you 've got in your boxes, any-
way." So lifting up the lids they found several obus in
his side boxes and in an arm box a dead owl!
  On  May 6 the Section  suffered one of the most severe
losses to its personnel that had occurred since its organi-
zation, when Lieutenant de Kersauson, who for two years
had been its  energetic  and highly prized  leader,  was
ordered to take charge  of the new training school for
American officers at Meaux. A day or two later, Lieu-
tenant James  F. Reymond arrived and assumed  charge
of the Section.
  During the latter part of May the Section began work-
ing in connection with a division of dismounted cavalry
attached to the Fifth Army.  The line extended from
Cauroy to Brimont, the poste de secours being located
on the Reims-Laon highway, in  sight of the German
trenches. The work was very light and two cars, stationed
at Villers-Franqueux, went down at night only. One of the
interesting sights from this village was the occasional
shelling of Brimont, about three kilometres away, by the
French guns, which from various points on the road be-
tween Muizon and Villers-Franqueux, the German shells
could be seen falling on Reims.

               WOODWORTH KILLED
On June 15 Benjamin R. Woodworth, the Section's Chef,
was instantly killed while riding as a passenger in a
French aeroplane. The accident occurred as Woodworth
and Chatkoff, the pilot, a member of an escadrille near
Muizon, were  leaving the grounds of the Lafayette Es-
cadrille near  Soissons.  The  interment took place at
Chalons-sur-Vesle with military honors. "Woody" was
a member of the Section from June, 1915, to July, 1916.
He reentered  the service in November, 1916,  and had
been  Chef  of  the Section since April,  1917. W. Yorke
Stevenson succeeded him as Chef, and the latter part of
                        159 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
June, James M. Sponagle resigned as Sous-Chef to be-
come Chef of  Section Sixty-Five,  being  succeeded  by
James M. White.
  On June 21, the Section moved to Louvois, an attrac-
tive village in the midst of the Champagne district some
fifteen kilometres southeast of  Reims where were two
postes — one in the almost demolished village of Sillery
and the other at a point on the Aisne-Marne canal, known
as 1 'Esperance. One car was kept constantly at the latter
poste  and  another was held at the Chateau Romont, a
beautiful place, while four cars remained at the near-by
village of Ludes to relieve these  two.
  The sector was comparatively quiet. The lines had re-
mained practically stationary for more than two years
and the peasants could be seen working daily in the fields
within plain view of and almost up to the trenches. From
Ludes and Chateau Romont the German positions were
visible from Reims to Mont Cornillet. At this time there
was considerable activity around Mont  Cornillet and
Mont Haut, a little farther east, and there was an occa-
sional bombardment or a coup de main in front of Sillery
or 1'Esperance, because of the  proximity to the more
active sector. Evacuations were  to Ludes,  Chenay, Lou-
vois, and Epernay.

                 Norton killed
On the evening of July 12 George Frederick Norton was
killed by an air bomb  while on duty at Ludes. Norton
and the other men on duty there at that time — Robert H.
Gamble, Hugh Elliott, and Richard Oiler — had turned
in for the night, when at about ten-thirty a  German plane
was heard in the vicinity and two bombs exploded on the
other side of the village. Norton arose, and was looking
out of the window of the chalet, when a third bomb ex-
ploded just across the road about twenty yards away, at
least three eclats striking him, killing him  instantly and
piercing the wall of the chalet in  many places. The other
men had very  narrow escapes; indeed  Gamble received
                        160 
SECTION ONE
 a slight wound in the shoulder, though he was able to
 continue on duty for forty-eight hours.
   The funeral service over the body of Norton was held
 the following evening at dusk. As the village was within
 plain view of the German lines, it was not possible to
 hold it during the day. The French chaplain who con-
 ducted the service  spoke simply but eloquently of the
 beautiful spirit of sacrifice which led Norton to offer his
 services to France. The body was interred with full mili-
 tary honors in a new cemetery on the edge of the village.
 Norton was  cited to the order of the Army and was
 awarded the Croix  de Guerre with palm. Three other
 members  of  the Section were also cited on  the same
 occasion.

                   Verdun again
 On July 23 the Section  left this beautiful region of the
 Champagne and went via Bar-le-Duc to Evres where one
 week wras spent en repos. Everywhere were rumors of the
 great offensive about to be started on the Meuse, and in
 August the Section moved on to Verdun and began work
 on the right bank. How many had been the changes on
 the historic battlefield within the past year! The village
 of Fleury, the centre of such terrific attacks and  coun-
 ter-attacks a year before, was now  so utterly razed that
 some of the men passed it several times before they could
 believe that  the maps had it  correctly located,  while
 the Caserne Marceau, near Fort Saint-Michel, which in
 August, 1916, was an advanced poste with the German
 trenches less  that a kilometre distant across the ridge,
 was now well to the rear.
  Four cars stationed here went on call to postes %.t Saint-
 Fine, near Fort Souville, La Source near Vaux, and Cham-
 bouillat and Carriere  Sud near Douaumont. Other cars
 served  postes near Fort Tavannes and at Carriere d'Hau-
dromont near Louvemont, all of which points were held
by the  Germans when the Section worked there the year
before and some of which were then well behind the battle
                        161 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
lines. The conditions under which we labored were try-
ing from the very first, for the roads were congested with
traffic, were frequently shelled, and gas was encountered
almost every night.
  The men were quartered at first at Haudainville; but
after a few days we secured a site for our tents just out-
side the hospital grounds at the Caserne Beveaux, on the
south side of Verdun. All cars evacuated to this hospital,
except during the first few days when the Maison Nathan
in Verdun, near the Porte de Saint-Paul, was used.
  The artillery bombardment, which was expected daily,
did not begin in earnest until about August 14. A day or
two later a Red Cross ambulance section — S.S.U. 61 —
began working with Section One at all the postes except
Carriere d'Haudromont, which we continued to care for
unaided until the infantry attack began, when we surren-
dered it to two French  ambulance sections.

  Pearl Wounded — The Verdun Attack, 1917
On the evening of August  16 William A.  Pearl, the
Section mechanic,  was severely wounded while  on the
way to Haudromont with Rice, to repair a disabled car.
A shell exploded a few yards  from the car in which they
were riding and a large eclat passed through Pearl's fore-
arm, completely disabling his hand so that he had to be
evacuated to Paris.
  The first infantry attack was launched early on the
morning of the 20th with magnificent  success for the
French. Hill 304,  the Mort Homme, the Bois des  Cor-
beaux, the Bois de Cumieres, the Cote du Talon, Champ-
neuville, Hill 344, Mormont Farm, and Hill 240 were en-
tirely retaken. In the morning Lieutenant Reymond went
with the first cars to the Carriere Sud and rendered such
valuable aid in clearing the  roads of wrecked wagons,
dead horses, and munition trucks that he was cited shortly
after by the Division. German counter-attacks followed,
but the French continued to attack with vigor, Beaumont
falling into their hands  on the 26th.
                        162 
SECTION ONE
  The fighting on both sides, especially the artillery ac-
tivity, continued heavy day and night and reacted on us.
Every car in the Section received its quota of shell-holes,
one car driven by Ryan being utterly demolished while
standing in front of the poste of Carriere Sud. A short
time before the sides of two cars — driven by Flynn and
Tapley — had been blown out by shells at Haudromont.
On several occasions shells exploded near ambulances on
the road, when the couches inside the car became so fright-
ened that they jumped off their stretchers and took re-
fuge in near-by abris. At times it was impossible to go
through and we had first  of all to repair the road our-
selves by filling the holes with loose rocks and earth. Holt
was  badly gassed near  Haudromont,  a shell exploding
near him while he was standing beside his car waiting for
a congestion of artillery caissons and guns to let him
through. He was knocked down, his mask fell off,  and he
was rendered practically unconscious. After being dragged
to a poste de secours and given the anti-gas treatment, he
insisted upon resuming work, for which he received a fine
citation.

             Closing Days at Verdun
During the last week of the Section's stay at Verdun,
there were many entries under the heading "collisions and
derailments," for every man was pretty well tired out and
most of the men were running on their nerves, with the
result that accidents were of frequent occurrence. At times
the rush was so great that in order to relieve the conges-
tion, Chief Stevenson drove ambulances himself. There
was rejoicing in camp, therefore, when at last the news
came that the Section was  to be relieved; and when,
on September 14, we departed for a period of repos, the
drivers no less than  the soldiers of the division felt it was
richly deserved. So we proceeded south to a peaceful little
village in Jeanne d 'Arc's country.
  For their work at Verdun the  following men received
the Croix de Guerre: Robert J. Flynn, J. Clifford Hanna,
                         163 
THE AMERICAN  FIELD SERVICE
Edward  P. Townsend  (second  citation), R.  H.  Plow,
Roy Stockwell, William  A. Pearl, James  M. White,
Arthur M. Dallin,  Richard H. Stout, William S.  Holt,
Harold E. Purdy, H. B. Day, Frank A. Farnham, R. W.
Tapley, John Kreutzberg, and Philip S. Rice. A few days
later the  Section was cited by order of the Second Army
for the work before Verdun during August and Septem-
ber, receiving the Croix de Guerre with the palm, this
being the Section's fourth citation.
 ^ The American recruiting officers arrived  at the Sec-
tion September 13, 1917, on which date it ceased to be a
volunteer organization and became a part of the United
States Army.
                               Roy H.  Stockwell *

  1 Of New Bedford, Massachusetts; University  of Kansas, 'n, and the
Harvard Law School; with Section One from November, 1916, to Novem-
ber, 1917; subsequently First Lieutenant  in the  U.S. Field Artillery in
France.
 
VI
              The Work at Verdun
                                Paris, September 9, 1916
I have just returned from a visit to Section One. After
seeing the extraordinary work that those boys are doing
up there, I felt that I ought to write and tell you about it.
  A good many of the Sections are now living under can-
vas and  have often had  difficulty  in finding a  suitable
place to  cook. So we have had built a kitchen on two
wheels which is pulled along by a big two-ton White
truck used for sitting cases, and the real reason of my
visit was to leave one with Section One.
  As it happens, they are situated at the present moment
in the splendid Chateau de Billemont about four kilo-
metres outside of Verdun, which up to a few weeks ago
was the  headquarters of some French officers. But the
Germans, having got hold of the fact, shelled them out.
It is an ideal place for our men.
  The poste de secours to which they are attached is six
kilometres the other side of Verdun; and since ten days
before my arrival, and during my stay, the French have
been  doing  incessant attacking  and counter-attacking,
the work of carrying the wounded has been practically
continuous night and day.
  Going  to the poste de secours from the chateau, you pass
through Verdun,  and continue on a wide, level road for
about one kilometre, and then you  start up a very steep
hill which continues, for five kilometres, right to the poste
de secours. This road is very narrow and sufficiently dan-
gerous from a driving point of view apart from the fact
that it is  shelled continuously day and night. Indeed, one
of the duties of Townsend, Section Director, is to go up
every morning at daybreak with a couple of men and fill
up the holes which have  been made during the hours of
darkness, so that our cars will not fall into them.
                        165 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
  The poste itself is only one hundred and fifty yards
from Fort Saint-Michel, which, of course, accounts for the
attention which that part of the country gets from the
German artillery. Besides this, the whole valley and hill-
sides are covered with French batteries, and the din at the
top of the hill makes it impossible to talk  in anything
like an ordinary tone of voice.
  The day driving is comparatively nothing. The part,
however, for which  they deserve all the praise that we
can give them, is their work at night. Naturally no lights
are allowed, and I have never seen a country that can
produce darker nights than that district. Therefore let
one try and imagine the difficulties of starting from the
top of that hill with a car full of wounded and  driv-
ing down a narrow  hillside road in a blackness impene-
trable  for  more than  a yard.  In fact if  it were not
for the light given by the firing of the guns and hand-
grenades, the work  would be well-nigh impossible; and
what makes it more difficult still is that all the traffic
starts at night when the ammunition is brought up to the
various batteries and you are continually finding teams
of horses almost on  the top of the car before you have
any idea  of their presence. The round trip from the poste
de secours to the hospital takes from two hours and a half
to three hours, which averages a speed of about ten  kilo-
metres an hour. This will give an idea of how slowly one
has to go.
  When I visited the Section, it had been doing this work
for ten days before I got there, and yet there was not the
slightest  sign of fatigue or impatience among the men.
I doubt,  however, if any man  in the Section had  had,
during that time, five hours' consecutive sleep. But far
from shirking what  they had to do, they were each and
every one of them  attempting  more  than  their share.
One night, for example,  the Medecin Chef, who had charge
of the poste, received word to prepare, on account of an
unexpected attack,  for  an unusual number of wounded,
and fearing that Section One might not be able to handle
                         166 
THE GENTLE  HAND OF THE SHELL!

WHAT WAS LEFT OF RYAX'S CAR AT CARRIERE SUD (VERDUN 
» 
SECTION ONE
the situation alone, he called  out as reserve a  French
Section which was in Verdun. No deeper offence than this
could have been offered to poor Townsend, and every
man in  the American Section worked double that night.
Needless  to  say that  the  French Section stayed where
it was — in  reserve.  The  idea that any situation  was
too big for our boys  to handle was something not to
be considered.
  No matter how carefully a man drives at night, a num-
ber of accidents are bound to occur. In one night there
were  six.  Of course these  were  minor accidents which
could be repaired in a fairly short time. For  instance, the
White camion one night went into a ditch; two cars went
head  on into each other in -the darkness; two more cars
went  into ditches  and another fell into a shell-hole.  Oc-
casionally, of course,  something occurred which would
put a car out of commission three or four days, which
means that the Section is  that much short. If this  sort
of thing happens too often the authorities get impatient
and threaten to replace the incomplete Section by a com-
plete  one,  which,  of course, about breaks the hearts of
our fellows. So in the end we had cars in reserve for each
Section to prevent this contingency ever happening.
  The fact that every  car has been hit makes no  impres-
sion whatever on the men. I do not mean to say by  this
that they are reckless or foolhardy; on the contrary, they
take all possible precautions. But when there is anything
to be  done, it is carried through without question  or hesi-
tation.  Without exaggeration and without  indulging in
any blood-curdling stories, their work really impressed
me as tremendously fine.  Nothing that I  can  say  can
give an  idea of how splendid these boys are.
                           John H. McFadden, Jr.1

  1 Of  Philadelphia; University of Pennsylvania, '13; entered  the Field
Service in October, 1914; became treasurer of the organization in France;
left the Service in 1917 to accept the post of Assistant Military Attache
at the American Embassy in Paris. 
VII
               Notes from a Diary
                             Cappy, Somme, April 3, 1916
I spent the night here  at our advanced poste. The town
is in ruins. There was no call for the trenches. The night
was too clear. I woke about 4 a.m., thinking it was late
because I heard the birds chirping, but found it was only
the rats squeaking. The place is full of them; they walk
over you at night. But  nobody cares. The country is full
of quail and hares, but no one bothers them and they are
very tame.

                                            April 5
This morning I watched the twenty-first "Suicide Club"
practising hand-grenade throwing. Magoun and I noted
where the things were thrown, with the idea of picking
up  a few fusees afterwards. Now and then they don't
land right; so Magoun later picked up a couple of unex-
ploded ones and offered me one. I declined and told him
he had better let them alone. Just as we were arguing up
came a file of men  with shovels to bury the  unfired gre-
nades.  When they saw Magoun with two in his hands
they nearly had a fit; said he was crazy, and to prove it
they told us to get  in a near-by trench and they 'd show
us.  So we all crawled  in and an  expert then recocked
the little spring and threw the grenade, which went  off
with a bang that shook the trench! That evening we got a
call to carry two blesses — one man with his face muti-
lated and another one with his feet blown off, who, oddly
enough, had been  "fishing" in the canal, by throwing
hand-grenades in and then collecting the dead fish which
floated up to  the surface — a nice sporting thing to do!
I must say I  could n't feel very sorry for them. The
same night we heard a heavy explosion close  to our
                        168 
SECTION  ONE
farm and at first  supposed that it was  an incoming
obus. But it really occurred in the back  room of a cafe
in which we eat, and a call came shortly after when we
collected three more poor fellows hurt, and three dead,
from fiddling with hand-grenades.  I made a point to rub
it into Magoun, calling his attention to the fact that that
day, in  our Sector, the French lost more  men through
their own carelessness than from Boche activity.
   Roche, Magoun, Francklyn, and I now occupy the
palatial  apartment  known as the  "rat  incubator."
Some of the boys — Underhill, Baylies, and Paul — have
erected  a tent;  as they  were above us  in  the "Rat
Hole," and  their feet kept continually coming through
the ceiling carrying plaster and splinters on to us, we are
now more comfortable and clean, although Lewis, Lath-
rop, and Edwards are still up there. Townsend, White,
and Woodworth have the best rooms in a really well-kept
house, while Sponagle, Cunningham, and  Winsor sleep
next to  the  repair shop. The Lieutenant and the other
Frenchmen attached to the Section sleep in the bureau,
a nice little well-kept cottage also. The washing is done
by a dear old woman  who hates to leave and hopes, de-
spite orders, to stay.

                                            April 9
Yesterday I was "Chow," that is, the man who sets the
table and waits on it. Each takes this duty by turns. But
as we eat everything off the same plate, that is each one"
of us has but one plate, with  the same fork and knife,
there is  no great strain upon the Admirable Crichton on
duty. Although I got to bed at 3 a.m.  I had to be up at
6.30 to  set the table, being "Chow."  It's a great life,
though,  which I would n't miss for worlds. We have a lot
of fun on the side; play base-ball and a funny sort of
adaptation of tennis with a hoop. At night we play rou-
lette for centime stakes, occasionally fish for pike  with a
sort of trident made out of old Ford brake rods, and swim
now and then when it is warm.
                        169 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
                                            May 22
White and Campbell finally received their decorations
to-day. An amusing incident occurred when the General
took W7hite, who had been told to stand out in front of the
line, to be a mere onlooker and ordered him back. It had
to be explained to him that this was the hero who was to
be decorated! The General apologized, of course, but it
got every one giggling and somewhat marred the solem-
nity of the occasion.

                                       Cappy, June i
Big mortar batteries are arriving along the front. I saw
several here, at Cappy, this afternoon, hidden near the
cemetery. Nowadays even when a man gets killed he is
not permitted  to rest in peace. The  Germans, trying to
reach these new mortars, are bound to blow hell out of
the cemetery.

                Open-Air Sleeping
                                   Bayonvillers, June 2
I had fun with Francklyn this  morning.  It appears that
he used Imbrie's paillasse last night, so that when Imbrie
and I returned from Cappy, it was nowhere to be found.
Francklyn was still asleep; so we carried him, bunk and
all, out into the main street and placed him on the side-
walk. A large  crowd immediately gathered, thinking he
was a blessS, as he had nothing on but a blanket. He woke
up  just as a division staff was passing, and he certainly
did make a quick  jump for the yard with the  blanket
flapping like the tail of a kite behind his long, bare legs
as he beat it.

                                     Eclusier, June 13
The other day a trooper fell off his horse and hit his head
and they  ordered me to  carry the unconscious  man to
Villers-Bretonneux. The car was already full, but I piled
him in and took him along to save argument. Of course
I had a hideous time at the hospital at Villers, not having
                         170 
SECTION ONE
a ticket for him. For an hour or so nobody could take
him in — the usual red tape.

                                             June 14
To-day I  had an interesting talk with a French Lieuten-
ant. He says the Senegalese are awfully hard to handle.
They won't  stand shell-fire, but  don't  mind  machine
guns, so Frenchmen are put on either side of them —
fifteen hundred  Senegalese in each division. They have
strings of  Boche ears which they keep as trophies. On the
other hand, the  "Germs" always kill the black wounded
and prisoners; so it is about fifty-fifty.

                                             June 20
To-day we saw the funeral of two aviators. It was quite
impressive. One plane made the sign of the cross in the
heavens above the grave.

                                      Chalons, June 23
The French kids are good  little fellows. To-day one in-
sisted I should  have a rose in my buttonhole. Every-
where they give us flowers  or candy. Another led me by
the hand all around the village of Pont-Sainte-Maxence.
Along the roads they always, girls and boys, click their
heels together and give the  military salute when we pass.

                                    Bar-le-Duc, June 25
We all went to bed at 7  a.m. and slept until Roche was
awakened by something licking his face. Thinking it was
one of the dogs, he just gave it a slap, and then the whole
tent nearly collapsed! A stray cow had drifted in and tried
to get acquainted! The riot that followed set all thought
of further sleep at an end.

                                       Dugny, June 29
One gets some astonishing  directions when one is work-
ing  at night in a new country. For instance, in going to
Fort Tavannes,  I was  told to go  along a certain road,
171 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
until I passed two smells and then turn to the left. This
referred to two piles of dead horses!
  Verdun itself is pretty well shot to pieces. To-day I
noticed a marble statue of Napoleon standing up in a
hole above the street, which hole used to be a window in
a house. The statue creates a rather impressive effect, as
it looks out over the ruins  and desolation toward  the
smoking, rocking hills.

                                      Verdun, June 30
The other day Bowman carried a Division Commander
whose leg was cut off by a " 77." He died in the car in  the
arms of his orderly, whose only words were, "It's  too
bad, too bad, to be killed by a mere '77' after all he had
been through." Around here nothing under a "130" is
regarded as amounting to much.

                                       Dugny, July 1
We have now three dogs attached to the Section. Besides
"Vic," Magoun has  picked up a little woolly one at
Bayonvillers,  while Bowman got a sad sort of mongrel
pointer along the road to Bar-le-Duc. They are really
more trouble  than they are worth, as they continually
get  lost, while at night they come nosing into the men's
blankets and get kicked out to the accompaniment of  the
usual yelping. Fleas, of course, also help. There are signs,
I see, of another dog joining the squad here. It looks
somewhat like a young hyena and is hanging around  the
cantonment. The tame crows and fox of the camion driv-
ers  at  Bayonvillers were amusing and could be caged,
but these pups are continually escaping. What with our
three tents, the zouave, "Lizzie," and the varied men-
agerie, we certainly are assuming the aspect of a traveling
circus.

                                             July 3
On  the road into Verdun this morning, George End saw
a man killed by the shock of a "210." The "Germs" were
attacking Thiaumont again when a shell exploded just
                        172 
SECTION  ONE
beside the road, but without touching the man, who was
killed simply by the shock.
                                             July 4
Imbrie is certainly a "scream." He remarked to-day that
on going out on his run to the poste the road was O.K.,
but coming back he saw a fresh-killed horse.  He said:
"Now that's the sort of a thing that causes one to stop
and reflect, but I didn't. I jammed down both the levers
and did  my reflecting at forty miles an hour." When
Francklyn came in and said "to be careful" on a certain
road,   Imbrie, with  his usual cheerfulness, remarked:
" Careful! careful! Good Lord, how's anybody going to be
careful? If we wanted to be careful, we should have been
careful not to leave America."

                  A Gas Barrage
                                            July il
Many new  dead  horses  along the road. The  gas gets
them, even the smallest whiff, and of course they have no
masks. Speaking of gas reminds me that the Germans
have been trying a new dodge — a sort of tir de barrage
°f "17" Sas shells. These shells do not make much noise,
but the gas spreads fast. The men who were caught by
it all admit  that they had taken off their masks for one
reason or another.  Some get sick at their stomachs and
that forces them to take off their masks. It is not amusing
to talk to men who don't know they are as good as dead!
One really should have two masks, switch from one to the
other in  such a case, not breathing meantime. We  all
have had another one issued to us to-day.

                                    Triaucourt, July 30
I  have been struck forcibly with the quiet, restrained
and generally dignified behavior of  the thousands of
French soldiers camped about here. They wander through
the handsome Poincare chateau grounds and never dis-
turb or injure anything. Bottles of wine left to cool in
the spring are not touched.
                        173 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
                         Billemont, near Verdun, August 21
We have worked three days and three nights without any
sleep except naps snatched in the cars.  There was the
usual  comic scene with Baylies. Bowman was  coming
down  the road when he found it blocked by a mass of
dead and wounded horses, and men  all tangled up with
harness and wagons, and beside them one of our cars. It
turned out to be Baylies who came running up to Bow-
man, exclaiming: "There's been an awful mess, Bob,"
and Bowman, perfectly unthinkingly, ejaculated, "Good
Lord,  what have you done now,  Baylies?" Baylies  was
as sore as two sticks and growled, "Ah, where d' you get
that stuff?" — his conventional answer to all gibes. The
word "to Baylies" (French "Bayliser") has been stand-
ardized in Section One and is even spreading to the other
Sections.
                                          August 22
Our greatest difficulty is to snatch a chance to sleep. So
far, I have run every night since  we've been here and I
take naps at the poste. Five men get one night's  sleep in
three. I take off my hat to Roche, who can curl up any-
where and sleep peacefully. Last  night,  for example, he
got a very bloody brancard, laid it under the bench where
the blesses sit awaiting their turn to be patched up,  and
was sound asleep for four hours, while the Boches dropped
"220"  marmites around the poste and the groans of the
wounded and chatter of the doctors and brancardiers kept
up a continual disturbance. I 've given up trying to sleep
in the abris and so take a  chance in the car outside. At
least it is cool, though the air is foul with  the  odor of
burned wood and rotting flesh.

          A Close One — A Crazy Man
                                          August 24
Francklyn and Walker had a close call to-day. They
were sitting in the front of the dugout reading a paper,
when a "105" high explosive hit a  tree not five yards
                        174 
SECTION ONE
 from them. Pieces of the shell smashed into Francklyn's
 car and a shower of stones knocked the paper out of
 Walker's hand, while both men  were thrown to the
 ground. Walker says all that he remembers was that some
 one seemed to snatch his paper away  and knock him
 down at the same time,  and he found himself crawling
 under his car, while Gyles made one long slide for the
 dugout  entrance.
                                     Verdun, August 25
 I carried a crazy man this morning. I found him wander-
 ing  aimlessly around Verdun with a nasty hole in his
 head and tried to get  him into the car; but he  kept in-
 sisting he was too heavy. Finally, with the aid of a couple
 of soldiers we made him get aboard, though he murmured
 all the time, "Je suis trop lourd, je suis  trop lourd."

                                          August 27
 Ox our  last round to-day I carried a well-educated poilu
 about forty years of age who paid the American Ambu-
 lance many compliments. He said the soldiers of France
 would not forget  the  debt they owed us.  This man
 had rifle bullets through  both hands. He said  he and
 another soldier "got the drop" on four Boches, who put
 up their rifles and yelled  "Kamerad" in token of  sur-
 render. Then when the Frenchmen let down their sighted
 guns and beckoned them to come in, the Boches suddenly
 opened  fire, wounding  my man. But his partner and a
 machine-gun squad wiped out the four dirty curs before
 they could  play any more of their foul tricks.
  Vic White says the attack was only partially successful.
 He tells how one Boche was blown in three pieces high
 above the tree tops, when two of the pieces fell rapidly,
 but the  third came drifting down slowly. It turned out
 to be the Boche's overcoat which had been ripped right
off him by the explosion.
                                         September 5
We have now a big White truck which carries eighteen
assis at  a time — a great  help, as it takes the place of
175 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
more than three cars. When it toppled over the bank re-
cently, there were seven French wounded sitting on one
side and eight Boches on the other side. As the French
were on the up side, they fell on the Boches who thought
they were being attacked again! It was quite a job to get
them all extricated. But apparently the mix-up did little
harm to any one.
  I carried a regular pousse cafe of a load this afternoon,
— a Boche, an Englishman, a Senegalese, a Martiniquais,
and a Frenchman, with an American driving.

                                   Verdun, September 7
It certainly is a satisfaction to note the  contrast in the
comments at the front concerning the American Ambu-
lance from those to which one is forced to listen in Paris
and other cities far from the lines. Here the soldiers can't
praise us enough and the same is true of the officers and
even of the priests. Many soldiers make it a point to salute
the ambulances when they catch sight of the now familiar
cars and uniform, because they have heard of the quick-
ness and of the comfortable springs, — so different from
the ordinary  type of camion ambulance. "Ah, c'est  les
volontaires! Bon!" is a common phrase from a wounded
man.
                                          September 9
Last night the commander of the 214th arrived with his
regiment to relieve the 67th. We carried  his body down
this morning. He had n't been at the front three hours
before a shell got him.
                                         September 11
Section One cited by order of the Army Corps. This puts
us "top dog" of all the foreign Sections.

                         La-Grange-aux-Bois, September 15
To-day the Section moved  to the so-called front again,
but in the Argonne this time — to this little place named
Sainte-M6nehould, where Louis XVI was kept by the
                        176 
SECTION ONE
revolutionists when he was caught. I saw the room in the
town hall where he was prisoner.

                                        September 18
To-day I took three joy-riding officers into Sainte-Mene-
hould, where they stayed for a couple of hours and came
back with two live chickens,  which I was told to carry
over to the car, just like "Jimes in the ply," because it
looked "odd" for them to do it. However, it's amusing
and I don't give a hang anyway, as we are here to help
the French.

                                        September 27
Tison is a great fellow, — only about six feet four inches
high! When he, Culby, and Roche come into a cafe the
whole conversation stops — everybody  turns to see the
giants. Pity we have n't still got Lathrop, for then there
would  be twenty-five feet of America represented by
four men.
                                        September 30
The Salonikans left to-day and Francklyn took little
"Vic"  with  him, which I think  peeved Section One
almost as much as the loss of the men. "Vic" had come
to be considered  our  mascot  and knew us all well.  He
would associate with no one else. Peter Avard picked him
up at Vic-sur-Aisne about a year ago when he was only
a few weeks old. The pup always enjoyed going up to the
firing-line, riding cheerfully on  the front seat or on the
hood.  The poilus and brancardiers all knew him, and
petted and fed him. I  believe  "Vic" has been under fire
more often than any one of us.

                                         November 27
It's astonishing  how everybody trusts everybody else
out here. The Frenchmen give us  money to  buy them
wine,  tobacco, send telegrams and so on; and we leave
all our belongings lying  around loose  and they  never
touch them. Of course it would n't be safe to do this with
                        177 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
Senegalese, and on a highway where the troops are pass-
ing ; but in the lines nobody touches any one else's things.
                               Dombasle, April 13, 1917
This afternoon General Herr, the commander  of the
Sixteenth Army Corps, inspected us. We were introduced
to him individually and he said some very complimentary
things, remarking that with the entry of  America into
the war "the combat would be shortened." Amen, I say.

                                           April 14
Flynn took Lidden to the Esnes poste. On their way, at
"the bad corner," two shells dropped right close to them
on the road, leaving several big holes in the car, and
ripping  the whole back out of Lidden's coat! Surely a
remarkable escape, and "some" experience for a brand-
new man on his first appearance on the firing-line. He
had to remain at the poste for twenty-four hours, too!

            Berry-au-Bac — Craonne
                                    Muizon, April 17
Our orders came to  roll at 7 p.m. and the  whole Section
went out. We handled the wounded from  Berry-au-Bac
and Craonne. There were heavy fighting and heavy losses.
The receiving hospital, which is far to the rear, was so
full that we had to  wait four and five hours before the
cars could  be unloaded,  and the wounded, naturally,
suffered terribly.
                                           April 29
This has been  an interesting day. Word  came that A.
Piatt Andrew was to be decorated with  the Legion of
Honor.  General Rageneau, General Nivelle's second,  the
head of the entire Automobile Service, and  so many other
"stripers"  that it reminded one of Sing-Sing, turned  up.
The cars were formed in a hollow square in the chateau
courtyard,  and  some two hundred troops, beside "us vol-
unteers," fell in before them. Section One had been se-
                        178 

AMERICAN
AMBULANCE



^RANCSj
ViG SURAISNE
 ECLUSiERXfc^)
  Verdun
  argonne
dunkeroue
 Nieuport
  Ypres
    Reims
 Cote 504
 Route 44
douaumont
Haudromont
I'M
       T11F FLAIi OF SK< TION (INK

The Section Flags were designed by Miss Theodora Larocque 
 
SECTION  ONE
lected  as the oldest Section in the Field Service,  and
Andrew's Section  as  well. The  day was perfect.  Mr.
Andrew arrived and presented us with our new Section
Flag, with the croix twice starred on it, and the names of
the battles in which  we had  served: Dunkirk, Ypres,
Verdun, Somme,  Argonne, Aisne, Champagne — some
eight or ten names. We were introduced to the General
individually; and, after his speech, some of the older men
were invited into  the chateau to drink the health of
France and the United States;  Sponagle, Woodworth,
Kurtz, Stockwell,  and I were chosen. As it happened,
the big guns were roaring straight ahead, behind, and all
around us.  In addition Boche aviators chose the moment
to drop bombs on Muizon (our town) and the anti-air-
craft batteries were going full tilt. One bomb fell into the
Vesle right near our tent. We had been swimming in the
stream but a short time before. It was a splendid mise-en-
scene for such a military ceremony.

                                            May 15
We have organized two baseball teams, — the "Back
and Forths" and the "Here and Theres."  We have games
every day, some of them most exciting. We have quite an
audience of poilus, too. Of course, the playing is rather
weird,  but we get a lot of fun out of it.

                                            May 23
While we were  playing baseball to-day, the Boches
jumped on two saucisses. One of the observers came down
in his parachute all right.
                                            May 25
Disaster!  All are  plunged in woe! They have spread
manure over our baseball field!!

                               Villers-Franqueux, May 29
Our abris here are  amusingly named. One is "le Metro";
another is" Ca me suffit" which the men pronounce "Sam
Suphy"; still another, "Grotte des Coryphees" etc.
179 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
             Promotion and Duties
                                     Louvois, June 25
Our new cantonment is at this place, about fifteen kilo-
metres southeast of Reims. Word has just come that I
have been made Chef, which carries with it the equivalent
of a First Lieutenancy in the French Army. I do hope I
can hold down this job properly. It is a difficult one, as
the men are so hard to keep disciplined when they are
not getting much work. In a way, I am sorry to be taken
off my car, and the life of a Section Chief is rather lonely, as
one cannot play around with the men as much as before.
On the other hand, one has a staff car of one's own, and a
private officer's room with  an  orderly, and all  that, so
that one's creature comforts are fine.

                                            June 28
I fired a man to-day. I hate this sort of thing, but it has
to be done. I told him that we want up here only men who
are both able and willing to work and that he seemed to
be neither. "What have  I done?" he asked. "It's what
you have n't done," I replied — car never clean, breaking
minor rules, shamming sickness when it is his turn to
work, and so on. Everybody says I was perfectly right,
and the boys all seem to approve the step.

                                            July 2
This certainly is no soft job.  I spend most of my time
acting as a bumper between the Frenchmen in  the Sec-
tion and the boys who insist on "kidding" them. A
Frenchman does not understand the American method of
teasing and jollying, and  gets raving mad, feeling in-
sulted. And so I spend my  time smoothing over alleged
insults which were never meant.

                                            July 28
I have had an interesting talk with a French officer to
whom I said something about not understanding why
                        180 
SECTION ONE
they were so generous in conferring Croix de Guerre on
Americans, when lots of Frenchmen, who had actually
been in the trenches, had not got the decoration. He re-
plied that that had nothing to do with it;  that these
Frenchmen were forced to go into the war, some of them
very much  against their will, whereas the American
Ambulance men, who had  volunteered long before the
United States entered the conflict, were each and every
one a small but vital factor in bringing America into the
struggle.  Every time a man volunteered, he carried with
him the  hopes and sympathies of all his relatives and
friends; and as the Ambulance grew, so did the pro-Ally
sentiment grow,  by leaps  and bounds, in the United
States.

                                 Haudainville, August I
Reymond, our French Lieutenant, has had a funny argu-
ment with the Medecin  Chef at Vaux, who insisted upon
our carrying corpses of men killed right around the poste.
We demurred, saying that it was the job of the mortuary
wagons. Finally we compromised, the Lieutenant agree-
ing that if the corpses were still warm (!) we would carry
them; but not any that  had been dead a length of time.
Rather gruesome, that.

                                            August 8
Passing  along the Douaumont road the other day to get
one of  our men out of a ditch, I saw a boot lying on the
way. I  picked it up to  throw it out of the road, and found
a rotten leg still in it!

                                            August 9
We are in the midst of the heaviest work the Section ever
had. The men and the cars are sights — plastered with
mud from top to bottom. No fenders or side boxes left,
nearly  every car full of holes from eclats, and two of them
with their entire sides blown out.
181 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
            An Unexpected Atrocity
                                          August 16
Flynn, who is driving No. 17, a car "presented by the
Young Girls of San Francisco," — this is the name plate
attached to it, — came back to-day announcing "another
German atrocity!" "They've been knocking out 'the
Young Girls of San Francisco,'" he said. And indeed, the
whole side of his car was blown out.
  Dallin is a funny chap. He likes to go up to  the postes,
even when off duty, and always asks to accompany the
drivers. Just now he asked to go with Plow in the camion-
nette,  although the  road is being heavily bombarded.
They certainly are a great bunch of boys! One could n't
ask for a better crowd to lead.
  The cars are all "marching." That is due to  Pearl, who
is working his head off. He keeps them going  in spite of
everything and has grown a scraggy beard and worn out
his clothes in the doing. But they go. The boys,  too,  are
fine. Hardly any sleep, food grabbed when they can get
it, but they make good every time.  They are  a splendid
bunch.
                                          August 17
This morning Rice came in plastered with mud. It rains
every day and the roads are quagmires. Rice,  who has a
well-developed sense of humor, remarked, "If  I were the
French, I 'd give the Boches the damned country and then
laugh at them!"
                                          August 18
Every hour, as the men return from the postes, some
story of lucky escapes and weird experiences  is  brought
in. It is the biggest wTork the Section has ever done.

                                          August 19
We are to be relieved of the Haudromont poste by two
French Sections! Some compliment, considering that only
one half of Section One was working the poste!
                        182 
SECTION ONE
                                            August 22
The attack has been an unexpectedly big success. The
Sanitary Service worked  finely. Everybody  is praising
the Americans.

                                            August 24
This job certainly is instructive,  if nothing else. I am
becoming quite a doctor. I treat all my children with the
medicine  chest furnished by the Field Service. All the
various dopes are described and  numbered in a little cata-
logue.  I catechize the patient, look wise, scratch my chin,
and  then, after a quick "once over"  of the catalogue,
hand him out the pills.

                    Warm Times
                                 Haudainville, August 31
Red Day and I have had a tight squeeze in the staff car
here at this place. The  Germans were shelling the  road
with "220's" at half-a-minute intervals. So we got up as
close as we dared, and then made  a dash for it with the
throttle wide open just after a shell had landed. We made
it by the  skin of our teeth,  the next shell falling  within
thirty feet behind us, exactly on the road. The shock was
terrific and our ears were dulled for an hour or more.

                                          September 2
The Boches shelled around the hospital all day to-day,
and  the smell is fierce, as they landed several of their
shells in the graveyard.  We, too, get shelled all day, and
the avions drop bombs  on us every clear night. For the
first  time  I hear the men hoping for rain! Those boys, by
the way have  been wonderful. I never saw such work as
they have been doing. It far exceeds anything the Section
has done before, and I really don't see how they keep it
up. Of course, I give them every bit of rest  I can, and
insist upon their being  fed  at  all  hours, both day and
night. It is putting a crimp in  the Section's books, but
it's keeping them physically fit, anyway.
                         183 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
                                         September 6
Little Tapley has an abcess; so, as he is pretty well done
up, I sent him down to Paris for his Croix and gave him
two days' permission to get his teeth fixed. An amusing
thing occurred to him at Bar-le-Duc, where he was buy-
ing a little Croix ribbon, when an old poilu,  noticing his
extreme youth, came up and kissed him! You may im-
agine Tapley's feelings!
  We are still hard at work, and the men are still doing
wonderfully,  considering the strain  under  which they
have been for five weeks. Two of the cars have been com-
pletely destroyed by shells, and several others have been
badly hit. But we have managed to patch them up with
bits of board and odds  and ends.  They don't look  like
ambulances, but they run. The sides of one have simply
been remade out of two canvas sleeping bags. Only  two
of the men have broken down under the nerve strain, but
the others are getting pretty jumpy.

               Fords and Pigeons
                                         September 7
The French Army now apparently classes  Fords with
carrier pigeons! At least I received this morning a letter
from Captain Foix, Intelligence Officer of the 32d Army
Corps, which reads as follows:
  "I herewith send you two crates of pigeons for General
Riberpray's Division,  whose headquarters  are  in  the
Carriere Sud. It would be very kind of you to  deliver
them to him, on behalf of the 32d Army Corps, and thus
do me a great service, for our cars cannot go so far."
  I gave them to Ned Townsend, and told him to "fly"
with them!
  Regan pulled "a funny one" up at the poste. He had
some pretty close calls  getting there; so, as  he had  not
confessed for some time, he asked  the Lieutenant to let
him see the Catholic priest. The Lieutenant found the
priest; but the latter couldn't understand English and
Regan knew no French. Regan then asked the Lieutenant
                        184 
SECTION  ONE
to translate his confession. But the Lieutenant, being a
Catholic himself, refused, because, he said, it was n't the
proper thing for a third party to hear a confession. Then
the priest had a happy thought, and said he could absolve,
or do whatever Regan's sins required, without under-
standing them. So Regan confessed in English, and got
next to Heaven in good shape, although the priest did n't
comprehend a word Regan said; and everybody seems to
have been satisfied.
                                         September n
The latest  method to rehabilitate blesses,  particularly
couches, is to be stopped by a cut road or a smashed-up
ravitaillement train, while shells are coming in. Several
of our men report remarkable resurrections of this kind.
Couches get out and run like deer, while assis make regu-
lar Annette  Kellerman dives into abris. The other night
Dix had to  go up and down a line of dugouts shouting
"Oosong mes blesses? Oosong mes blesses?" for half an
hour, before he finally corralled his wounded  and  could
proceed on his way.  He  relates that one of his couches
actually climbed off the top stretcher, all by himself, and
succeeded in unfastening the back.
  An amusing incident occurred while I was fixing things
so that  our  cars could pass up to the door of the  abris.
A tall man  in a blue cap called to me, "Why have n't
you got on your helmet?" Thinking he was just a lieuten-
ant like the rest of us, I shouted back, "How about your-
self?" There was a laugh from one or two of the  other
"stripers" who were in the group with the tall man, and
when I  looked up to see  what they were laughing at, I
saw it was General Riberpray himself! — the Commander
of the 128th Division, who only grinned and said nothing.

        The Death of General Riberpray
                                         September 12
General  Riberpray was killed yesterday  morning. It
could n't have been more than two hours after we met.
It appears that he went down the line and a shell got him.
                         185 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
  At last, orders have come for us to move. We leave to-
morrow for Vaucouleurs.

                                         September 14
Last night, the  English Section invited the Lieutenant
and me to dinner and were mighty nice to us. They said
we "had set them a pace that they found it damned hard
to follow."  Pretty good for the usually undemonstrative
Englishman.

            Resting after the Battle
                               Vaucouleurs,  September 18
We are slowly getting over the recent work. Personally, I
slept straight through for twenty-four  hours. We have
had wonderful luck in coming out of the offensive virtu-
ally intact, at least as far as  men go, for not a single car
in the whole outfit  escaped without a hole. At all events,
we seem to have made quite an impression, as the English
Section working  with us could not make the  front postes,
excepting in the daytime, whereas we  made them day
and night, on account of the lightness of the Fords, and
the quick-wittedness of our drivers, who filled up  shell-
holes, with anything handy,  as fast as they were made.
Often,  three or four times in one night, we would remake
the road sufficiently for a Ford to pass over.
  On our way here we passed many American troops in
training, and one of the officers remarked that he "never
had seen such a  looking crew" — referring to us. To be
sure, one half of the boys were wearing trousers and poilu
shoes;  some had  on helmets,  and all had a week or two's
growth of beard. Every one was covered with mud, and
the cars were all smashed up as to headlights, fenders,
radiators, and also covered with mud and dozens of eclat
holes. Altogether, it was a scaly-looking bunch of heroes.

                                Allainville,  September 28
The boys have lots of fun with the peasants. They dance
with the girls, and jolly them in great  style. We had  a
                        186 
SECTION ONE
regular party last night. Several of the boys whistled on
pieces of cardboard; others sang, and all had a fine time.

                                             October 4
Section One has been cited "by order of the  Army,"
and gets the Palm, "for its valiant conduct at Verdun in
August, 1917, when everybody admired its audacity and
zeal notwithstanding the continual bombardment of the
roads by large  asphyxiating shells;  nor was there  any
interruption of its service, though suffering severe losses."
The citation is signed by General Guillaumat.

                                             October 6
Dr. W. P. Gary, Medecin Principal, of the 96th Division,
sends an official letter to our Lieutenant  Reymond, in
which he refers to our "brilliant personnel" and to our
"magnificent go, endurance, courage, and  devotion."
We feel that we are going out of the old regime  into the
new with every reason to be proud of One's record. Per-
sonally,  I cannot find words to express what I  think of
those wonderful boys. May the new Service live up to
the old!
                        William Yorke Stevenson 1
  1 Of Philadelphia; University of Pennsylvania; served in Field Service
from March, 1916, to December, 1916, and April, 1917, to the  end of the
Field Service, when he was commissioned First Lieutenant, U.S.A. Ambu-
lance Service, and continued work with Section One; author of At the Front
in a Flivver and From Poilu to Yank. (See Bibliography in the Appendices.)
 
VIII
  Summary of the Section's History under the
                United States Army

It was with a glorious past that Section One of the American
Field Service was taken over by  the United States Army as
Section 625 on the 30th of September, 1917, among the rolling
fields and heavy woods of the Vosges at Aillianville, not so far
from the home of Jeanne d'Arc.
  Further, the Section was serving with the famous 69th Di-
vision composed of the i62d, 151st, and 129th regiments of In-
fantry  and the 268th Artillery. The first  two regiments as
members of the 42d Division had been in the First Battle of
the Marne at La Fere Champenoise.
  The  months of October, November, and December, 1917.
the Section was to all purposes en repos, cantoned at Aillian-
ville and Beaufremont, the Division being engaged in teaching
and training, around Neufchateau, the 26th Division of the
U.S. Army, the Yankee or New England Division, which dur-
ing the ensuing year so magnificently earned its reputation of
being among the very finest American troops.
  On January 11, orders came to proceed to the sector of the
lines in front of Toul, the Woevre, and the Section moved with
the troops which marched through the heavy snow. On suc-
cessive nights the cantonments were Fruze, Saulxures, and
Charmes la C6te, and on January 17, Andilly, its permanent
cantonment, was reached. That night the Division went into
the sector of trenches between Seicheprey and Limey, west of
Pont-a-Mousson. On the 18th of January the First Moroccan
Division, which had occupied this sector, and more to the left,
was withdrawn and their place to the left of Seicheprey and
Flirey was filled by the United States First Division. This date
is notable in  that it marks the occasion when American troops
first took over what might be  called  their own  sector of
trenches.
  During the next five months — for the 69th Division was in
the lines here without a break  for that period — Section 625
served the following postes:  Xivray, Beaumont,  Seicheprey,
Poste  Saint-Victor,  Flirey, Bois  de  la Voisogne, Lironville,
Limey, Saint-Jacques, Pont-de-Metz, Mamey,  Poste Pouillot,
Jonc Fontaine, and Poste Petain in the Bois le Pretre. During
                          188 
SECTION  ONE
this period the evacuations were made to Minorville, Manon-
court, Rogeville, and Toul. As the U.S. First Division, and
later the 26th Division which relieved it, took over more of the
lines, the 69th slipped farther and farther to the right, until
eventually its flank lay in the famous Bois le Pretre in front of
Pont-a-Mousson. On  April  13, the Section cantonment was
moved to Manonville.
  It is true that this sector of the front had the reputation of
being "quiet," and for the most part it upheld its character as
such,  but with the advent of the United States troops  the
whole neighboring line took on a more tense tone and coups-de-
main for the purpose of taking prisoners, destroying positions,
and to test opponents were more frequently indulged in. The
whole sector had hibernated peacefully under  the snows of
winter until the first week in January, but it was then rudely
aroused to the serious business of the New Year by an exten-
sive and successful raid conducted by the Foreign Legion in
front of Flirey, Seicheprey, and beyond the war-worn Bois de
Remieres. From the results of this raid it became apparent
that the front lines on both sides were so lightly held that a
coup-de-main,  to become effective,  must be conducted on a
large scale and penetrate a considerable distance.
  The work the Section was called on to do for the most part
was not difficult, but when, as here, the trenches had been fixed
for over three years, the shelling of roads,  cross-roads, and
postes de secours, especially those near a Poste de Commande-
ment, was extremely accurate, and during a coup-de-main the
evacuation of wounded was often conducted under heavy fire.
  More than passing comment must be given the Boche attack
of April 19 against the I02d Regiment of the U.S. 26th Divi-
sion at Seicheprey, not only because this was the first engage-
ment of any size participated in by United States troops,  but
because of the part Section 625 was called on to play. The at-
tack was made at dawn, after  a severe, but short preliminary
bombardment by over 1000 picked Prussian Sturmtruppen, to
the right of Seicheprey and near the place in the Bois de Jury
where the  United States and French troops joined. The line
was pierced and the  village entered from the side and rear.
Very fierce hand-to-hand fighting took place during the ensu-
ing day, and the enemy eventually retired toward their own
lines occupying trenches in and near the Bois de  Remieres.
Here they  were pinned  down by  an enfilading cross-fire,  but
because of some misunderstanding or neglect, the  four com-
panies of the io2d Regiment designated for the counter-attack
failed to take part with two companies of the French i62d In-
fantry who went over the top, and the enemy were allowed to
                           189 
THE AMERICAN FIELD  SERVICE
regain their lines during the  night without suffering further
losses. Despite the unfaltering gallantry of the I02d Infantry,
this engagement must be regarded as a Boche success, for al-
though the casualties perhaps about balanced, the raiders gath-
ered approximately 150 prisoners.
  On June 4 the Section moved to Pagney-derriere-Barine near
Toul. The morning of June 6  the Section started en convoi for
Vitry-le-Francois,  but received orders there to continue. At
Esternay and Coulommiers further orders kept the Section en
route, and three  o'clock the following morning  found it biv-
ouacked in the market-place of Meaux, three hundred kilome-
tres from its starting-point, with every car in good shape.
  The civilians were rapidly evacuating Meaux, but the town
was busy with the handling of American Marine wounded who
were being brought in from the neighborhood  of Bouresches
and the Bois de Belleau. That  day, by the way of Senlis,  Creil,
and Clermont, the Ferme la Quadre, near Nointel, was reached,
where the Section rested and prepared itself, on June 8. It was
apparent that a great Boche drive was pending, but the Sec-
tion, though prepared, hardly expected to be ordered to the
alerte at dawn on June 9 with the rumble of a tremendous bar-
rage in its ears. It later proved to be a terrific attack extending
between Montdidier and Noyon. Toward noon orders were re-
ceived to  proceed  to Monchy-Humieres behind Lassigny by
the way of Arsy and Remy. The roads were jammed with the
69th Division going up in camions and refugees and wounded
streaming back,  and as  the Section convoy neared  Monchy
about four o'clock, heavy and light artillery and fragments of
infantry passed it,  hastening to take up positions in the rear.
It was by no means a rout, but even the most inexperienced
eye could see that the enemy was coming very fast and that the
situation was uncertain at best. The cloud of battle smoke ap-
proached  rapidly and the line  of enemy saucisses advanced
steadily, while those of the French, still in the air attached to
their  motor trucks, passed the convoy bound rearwards. As
Monchy was reached, orders were given for the Section to turn
in its tracks and go to Remy, there to await further instruc-
tions. Along the return route elements of the 69th Division
were going up across the  fields in skirmish order.  Darkness
came, and still no orders had  been received concerning the es-
tablishing of postes de secours, or as to the location of any units
to be served. Because of the  unsettled situation, Lieutenant
Stevenson determined to separate the Section. About half the
cars were left at Remy to await further orders, and the re-
mainder,  under the direct supervision of Lieutenant Steven-
son, went to the  Sucrerie dApremont, a kilometre behind
190 
SECTION  ONE
Gournay, where the Lieutenant, in Huston's car, went out to
establish connection with the French infantry in front. By this
distribution the instant availability of a part of the cars was
assured. During the  latter part of the night there was a
pause in the attack, probably due to the bringing up of fresh
enemy divisions, but before dawn it was renewed violently.
At that time the lines ran through Gournay-sur-Aronde, which
was held by a mere skirmish line of infantry, alone. During
the next four days  the struggle surged back and forth through
Gournay, Ferme la Porte, Ferme de  Loge, and Antheuil,  the
fortunes of battle changing so rapidly that it was impossible
to be sure where the lines or postes de secours would be  the
next hour. Because of the continuous succession of attacks
and counter-attacks, the cars served battalion and regimental
postes in extremely advanced positions  subjected to machine-
gun and rifle fire. On the fourth day,  after having been forced
back approximately three kilometres since the morning of June
10, the  Division counter-attacked heavily, driving the enemy
back two kilometres and establishing the line more firmly. But
for a week the fighting was over a very irregular front, entirely
in the open wheat-fields without trenches, or even camouflage
or concealment for the " 75's"; the postes served by the Section
were often unexpectedly retired or advanced and the difficul-
ties and the anxieties of the work were doubled. It is difficult to
designate the postes worked by the Section during this period,
June 9  to 18, for temporary postes were several  times estab-
lished^ open fields or roadside ditches, but the main ones are
as follows: Montmartin, Le Moulin, two kilometres in advance,
Sucrerie dApremont, the roadside behind Gournay, Le Ferme
de Monchy, Le Ferme Beaumanoir, Monchy village, Chateau
de Monchy, Baugy Chateau,  Baugy village, and a roadside
conduit in front of Baugy  near  the Compiegne-Montdidier
highway. Evacuations were made to Le Fayel, Canly, Cate-
nois, and  Estrees-Saint-Denis. The Section cantonment was
behind the church at Remy, the town being shelled frequently,
and bombed severely  every night by avions. On  the 16th the
Division started to withdraw  from the lines, moving to  the
right as it did so, the Section being shifted  to Venette on the
edge of  Compiegne, and postes established at Braisnes, Anelle,
and Coudun. On June 20, the whole Division was out of the
line, one regiment  alone being  held in active reserve, and the
Section  moved  back to Jonquieres, serving  only  one poste, at
Lachelle.
  The following twenty-four days of light work was welcome,
not so much because of the rest it afforded the men, but be-
cause the Section felt what was still ahead of them and desired
191 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
to be ready and prepared in every conceivable way. The 69th
Division had played the main part in stopping what proved to
be the last Boche drive which met with any measure of success
or perceptible advance. The Division had met the very middle
of the drive, borne its full force, stopped it, and then hurled it
back almost to the same position where it had first  come to
grips, inflicting almost unprecedented losses on the three divi-
sions which opposed  it. Of course its own losses were heavy,
the Section on three successive days evacuating over 1500 men,
together with another 150 from the divisions on either side.
During the next three weeks the regiments were rested and re-
cruited up, and were  trained for attack with tanks, the nature
of their  work in the future becoming apparent.
  The night of July 4, orders arrived, and the following after-
noon the Section moved to the centre of the great forest just
east of Compiegne, traversing the desolate streets of that city in
the gathering dusk. Here a stop was made for two days near
the Chateau de Franc Port, where the Section was quartered a
week in  1916 on the way to the Aisne front. (Later the enemy
armistice delegates were here  to spend their first night within
the allied lines.) Two days of solitude followed, unbroken ex-
cept  by avion bombing, but noon of the second day,  July 17,
brought directions, and at sundown the convoy  took up its
way  through the aisles of  the forest, reaching Pierrefonds be-
fore night. All extra equipment, a large part of the atelier, and
the bureau were left in a house at the foot of that marvellous
castle, and the first darkness saw the Section with faces turned
toward the lines. Early dawn had been set with Mortefontaine,
twelve kilometres  away, as the  rendezvous, but it was with
the greatest difficulty that the order was carried out, for that
night was filled with more muffled activity and strained anxiety
than the world will ever see again. The road was jammed with
every factor of a vast army, sensed around rather than seen,
but  revealed momentarily in the  flashes;  camions,  wagons,
caissons, machine-gun carts, staff cars, motor-cycles, artillery,
little and big tanks, armored cars, cavalry with their towering
lances, bicycle detachments, and always the plodding infantry
in two endless columns following the ditches on either side.
Steadily and ceaselessly this  stream poured forward through
the black, no singing, little talking, few orders; the tramp of
feet in the mud, the rattle of wheels, the throbbing of motors,
the staccato explosions of the motor-cycles, and the ponderous
clanking of tanks; an irresistible tide of manhood, poilus and
doughboys, shoulder to shoulder straining toward the future.
Surely the night of July 17-18 should be as memorable and
glorious forever as the dawn of July  18, the hour, when the
192 
"
-V '  ' "i i ' * ->, ' .'*»v'-.' ■•'".*V  *  ''
A MIDDY  ROAD  AND AN  EXPOSED  "1'OSTE" NEAR  THE  LINES 
 
SECTION  ONE
 forces of liberty commenced their overwhelming attacks, never
 ceasing till the final victorious peace was attained.
   At the first break of day the Section was all assembled at
 Mortefontaine in  time to see the attack beyond. Again  the
 Section was serving in the famous 20e Corps d'Armee, the first
 it had ever been attached to, and this time it was in Mangin's
 magnificent Tenth Army. As the battle progressed it turned as
 a pivot till, instead of facing east, as on the first day, on August
 2, when Soissons fell before it, it faced north on its whole front.
 This manoeuvre required great skill of generalship and all  the
 brains and force in personnel of a truly veteran organization.
   July 19 again only a few cars were used, and these carried
 Americans,  Moroccans, and soldiers of the Legion as well as
 their own Division's  wounded.  No definite postes were  es-
 tablished, the wounded being picked up at widely scattered
 places.
   The first postes de secours were established on July 20, in a
 roadside ditch near the ruins of the Raperie at a cross-road on
 the route from Cutry to Saconin, and on the 21st, in the village
 of Missy-aux-Bois. Then the Section commenced real work,
 for the runs from these places were constant, the evacuations
 all being  made to Pierrefonds, twenty-five-odd kilometres to
 the rear,  over rough,  narrow roads  at all hours solid with
 traffic. The Missy poste was in the cellar of the chateau on  the
 northern edge of the town and adequately answered the pur-
 pose, being maintained until August 2. But the Raperie  poste,
 which lay in the middle of some threescore "75's" in the open
 field,  and within a stone's throw of an important cross-road,
 was different. It*almost immediately became untenable as a
 place to retain wounded for more than a moment. On July 21,
 it was moved over a kilometre forward to a quarry-hole in  the
 hillside above the  village of Saconin, from which the enemy
 had just been driven. The mouth of the cave, labelled "Minen-
 werfer Hohle," faced toward the lines across the narrow valley,
 and was subject to a constant and severe fire, directed not only
 at the mouth of the poste, but the road in front, and the loop
of the road  behind and above.  All postes, with the exception
of the one at Missy-aux-Bois, were reached by one road which
ran down the hill past the Minenwerfer Hohle, wound down
 through the little valley, through the village of Saconin, curled
up the opposite side through the hamlet of Breuil, and up over
 the crest to the great covered quarry beyond. The evacuations
which were made over  this route were very numerous, as may
be assumed from  the  fact that  all the cars,  including the
camionnette and often the White truck, were working night and
day steadily until  the  fall of Soissons on  August 2, the men
193 
THE AMERICAN FIELD  SERVICE
snatching minutes of sleep rather  than hours. Missy was
reached by the route through Saint-Pierre-Aigle and Dommiers
to the Croix de Fer on the Paris-Soissons highway, from which
a small road led diagonally back to Missy.
  On July 20,  the Section cantonment moved into the town of
Cceuvres, from which on July 21 it was shifted to an open field
behind Dommiers, where the kitchen was placed in the  lee of
a destroyed tank and the men slept under the cars or in shell-
craters, when  they were fortunate enough to have  an oppor-
tunity. Before this site could be made available, a number of
bodies had to be removed and buried.
  The  night of the 22d a  remarkable  array of  Scotch regi-
ments, composing the 15th  Division, entered the lines on the
right; among  them were some of the recognized elite of the
British Army — the Black Watch, the Gordons, the Seaforths,
the Camerons, and the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders.
These troops went up to the skirling of the pipes, every man
immaculate and the acme of military precision and orderliness;
and after a week of terrific attacking, which terminated in the
triumphant storming of Buzancy, came out the same way, un-
ruffled and undisturbed, notwithstanding extreme losses,  every
man shaved and perfect in attire and equipment. The Section
was  privileged in  evacuating many — too  many — of  them
from Missy and  temporary postes beyond Chaudun in  the
neighborhood of Ploisy and Berzy-le-Sec.
  A poste in the village of Ploisy was established July 23. This
was veritably among the French machine guns, for the lines —
if such they could be termed, being merely an irregular  chain
of isolated and almost unrelated positions and nests — ran
barely  beyond the end of the village. The cars  were allowed
to arrive only after dark and were ordered to depart before
dawn; but often dire necessity  ruled and the runs were  made
by day as well. So insecure and vague were the lines here that
the Division aumonier going up by day in one of the cars and
alighting at Ploisy, walked  unwarned into the enemies' posi-
tions a few hundred feet beyond and was made a prisoner.
  Soissons fell  on August 2, and the city was completely cleared
to the river-bank  in short  order, with the exception of one
tremendously strong outpost at the "hydraulic pump," where
the Aisne loops  in passing  through.  This was attacked and
wiped out the  afternoon of August 9 after severe concentrated
artillery preparation, the cars being taken to within almost  a
stone's throw of the scene in the city streets before the barrage
started, in order to be instantly available for the wounded.
  On August 3 new postes were established at Billy-sur-Aisne,
Carriere  l'Eveque, the chateaux at  Belleu  and Septmonts,
194 
SECTION ONE
Noyant, Vignolles, and on August 7 one at the enormous hos-
pital near the railroad station in Soissons. There were other
temporary battalion and advanced postes at various places, a
cave on  the  plateau beyond Carriere I'Eveque and  two in
Soissons, one near the Place de la Republique and one in a
house on the east edge of the city.
  The Section at dawn of July 30 had been shelled out of its
cantonment in the field behind Dommiers and was fortunate
in being able to move back to the vicinity of the chateau in
Cceuvres without damage. On August 5, with the advance of
the troops, it took up quarters in the  village of Ploisy, the
kitchen and atelier being set up next to the chateau and the
men and cars being scattered in various places,  a precaution
made necessary by  the continual shelling of the town  itself
and the numerous batteries surrounding it. The work of evacu-
ation had been especially arduous because  of the  length of the
runs necessary to reach the  hospitals. From July 18 to 25, all
evacuations were made to Pierrefonds over twenty kilometres
by road from Cceuvres alone; on that day a small ambulance
was opened at the chateau in Cceuvres,  where gassed  men,
assis, and all slightly wounded could be left. About August 5
the evacuations of couches and seriously wounded were changed
to  the hospital  at Villers-Cotterets, more  than twenty-five
kilometres from Ploisy; but on August  14, the Section labors
were  greatly lessened by orders to  evacuate all to a triage
hospital  situated in a great cave in Vierzy, barely ten kilo-
metres from Soissons itself.
   About this time one of the cars was detached to accompany
the 1620I Regiment, which was withdrawn from  the lines and
moved over to the left, crossing the Aisne at Vic-sur-Aisne and
advancing  into an  attack as support to another division. It
returned to its former place in less than a week.
   Source of indignation was the lax and inexcusable manner
in which the burying of the American dead was conducted.
Despite the fact that the 1st  Division had been withdrawn from
the lines on July 23, a great many of their dead lay unburied,
kilometres  behind the lines, for a full month.  The  French
burying-parties, made up of territorials, were instructed that
the Americans desired to bury their own dead, but despite this,
for sanitary reasons, were forced hastily to cover  many bodies.
They could not  have fallen later than July 22, for  the  1st
Division had been relieved then and no United  States troops
remained in this part of the line. The Section was working des-
perately at the time, and the men and time were  not available
to give these unfortunates a decent burial. The detachment of
the 1st Division, stationed at Mortefontaine, for the purpose
195 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
of properly marking and of mapping the locality of graves, was
immediately notified. The reply Sergeant Day received when
letting them  know of these conditions was, "Well,  that's a
pretty hot place yet, and what's the use of risking your life for
a dead man?" These bodies remained untouched till finally
necessity demanded action, so on the 20th of August they were
decently  buried by  friendly hands where  they  fell  fighting
fiercely in the Greatest Cause. The French had more than they
could do to take care of their own victims, and to put away the
Boches, and the Section to a man writhed in unavailing indig-
nation that their own country's dead should be  left to  the care
of hurried foreign hands without cause or even excuse. A con-
trast to this was the Scotch. Future generations will see orderly,
neat,  clean little cemeteries, which were erected and com-
pleted to their last tenant twenty-four hours after the Scotch
were withdrawn from the lines.
  The morning of August 28, the attack to cross the river was
commenced and a few hours later the immediate suburbs of
the city beyond,  including strongholds at the distillerie, the
briqueterie,  and the abattoir were cleared  and a tiny  pontoon
bridge laid. The first vehicle of any kind to cross the Aisne
at Soissons or to the right was one of the Section cars driven
by Irving Moses. The new postes de secours were all on the far
bank along the fringe of the city, the briqueterie, almost imme-
diately made utterly untenable, the abattoir, and the Abbey
Saint-M6dard, the last being the resting-place of ancient kings
of France. Attack followed  attack, the flats beyond the river
were cleared  foot by foot,  but the  Boches still  retained the
dominating heights along the edge of the plateau, and every
inch of every road was open to machine-gun-fire. Toward the
last days of August, the Division resumed its  heavy  attacks,
crossed the Aisne, cleared the suburbs of the city  on the other
side and numerous positions in the valley, stormed up the
heights to the plateau, captured Crouy, and put the enemy to
open flight across the plateau top, pursuing them beyond Bucy-
le-Long, Vregny,  and Pont  Rouge toward Vauxaillon, being
relieved on September 7 at Moulin  de Laffaux. The achieve-
ments of the 69th Division  during  these fifty-one successive
days of  terrible struggle have been  recognized as one of the
most heroic annals of the French Army.
  The order for convoy to Nancy came September 15 and the
Section proceeded  to its destination by easy stages, stopping
the first night at Chalons-sur-Marne in the market-place,  and
the second at Vaucouleurs,  reaching Vandceuvre, its billet on
the edge of Nancy, the afternoon of September 17. En route the
men had been given an opportunity for a hurried glance at the
                           196 
SECTION  ONE
Bois de Belleau, where in those dark days of early June the
Marines had thrilled the world; and a stop for lunch had been
made in Chateau-Thierry, a name which will roll down  the
centuries as more American than French.
  The three days  at Vandceuvre were spent in overhauling
the cars and re-equipping, and September 22 found the Section
quartered in the grounds of the field hospital at Millery on the
right  bank of  the  Moselle, having stopped  for two days at
Frouard while the  Division slowly took over the lines to the
right  of Pont-a-Mousson, part of which was  occupied by the
82d U.S. Division.  On the 25th, a company of the i62d Regi-
ment, and a company of the 29th Battalion of  Senegalese,
joined with the 60th U.S. Infantry Regiment in an unsuccessful
attack along the right bank of the Moselle,  in front of Pont-
a-Mousson. The objectives were reached first  by  the United
States troops,  but  they were  forced to fall back sooner than
were  the French, who held on until it was obvious that their
position could  not  be retained without entailing too expensive
losses. During  the  attack the Section served a poste in the de-
molished site of a hospital beyond Pont-a-Mousson, and during
the'next few weeks had  cars stationed at Sainte-Genevieve,
Loisy, and Landremont,  from which  various advanced postes
were worked. On October 10 the 92d Division of United States
negro troops relieved the 69th Division, which nevertheless left
its artillery for additional support until further protection could
be afforded. The Section during  the relief had the additional
work of evacuating many footsore and sick soldiers of the 92d
Division.
  Again the Section spent a  few days in Vandceuvre and on
October 14, moved to Eulmont, the  Division shifting along
the lines to the right. The sector here was very quiet, and the
Section for some  three weeks, as well as serving  the  69th
Division, took care of the 165th Division, which also belongs
to  the 32d Corps. Two  more battalions of Senegalese  were
added to the Division. Again the Section prepared itself to take
part in a tremendous attack.  This time it was  apparent,  from
military preparations, that the attack was to be upon a gigantic
scale, dwarfing everything that the war had hitherto known;
but the glorious news of the signing of the Armistice intervened
at the last minute, and  the  old  Section flag was cheated of
another name to add to the immortal ones it already bore!
Dunkirk, Ypres, Nieuport, Vic-sur-Aisne, Cappy-sur-Somme,
Verdun, Cote 304, Reims, Route 44, Houdromont, Douaumont,
Seicheprey, Monchy, Soissons, Crouy, and Pont-a-Mousson.
  Here starts another phase in  the  history of Section  Six-
Twenty-Five.  As an American unit  in the  war,  dating as a
                           197 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
Section from the first days of 1915, and with an origin from
almost the  first hours  of  the war,  it rightfully claims the
distinction of being the oldest, the veteran organization, of
America in the World War. The records show that from Janu-
ary,  1915, to the signing of the Armistice, it had  evacuated
well  over 56,000 men. But now it turned willing hands to aid
in the  French Army of Occupation, the Tenth Army  com-
manded by General Mangin.
  On the  17th day of November the Section crossed the lines
between Abaucourt and Jallaucourt and slowly travelled with
the Division through Lorraine into Germany. Stops  of sev-
eral days were made at Tincy, Suisse, Gesslingen, Helleringen,
and  Sulzbach, and finally on December 9, Neunkirchen was
reached, where the Section remained comfortably  quartered
for several weeks. About the only incident worthy of comment
during this period was the attempt by hidden snipers to shoot
Orrie Lovell and Weld while transporting sick to the hospital.
In the  early part of January, the 69th Division was split up,
the various regiments returning to their old Corps, which fact
left the Section unattached and with no services  to  render.
On January 20, orders came to report to the pare at Mayence
and  the 130-kilometre convoy was made in good shape. Bil-
leted on the edge of Mayence in the town of Bretzenheim, the
Section waited for orders to report to the  U.S. Army  Ambu-
lance Service Base  Camp for demobilization and return to the
United States.  A fitting climax to the four years' service came
on the receipt of the 5th Citation  d I'ordre de Varmee, which
carried with it the privilege  of wearing the Croix de Guerre
Fourragere,  for the splendid  work of  the  past summer near
Compiegne and around Soissons.
                                 Edward A. G.  Wylie x
  1 Of New York City; Yale; in S.S.U. 1, and Six-Twenty-Five during
1917-19. The above is from a privately printed History of Section 625.
 
IN MEMORIAM
Percy Leo Avard
Roger Marie Louis Balbiani
Frank Leaman Baylies
Tingle Woods Culbertson
Roger Sherman Dix, Junior
Meredith Loveland Dowd
Paul Borda Kurtz
Howard Burchard Lines
George Frederick Norton
William Clarkson Potter
Malcolm Troop Robertson
Stuart Mitchell Stephen Tyson
William Noble Wallace
Benjamin Russell Woodworth 
-t^ u""t"* t^ait, iiuw
t£i+t «^>» "■"* --in._/
< ArZ, /?»*■/. ■■ t/Tty^t i.
/!»~c«i »<K l—  »Ai 
      Section Two

    THE STORY TOLD BY
   I. James R. McConnell
  II. Leslie Buswell
  III. Carlyle H. Holt
  IV. Henry Sheahan
  V. Frank Hoyt Gailor
  VI. Edward Nicholas Seccombe
 VII. Charles Baird, Jr.
VIII. John R. Fisher
  IX. William H. C. Walker
  X. John E. Boit
  XI. Henry D. M. Sherrerd
XII. Harmon lB. Craig
XIII. Ewen MacIntyre, Jr.
XIV. Edward Nicholas Seccombe 
SUMMARY
Section  Two left Paris for Vittel, the headquarters of the
French Army of the East, in the middle of April, 1915. It was
almost immediately assigned to service in the region of Bois
le Pretre, being quartered first at Dieulouard, then at Pont-a-
Mousson. It remained in this sector, which at that time was
fairly active, for nearly ten months.  In February of 1916, when
the great battle of Verdun was imminent, it was moved to that
sector, where it remained for more than a year and a half. It
was first stationed in the hospital grounds at Le Petit Mont-
hairon.  In March the Section  was attached to the rapidly
growing hospital  at Vadelaincourt; in  June it moved for a
month to Bar-le-Duc; on June 27th it returned to Le Petit
Monthairon; on September 2 to Rampont, where it remained
until  November  8, leaving on  that date for Ville-sur-Cou-
sances; after two months of activity at this point, the Section
was sent for  repos to  Glorieux near Verdun on January 10,
1917. On the 19th of the month the entire Section started for
La Grange-aux-Bois; thence  to  Dombasle-en-Argonne on the
25th of June, and on July 30 for repos to Nancois-le-Grand. On
August 16  the Section went  on a three days' repos to Som-
maisne.  This was followed by a brief stay at Souhesme. It was
on September 26 at Sivry-la-Perche that the Section enlisted
in the American Army as Section Six-Twenty-Six. 
                  Section Two

        Yet sought they neither recompense nor praise,
        Nor to be mentioned in another breath
        Than their blue-coated comrades whose great days
          It was their pride to share, ay! share even to death.
        Nay, rather, France, to you they rendered thanks
          (Seeing they came for honor, not for gain),
        Who, opening to them your glorious ranks,
        Gave them that grand occasion to excel,
          That chance to live the life most free from stain
        And that rare privilege of dying well.
                                         Alan Seeger
        (From a poem written by him in memory of American Volunteers
        fallen for France, upon the occasion of a memorial service held
        before the Lafayette-Washington statue in Paris, May 30, 1916)

                            I

               Pont-a-Mousson — 1915
                               Ponl-h-Mousson, August 1915
In August, 1915, we were quartered in a building which
had  not been  occupied since August, 1914.  There were
countless rooms already furnished, while  those on  the
first floor had  been so cleaned up that the Section, which
consisted of twenty-four men, had  "all the comforts of
home."  There  was a  large  mess-hall, kitchen, writing-
room, library,  general office, dormitory, and a good gener-
ous vaulted cellar of easy access.  This  last adjunct was
important, for the town was one of the most frequently
bombarded places  in the line, and very often big shells
that wreck a house at one shot made it advisable to take
to the cave. The atelier of the armurier with its collection
of tools and fixtures, now served as a perfect automobile
repair shop. We had also running water, and, at first, en-
                           203 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
joyed both gas and electric lights; but shells eventually
put both systems out of commission. Naturally the tele-
phone line got clipped every few days, but was quickly
repaired. Behind the headquarters was a gem of a garden
containing several species of roses, and, as fortune would
have it, new wicker chairs. At first all this seemed too
good to be true; we could not realize that such an amaz-
ing combination of comforts could exist in the war zone,
and still less could we realize it when we looked  down
the street and  saw the German trenches in full view on
the crest of a hill fourteen hundred yards distant, where
at night rifle flashes were seen. To the volunteers who had
hibernated and drudged along at Beauvais some thirty-
five kilometres behind the line until April, 1915, it was a
realization of hopes beyond belief.
  The men in the Section had been billeted in Dieulouard,
eight kilometres  below, at houses where they slept  when
not on night duty; but when the French Section was or-
dered away, a number of the men elected to move  up to
Pont-a-Mousson  and were given excellent quarters in the
various vacated residences of the town. Why, instead of
just rooms they  had suites, and the commander had an
apartment in the show place of the  town!

                The Daily Service
The regular daily service was arduous enough in itself,
for one was either on duty or on call all of the time.  Then
there were periods following  an attack  when  the men
rested neither day nor night, when  one got food only in
snatches, and frequently days at a time would pass  when
one was on such  continuous service  that there was never
a chance to undress. Then there was the other aspect, the
ever-present danger of being killed or wounded that one
is under at the front, for Section Two worked and lived
in a heavily shelled area.
  In spite of the danger, the American ambulanciers ren-
dered their service with fidelity at any and all  times. A
French captain once remarked that,  no matter how much
                        204 
SHELLS BREAKING ON THE COTE  DE MOPSSON
WATCHING AN AEROPLANE DI EL IN PONT-A-MOPSSON 
 
SECTION TWO
the town was being shelled,  our little field ambulances
could be seen slipping down the streets, past corners, or
across the square on their way to and from the postes de
secours back of the trenches. I remember one day that
was especially a test of the men.  The town  was being
shelled, and it happened that at the same time there were
many calls for cars. The Germans were paying particular
attention to the  immediate surroundings of  our head-
quarters, and the^shells were not falling according to any
time-table known  to us. A call came in, and the "next
man"  was handed his  orders.  He waited until a shell
burst and then made a run for  it. Several cars had been
out on calls and were due to return. There was no way
of giving them a warning. We heard the purr of a motor,
and almost immediately the sing of a shell very close to
us. There was an  instant of  anxiety, an explosion, and
then we were relieved to see the car draw up in line, the
driver switch off his motor and run for our entrance,
holding his order card in front of him as he ran, and just
as he entered another shell hit near by. It reminded me
strongly of a scene in a " ten-twenty-thirty " martial play.
All the hero needed was some fuller's earth to pat off his
shoulders when he came inside.

                   The Routine
It is difficult to take any one day's work and  describe it
in the attempt to give an adequate picture of the routine
of the  Section, for with  us all days were so different.
  Six-thirty is the time for bread and coffee, and the long
table  in   the flag-decorated  mess-room  begins  to fill.
Mignot, our comrade orderly, is rushing to and fro plac-
ing bowls in front of those arriving,  and practising  on
each the  few English expressions  he  has picked  up  by
association with us. Two men of the Section enter who
look very tired. They throw their caps or fatigue hats on
to a side table and call  for Mignot. They have been  on
all-night service at a hamlet where  the most active postes
de secours are located.
                         205 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
  11 Much doing last night?" asks one of the crowd at the
table.
  "Not much. Had only sixteen altogether."
  "Anything stirring?"
  "Yes; Fritz eased in a few shrapnels about 5.30, but
did n't hurt any one. You know the last house down  on
the right-hand side? Well, they smeared that with a shell
during the night."
  "By the way," continues the man in from night serv-
ice, addressing himself to one across the table, "Canot,
the artilleryman, was looking for you. Says he's got a
ring for you made out of a Boche fuse-cap, and wants to
know if you want a Geneva or Lorraine cross engraved
on it."
  The men in the Section leave the room one by one to
take up their various duties. There are some whose duty
it is to stay in reserve, and these go  out to work on their
cars.  Others fare on bureau  service,  and they  remain
within call of the telephone. Two leave for the town eight
kilometres below, where their job is to evacuate from the
two hospitals where the wounded have been carried down
the day and night before.

         Friends among the Frenchmen
In front of  four or five of the low masonry houses a
Red Cross flag is hung, designating the postes de  secours
where the wounded are bandaged and given to the ambu-
lances. An American car is backed up in front of one, and
the khaki-clad driver is the centre of interest for a group
of soldiers. Some he knows well, and he is carrying on a
cheerful conversation with them. It is surprising what
a number of  French soldiers speak English;  and there
are hundreds who have lived in England and  in the
States. Some are even American citizens who have re-
turned to fight for la belle France, their mother-country.
I have met waiters from the  Cafe Lafayette, chefs from
Fifth Avenue hotels, men who worked in New York and
Chicago banks, in commission houses, who own farms in
                       206 
SECTION TWO
the West, and some who had taken up their residence
in American cities to live on their incomes. It seems very
funny to be greeted with a "Hello there, old scout!" by
French soldiers.
  "Well, when did you come over?" asks the driver.
  " In August. Been through the whole thing."
  "Where were you in the States?"
  " New York; and I am going back there when it is over.
Got to beat it now.  So long. See you later."
  A few companies  of soldiers go leisurely past on their
way up to the trenches, and nearly every man has some-
thing to say to the American driver. Five out of ten will
point to the  ambulance and cry out with  questionable
but certainly cheerful enough humor, "Save a place for
me to-morrow," or,  " Be sure and give me a quick ride!"
Others yell our greetings, or air their knowledge of Eng-
lish. " Camarade americain," said in  a very sincere tone
and followed by a  grip of the hand, has a very warm
friendship about it. Yes, you make good friends that way.
Working along together in this war brought men very
close. You found some delightful chaps, and  then . .  .
well, sometimes you realized you had not seen a certain
one for a week or so, and you inquire after him from a
man in his company.
   "Where is Bosker, or  Busker? — I don't know  how
you pronounce it. You know, tall fellow with corporal's
galons who was always talking about what a good time
he was going to have when he got back to Paris."
   "He got killed in the attack two nights ago — pauvre
gars,"  is the answer. ...

         Night Duty and an Added Sector
A kilometre up the climbing winding road was a lone
poste de secours in the woods just off the highway. The
approach and the place itself were often shelled. There
were times when the drivers were under a seriously heavy
fire on night duty;  times when trees were shattered and
fallen across the road and huge craters made in the soft
207 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
earth of the adj acent fields. A kilometre beyond was another
point of call, and from there one could look directly into
one of the most fought-over sections of ground in the long
line from the sea to Belfort. It is a bit of land that before
the war was covered with a magnificent forest. Now it is a
wilderness whose desolation is beyond description.
  Section Two performed its duties so well that the work
of an adjacent division was  given to it, and  the  little
cars began rolling past the last-mentioned poste de secours
over to the exposed plain beyond and into the zone of its
newly-acquired activities. The American cars literally
infested the roads in the day. They buzzed along on calls
to the postes,  returned  from evacuations, and kept so
busy trying to accelerate the work that a casual observer
might have  imagined that a whole division had  been
annihilated overnight. There  are times when men die in
the ambulances  before they reach the hospitals, and I
believe nearly every driver in  the Section has had at
least  one distressing  experience of that  sort. Early one
morning there was an urgent call for a single wounded.
The man's comrades gathered  around the  little car to
bid their friend good-bye. He was terribly wounded and
going fast. "See,"  said one of them to the man on the
stretcher, "you are going in an American car.  You will
have a good trip, old fellow, and get well soon. Good-bye
and good luck!" They forced a certain cheerfulness, but
their voices were low and dry, for they saw death creep-
ing into the face of their comrade. The driver took his
seat and was starting when he was asked to wait. "Some-
thing for him," they said. When the car arrived at the
hospital,  the man was dead. He was cold and must  have
died at the  start of  the trip. The driver regretted the
delay in leaving. Why had they asked him to wait? Then
he saw that the ambulance was covered with sprigs of
lilac and little yellow field flowers. The men knew that
the car would serve as a hearse.
  Americans have a faculty  of adapting themselves to
any  service  they may be called upon to perform, and
                        208 
SECTION TWO
many times we undertook on our own initiative various
missions that were not in strict accord with our military
duties. For instance, after a bombardment, we very often
transported dead civilians. During  one bombardment a
considerable number of women and children were killed.
A couple of the American ambulances were on the spot
immediately after, and the men were silently going about
their sad work. The little children who were accustomed
to cry out  to us as we passed, gathered around  holding
to their mothers' trembling  hands. They said, "Ameri-
cains," when they saw the khaki uniforms; but on this
occasion their tone was  hushed  and sad instead of loud
and joyous, and had a surprised note, as if they had not
expected to see the Americans at such a task.

             Curiosity and Prudence
It took us a long time to learn the value of prudence. At
first during the bombardments  we would rush  to the
street as soon as a shell landed and  look to see what
damage had been done. Then,  when some eclats had
sizzed uncomfortably  close to our persons, we became a
little more, discreet and  waited awhile before venturing
out. But experience finally discounted the popularity of
orchestra seats during an exhibition in which shells larger
than "77's" appear.
  The men did what was asked and gladly, for there was
no work more worth while than helping in some way, no
matter what, this noblest of  all causes. One did not look
for  thanks, — there was reward  enough in the satisfac-
tion the work gave; but  the French did not let it stop at
that. The men from the  trenches were surprised that we
had voluntarily undertaken  such a hazardous occupa-
tion, and expressed their appreciation and  gratitude with
almost embarrassing  frequency. "You render a great
service," said the officers, and those of highest rank called
to offer thanks in the  name of France. It  is good to feel
that one's endeavors are appreciated, and encouraging to
hear the words of praise; but when, at  the end of an
209 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
evacuation, one drew a stretcher from the car, and the
poor wounded man lying upon it, who had never allowed
a groan to escape during a ride that must have been pain-
ful, with an effort holds out his hand, grasps yours, and,
forcing a smile, murmurs, " Merci" — that is what urged
you to hurry back for other wounded, to be glad that
there was a risk to one's self in helping them, and to feel
grateful that you have had the opportunity to serve the
brave French people in their sublime struggle.

      Extracts from McConnell's Journal
                                      October 26, 1915
The head of the Sanitary Service of the French Govern-
ment, accompanied by three  generals, made a tour of
inspection of all the units in this sector to-day.
                                        November 14
We had the first snow of the season to-day. All the
morning it snowed and covered the fields and trees with
a thick coating of white.  In the roads it melted and they
became stretches of yellow slush.
                                        November 16
We received a telephone message in  the morning asking
us to go to the mairie to meet a high official. Four of us
went over. A number of large cars were drawn up in the
Place. One bore the flag  of the President of France. We
were to meet Poincare. We formed a line inside the sand-
bag barricaded arcade. The President and his entourage
passed. He stopped in front of us. "One finds you every-
where," he said; "you are indeed devoted." Then  he
shook hands with each of us and passed on. We wandered
on down the arcade to watch the party go down into the
shelled area of the town. A sentry standing near us en-
tered into conversation. He addressed himself to Pottle.
"Did he shake hands with you?" he asked. "Oh, yes,"
replied Pottle, who had taken the whole thing as a matter
of  course. "Bon Dieu!" said the sentry, "he is n't a bit
proud, is he?"
210 
SECTION TWO
                                          November 25
Thanksgiving — and we celebrated it in the American
style. We had purchased and guarded the turkeys, and
they were prime. One of our men did  wonders with the
army food, and  it is doubtful if any finer Thanksgiving
dinner was eaten any place in the world than the one we
enjoyed to-day, only two thousand yards from the Huns.

                                          November 30
The writer, with two others of the Section, was crossing
the Place after dark. As we passed the breach in the sand-
bag barricaded roads we were  lighted  up by the yellow
glare coming from the shops  next to the mairie. The
sentry there  on duty saw us. "Pass along, my children,
and good luck to you; you are more  devoted than we
are," he cried out to us. I was startled by the voice out of
the darkness and the surprising remarks.  I glanced to-
wards  the sentry's post,  but the light  blinded me and I
could not see him. From his voice, however, I knew he was
old — one of the aged territorials.
   "Oh, no," I answered, for lack of anything better to
say.
   "Yes, you are. We all thank you. You are very de-
voted," he replied.
   "No, not that, but I thank you," I  said, and  we were
swallowed up in the darkness. Then I was sorry one of us
hadn't gone back to shake  hands with the kind-hearted
old fellow. It seemed to me that it was the spirit of France
speaking through him, voicing,  as usual, her appreciation
for any well-intentioned aid, and that we should have
replied a little more formally.
                            James R. McConnell l

  1 Of Carthage, North Carolina; University of Virginia; was in the Field
Service during 1915; subsequently went into the Lafayette Flying Corps
and was  shot down near Ham, while on a reconnaissance during the Somme
advance  in July, 1916. The advancing troops found his body several days
later. 
II
         Pont-a-Mousson — Bois le Pretre
                           Pont-h-Mousson, June 17, 1915
This  is a dear little town with  about eight thousand
inhabitants. After breakfast I was asked by one of the
men if I would like to look about. We turned to  the left
and entered the famous Bois le Pr6tre where the artillery
had not been. Here was an officers' cemetery, a terrible,
sad sight, — six hundred officers'  graves. Close by were
also the graves of eighteen hundred  soldiers. The little
cemetery was quite impressive on the side of this lovely
green hill with the great trees all around and the little
plain wood crosses at each grave. As we waited, a broken-
down horse appeared with a cart-load  of  what looked
like old clothes,  but which was really des  morts. I had
never seen a dead body until  that  moment. It was a
horrible awakening — eight stiff, mangled, armless bodies
— all men like ourselves with people  loving them some-
where, all gone this way. A grave  had been dug two
metres deep, large enough to hold sixteen. One  by one
they were lowered into the grave.

                         Pont-d-Mousson, Monday, June 28
I had to go to Auberge Saint-Pierre at about two o'clock
this morning. It was a sad trip for me. A boy about nine-
teen had been hit in the chest and half his side had gone.
" Trhs pressi," they told me. And as we lifted him into the
car, by a little brick house which was a mass of shell-holes,
he raised his sad, tired eyes to mine and tried a brave
smile. I went down the hill as carefully as I could and very
slowly, but when  I arrived at the hospital, I found I had
been driving a hearse and not an ambulance. It made me
feel very badly — the memory of that faint smile which
was to prove the  last effort of some dearly loved youth.
                        212 
■
?*> •  ",^r*3

y  >^Vi^kjfe^i^Eaft
ON THE ROAD TO BOIS LE PRETRE
FONTAINE DTT PERE HILARION, A SPRING IN BOIS LE PRETRE WHERE
        FRENCH AND CKRMAN SOLDIERS  FRATERNIZED IN
               THE EARLY DAYS OF THE AVAR 
 
SECTION TWO
All the poor fellows look at us with the same expression
of appreciation and thanks; and when they are unloaded
it is a common thing to see a soldier, probably suffering
the pain of the damned, make an effort to take the hand
of the American helper. I tell you tears are pretty near
sometimes.

                                 Tuesday, 5 p.m., July 6
I carried over forty wounded yesterday a distance of a
hundred and sixty kilometres and at nine o'clock turned
in; to be waked up at two o'clock to go to Auberge Saint-
Pierre. The Major was there to  receive us, and so inter-
ested and appreciative is he that any one of us would do
anything for him.  Just as I was starting down with a
full load I found I had picked up a nail, and a puncture
was the order of the day. Two  fellows ran forward; ex-
plained that in peace time they  were chauffeurs, and re-
fused to let me work on it; while the Major made me sit
on a fallen tree by the roadside, smoke a cigarette, and
talk to him. We are, of course,  mere soldiers, but to be
treated so kindly and so thoughtfully makes us feel that
we must go on forever!
  Later I had a German wounded couche given me and I
probed out  the fact that there were some six or eight
French waiting  to be  taken. "Oh,  but he is severely
wounded — take him first!" I  shall always remember
that in France the German went before the less wounded
Frenchmen!

                    A Tribute
                                           Monday
The Governor, or Prefect, of the Department of Lorraine,
sent  us from Nancy,  for  July Fourth,  the  following
tribute:
   "On this day, when you celebrate your national inde-
pendence, at the same hour that France in violent combat
defends her independence against an enemy whose mad-
ness  for domination threatens the liberty of all nations,
                        213 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
and  whose barbarous  methods  menace  civilization,  I
send you the expression of the profound friendship of the
French for your great and generous nation; and seize this
occasion to assure you once more of the deep gratitude
of the people of Lorraine for the admirable devotion  of
all the members of the American Ambulance of Pont-a-
Mousson."

                                Pont-cL-Mousson, July 26
Our whole Section has been cited by order of the Divi-
sion. Here is the translation:
  "The American Ambulance, composed of volunteers,
friends of our country,  has been continually conspicuous
for the enthusiasm, courage, and zeal of all its members;
who, regardless of danger, have worked without rest  to
save our wounded,  whose affection and gratitude  they
have gained."

                    Two Tales
                              Pont-a-Mousson, August 15
Yesterday was a red-letter day for me. The  American
mail arrived! I was brought back to actualities by the
voice of a young French soldier of about twenty-one who
stood beside me:
  "You have just got some letters?"
  "Yes, not even  opened them yet."
  "All those! You are to be married, perhaps?"
  "No,  mon ami"
  "Surely it is your mother, then, who has written you so
often."
  "Only this one  is from her," I answered. And then a
strange  silence fell. I  did  not  feel like speaking,  for,
glancing up, I noticed  that he was still looking  at that
one letter in my hand. Then, after fumbling for a few
minutes in his uniform, he pulled out a packet of earth-
stained letters, and said:
  "These were from my mother; but I can't look for any
more. She died last month."
214 
SECTION TWO
                                         September 4
A sad thing happened the other day to a friend of mine,
a poilu who has been helping me to get specimens of per-
fect, empty shells. I had many a long talk with him. He
used to like to tell me about his girl and how happy they
were together before the war, and  how the day peace
was declared, he was going to marry her. Lately I had
noticed he looked depressed, and one day I found out the
reason. The postman came to the door. He looked at my
friend, who had become silent, and shaking his head,
said, "Pas encore." My friend became very white, and
presently confessed to me that he had had no letters for
six weeks. A few days after, I saw him again and asked if
he had heard from her. He said "No," very sullenly, and
later, over a glass of beer, mentioned that his father had
written him that she had been misbehaving herself. The
poor fellow seemed stunned with the news. After vainly
trying to cheer him up, I went back to dinner. The next
morning I did not see him, but the following morning I
was at headquarters when an urgent call came for  an
ambulance. My car happened to be just going, so I took
the trip. "Where is the house?" I asked. "Just over there
where the man is waving." It was the house of my friend.
Need I end the story? A broken man, who had worked
valiantly for twelve months under hellish conditions, to
defend his country, had shot himself! We lifted him on to
a stretcher and I sped away.  Life was nearly extinct. I
followed him into the operating-room, where he opened
his eyes, and I think he recognized me. His lips moved —
but I don't know.

            The Spirit of the French
                                         September 8
Yesterday  I had a sudden  call to fetch three  badly
wounded, one of whom was in great pain from a wound
in  the back,  and the slightest jostle or bump I knew
would cause him great agony. The doctor,  pointing to
one of the other two, said, "You must  get him to the
215 
THE AMERICAN FIELD  SERVICE
operating-room as quickly as you can."  "But," I an-
swered, "I dare not go fast, this poor chap is in such a
bad condition." The doctor shrugged his shoulders. But
the man who was suffering had heard. "Go as fast as you
can, my friend; it won't kill me!" I did so, and the bumps
were bad. The poor fellow could not help uttering cries
from time to time. But before I arrived  at Belleville, the
cries had ceased, as the great pain had made him uncon-
scious, while the badly wounded man had died. " Cest la
guerre," said the doctor to whom I told the story, as he
washed his hands for the operations.
  The other day I  paid a visit to a neighboring hospital,
where one young fellow about my own age had had his
left leg amputated. I sat by his bed and chatted with him.
He told me of his wife — they had been a year and a half
married — and of  his child whom he had not yet seen.
He was so very eager that somehow the pity of it made
me turn aside  for a second, and look out of the window.
Quick  of perception, out went his hand  to mine. "Oh,
she will understand, camarade,"  he said, smiling;  "she
will love me just the same — she is a Frenchwoman."
  How can one help caring for France and French people,
they have such a keen appreciation of the value of sym-
pathy and gratitude? Here in the midst of torturing death,
they at least are cheerful, and having put aside the bar-
rier of selfishness are wholly simple and direct in their
human relations. The fact that on every side there is daily
evidence of this attitude, in spite of so  bitter  and costly
a struggle, is high proof of the fineness of their civilization.
                                 Leslie Buswell 1
  1 A young Englishman, who was in the service during several months of
1915. Author of Ambulance No. 10. (See the Bibliography at the end of
Vol. m.) 
Ill
               A Night of Shelling
                            Pont-d-Mousson, May 20, 1915
One evening,  about 7.30, after the Germans had been
firing on this place and the neighboring villages for some
hours, I was called to Bozeville, a village on the road to
Montauville consisting of a small cluster of one-story
brick and  frame buildings constructed in 1870  by the
Germans for their soldiers.  When I reached this  place
it was on fire, and the Germans, by a constant fusillade
of shrapnel shells in and around the buildings and on the
roads  near them, were preventing any attempt being
made to extinguish the fire. To drive up the narrow road,
with the burning houses on one side and high garden wall,
thank Heaven, on the other, hearing every few seconds
the swish-bang of the shells, was decidedly nervous work
and anything  but peaceful. But after picking  up the
wounded, I returned here where conditions were much
worse. At this time the Germans were throwing shells of
large calibre at the bridge over the Moselle, and to reach
the hospital to which I was bound, it was necessary to
take  the road  which led to  this bridge and  turn to the
left about  a hundred yards before coming to it. Just as I
was about to make  this turn, two shells struck and ex-
ploded in the river under the bridge. There was a terrific
roar and two huge  columns of  water rose into the air,
seemed to  stand there for  some seconds and the next
instant spray and bits of wood and shell  fell on and
around us. A minute later I turned into the hospital yard,
where the  effect, in the uncertain and fast-fading light,
was ghostly, as earlier in the evening a shell had exploded
in the yard and thrown an even layer of fine, power-like
dust over everything. It resembled a shroud  in effect, for
nothing disturbed its even surface except the crater-like
                         217 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
hole made by the shell. On one side of the yard was the
hospital, every window broken and its walls scarred  by
the pieces of shells; in the middle was the shell-hole, and
on the other side was the body of a dead brancardier,
lying on his back with a blanket thrown over him, which
gave a particularly ghastly effect to the scene, for what
was left of the daylight was just sufficient to gleam upon
his bald forehead and throw into relief a thin streak of
blood which ran across his head to the ground. Needless
to say I left the place as quickly as possible.

        To the Victor belong the Spoils
Another scene which I do not think I will  soon forget
happened just after a successful French attack and shows
war in a little different light, with more of the excitement
and glory which are  supposed  to be attached to battle.
It occurred at Montauville, a straggly little village of one
and two-story stone and plaster houses built on the two
sides of the road, situated on a saddle which connects one
large hill on one side of it with another large hill on the
other side of it. The village is used as a dSpot and resting-
place for the troops near it. On this particular day the
French had attacked and finally taken a position which
they wanted badly, and at this time, just after sunset,
the battle had ceased and the wounded were being brought
into the poste de secours. The  tints of the western sky
faded away to a cloudless blue heaven, marked here and
there by a tiny star.  To the south an aeroplane was cir-
cling like a huge hawk with puffs of orange-tinted shrap-
nel smoke on all sides of it. In the village the soldiers were
all in the streets or hanging out of the windows shouting
to one another. The  spirits of  every one were high, and
they well might be, for the French had obtained an advan-
tage over the Germans and had succeeded in holding it.
At this moment a French sergeant entered the town at
the lower end and walked up the street. At  first no one
noticed him; then a slight cheer began, and before the
man had  advanced  a hundred yards  the soldiers had
                         218 
SECTION TWO
formed a lane through which he strode. He was a big
fellow, his face smeared with blood and dirt and his left
arm held in a bloody sling, while on his head was a Ger-
man helmet with its glinting  brass point and eagle. He
swaggered nearly the entire length of the village through
the shouting line of soldiers,  gesticulating with his one
well arm and giving as he went a lively account of what
had happened. Thereupon some one started  the  Marseil-
laise and in a few minutes all were singing. I have heard
football crowds sing after a  victory and other crowds
indulge in song, but I have never  listened  to such wild
exultation as on this occasion. It  was tremendous. I wish
the Germans could have heard it. Perhaps they did, for
they were not so far away and the sound seemed to linger
and echo among the hills for some minutes after the last
note had been struck.
                                 Carlyle H. Holt l

  1 Of Hingham, Massachusetts; Harvard, '12. Served in Section Two from
February to August of 1915. The above are extracts from two letters writ-
ten to Field Service Headquarters.
 
IV
             Leaving Pont-a-Mousson
It gave  us rather a wrench  to  leave Pont-a-Mousson.
The Section had been quartered  there since April, 1915,
and we were attached to the quaint town  and to the
friends we had made there. The morning of our departure
was warm and clear.  Walking along the convoy which
had been formed in the road before our villa, came the
poilus who shook hands with each conducteur. "Au revoir,
Monsieur." "Au revoir,  Paul." "Bonne chance,  Pierre."
We took a last look at the town  which had sheltered us
during the most dramatic moments of our lives. Above
the tragic silhouette of a huddle of ruined houses rose the
grassy slopes of the great ridge crowned  by the Bois le
Pretre, the rosy morning mists were lifting from the shell-
shattered trees, and a golden  sun poured down a spring-
like radiance.  Suddenly a great  cloud of grayish  white
smoke rose over the haggard wood and  melted slowly
away in  the northeast wind; an instant  later,  a rever-
berating  boom signalled the explosion of a mine in the
trenches. There was a shrill whistle, our lieutenant raised
his hand, and the convoy swung down the road to Dieu-
louard. "Au revoir, les Americains!" cried our friends —■
a little mud-slopped, blue-helmeted handful,  that waved
to us till we turned the corner.  "Au revoir, les Ameri-
cains!"
  Late in the afternoon we were assigned quarters in the
barracks of Bar-le-Duc, where  we  found  an  English
Section that had been as suddenly displaced  as our own.
Every minute loaded camions ground into town  and dis-
appeared towards the east, troops of all kinds came in,
flick, flack, the sun shining on the barrels  of  the lebels, a
train of  giant mortars,  mounted on  titanic  trucks and
drawn by big motor lorries, crashed over the pavements
                        220 
„■".' '*■ -         >
^*


"CAMOUFLAGE OX A ROAD GIVES AT BEST  AN UNCERTAIN
                   SENSE OF  SECURITY"
THE REMAINS OF A RAILROAD STATION WHICH SERVED
              AS A "POSTE" NEAR  VERDUN 
 
SECTION TWO
and vanished somewhere. Some of our conducteurs made
friends with the English drivers, and swapped opinions
as to what was in the wind. One heard, "Well, those
Frenchies have got something up their sleeve. We were
in the battle of Champarng, and it began just like this."
Round us, rising to  the full  sea of the battle, the tide
of war surged and disappeared. At dusk a  company of
dragoons, big helmeted men  on big horses, trotted  by,
their blue mantles and mediaeval casques giving them
the air of crusaders.  At night the important corners of
the streets were lit with cloth  transparencies, with "Ver-
dun" and a great black arrow painted on them. Night
and day,  going as smoothly  as if they were linked by
an invisible chain, went the hundred convoys of motor
lorries. There was a  sense of  something great in the air
— a sense of apprehension.  "Les Boches vont attaquer
Verdun."

      To  Petit-Monthairon — Near Verdun
On the 21st the order came for us to go to  Petit-Mont-
hairon (the Boches  had made their  first  attack that
morning, though this we did not then know), and near by
we found a rather unlovely eighteenth-century chateau
standing in a park built out on the meadows of the Meuse.
The flooded river flowed round the dark pines, and at
night one could hear  the water roaring under the bridges.
The chateau, which had been a hospital since the begin-
ning of the war, reeked with ether and  iodoform; pasty-
faced, tired attendants unloaded mud,  cloth, bandages,
and blood that turned out to  be human beings; an over-
wrought Medecin Chef screamed contradictory orders at
everybody and flared into crises of hysterical rage.
  Ambulance after ambulance  came from the lines  full
of clients; kindly hands  pulled out the stretchers and
bore them to the wash-room, which was in the cellar of
the dove-cote, in a kind of salt-shaker turret. Snip, snap
went the scissors of the brancardiers who looked after the
bath, — good souls these two — who  slit the uniforms
                        221 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
from mangled limbs. The wounded lay naked in their
stretchers while the attendant daubed them with a hot
soapy sponge and  the  blood ran from their wounds
through the stretcher to the  floor and seeped into the
cracks of the stones. A lean, bearded man closed his eyes
over the agony of his opened entrails and died there.
Somebody casually tossed a blanket over the body.
  Outside, mingling with the  roaring of the river,  came
the great, terrible drumming  of  the bombardment. An
endless file of troops were passing down the great road.
Night came on. Our ambulances were  in a little  side
street at right angles to the great road, their lamp flares
beating  fiercely on a little section of the great highway.
Suddenly, plunging  out of the darkness into the intense
radiance of  the acetylene  beams, came a battery of
"75's," the helmeted men leaning over on the horses, the
guns rattling and the harness clanking, a swift picture of
movement that plunged again into darkness. And with
darkness, the whole horizon became brilliant with can-
non fire.

            "The Horseshoe of Fire"
We were well within the horseshoe of German fire that
surrounded the French lines.  It was between midnight
and one o'clock, the  sky deep and clear, with big ice-blue
winter stars.  We halted at a certain road  to wait our
chance to deliver our wounded. It was a melee of beams
of light, of voices, of obscure motions, sounds. Refugees
went by, decent people in black, the women being escorted
by a soldier. One saw sad, harassed faces. A woman came
out of the turmoil carrying a  cat in a canary cage; the
animal swept the gilded  bars with curved claws, and its
eyes shone black and crazily. Others  went by pushing
baby carriages  full  to the  brim  with  knickknacks and
packages. Some trundled a  kind of barrow.  At the very
edge of earth and sky was a sort  of violet-white inferno,
while the thousand  finger-like jabs of the artillery shot
unceasing to the stars, and the great semi-circular aureole
                        222 
SECTION TWO
flares of the shorter pieces were seen a hundred times a
minute. Over the moorland came a terrible roaring such
as a river might make tumbling through some subter-
ranean  abyss. A few miles below, a dull ruddy smoul-
dering in the  sky told  of fires in Verdun. The morning
clouded over, the dawn brought snow. Even in the day-
time the great cannon flashes could be seen in the low,
brownish snow-clouds.
  On the way to Monthairon, two horses that had died
of exhaustion lay in a frozen ditch. Ravens, driven from
their repast by the storm, cawed hungrily in the trees.
  We slept in the loft of one of the buildings that formed
the left wing of the courtyard of the castle. To enter it,
we  had to  pass  through a kind of lumber-room on the
ground  floor in  which  the hospital coffins were kept.
Above was  a great  dim loft, rich  in a  greasy, stably
smell, a smell of horses and  sweaty leather, the odor of
a dirty harness room. At the  end of the room, on a kind
of raised platform, which ran  along the wall over our
heads, was the straw in which we lay — a crazy, sagging
shelf, covered with oily dust, bundles of  clothes,  knap-
sacks, books, candle-ends, and  steel helmets. All  night
long the horses  underneath us squealed, pounded, and
kicked.
  I see  in the lilac dawn of a winter morning the yellow
light of an officer's lantern, and hear the call, "Up, boys,
there's  a call to Bar-le-Duc." The bundles in the dirty
blankets groan;  unshaven, unwashed faces turn  tired
eyes to  the lantern; some, completely worn out, lie in a
kind of sleepy stupor, while a wicked screaming whistle
passes over our heads, and the shell, bursting on a near-by
location, startles the dawn.
  Later, the back of the attack was broken, and we began
to get a little rest. But during the first  week our cars
averaged runs of two hundred miles a day, over roads
chewed  to pieces, and through very difficult traffic.  In
several  of the villages there were unusually formidable
shell gauntlets to be run.
                         223 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
      Loneliness — The Voice of the Shell
It is night. You can imagine how lonely it is here under
the black, star-swept sky, the houses only masses of regu-
lar blackness in the darkness, the street  silent as a dune
in the desert and devoid of any sign of human life. Muffled
and heavy, the explosion of a torpedo inscribes its solitary
half-note on the blank lines of the night's stillness. I go
up to my room, and sigh with relief as my sulphur match
boils  blue and breaks into a  short-lived  yellow flame.
Shadows are born, leaping and  rising, and I move swiftly
towards my candle-end, the flame  catches and  burns
straight and still in the cold, silent room.  The people who
lived  here were very  religious; an ivory  Christ on  an
ebony crucifix hangs over the door, and solemn-eyed, the
pure  and lovely head of Jeanne d'Arc stands  on  my
mantel. What  a marvellous history, hers!  I think it the
most  beautiful mystic tale in our human annals.
   Silence, sleep, the crowning mercy. A few hours go by
and morning comes. There is a call,  "Monsieur Shin, —■
un couche ct----" I wake. The night clerk of the bureau
is standing in  the doorway. An electric  flashlight in his
hand  sets me a-blinking. I dress, shivering  a bit, and am
soon on my way. The little gray machine goes cautiously
on in the darkness, bumping over shell-holes, guided by
the iridescent mud of  the last  day's rain. A bright flash
illuminates the road. A shell sizzles overhead. I reach the
poste de secours and find a soldier in the roadway. More
electric hand-lamps. Down a path comes a stretcher and
a man wounded in arm and thigh. We put him into the
voiture, cover him up, and away I start on my long, dark
ride to the hospital, a lonely nerve-tightening ride.
   The voice of war is the voice of the shell. You hear a
perfectly horrible sound as if the sky were  made of cloth
and the Devil  were tearing it  apart, a screaming undu-
lating sound followed by an explosion of  fearful violence,
bang! The violence of the affair is what impresses you,
the suddenly released energy  of that murderous burst.
                        224 
SECTION TWO
When I was a child I used to wander around the shore
and pick up hermit crabs and put them on a plate. After
a little while you would see a very prudent claw come out
of the shell,  then two beady eyes, finally the crab in
propria  persona. I was reminded of that scene on seeing
people come cautiously out of their houses after a shell
had fallen, peeping carefully out of doorways,  and only
venturing to emerge after a long reconnoitring.

          The Religion of the Trenches
A new  religion has arisen in the trenches, a faith much
more akin to Mahomet than to Christ. It is a fatalism of
action. The soldier finds  his salvation in the belief that
nothing will happen to him until his hour comes, and the
logical corollary of this belief — that it does no good to
worry — is his  rock of ages. It is a curious thing to see
poilus — peasants, artisans, scholars — completely in the
grip of this philosophy. The real religion of the front is the
philosophy of Mahomet. Death has been decided by Fate,
and the Boches are the unbelievers. After all, Islam in its
great days was a virile faith, the faith of a race of soldiers.

              A Letter from Verdun
The other day  I climbed to the top of Vauban's citadel,
and looked out over the forts,  the buff-brown moorlands
and the crumbling villages. To the west, a battle was
taking place, dull-colored smoke lay close to the ground,
and now and then a  shell would break, a pin point of
light,  in the upper fringes of the haze. What in Heaven's
name is to be the end  of all this? What is the world to be
like which will  some day follow this cruel welter of sav-
agery and pain? You know that I reject the pacifist case
because I see war as part of the web of life; it is competi-
tion distilled to its ultimate essence, and will not be done
away with until international competition  is under some
rigorous and centralized control. Yet  how can such  a
despotism of power be established,  and by whom? Cer-
tainly war cannot be  eliminated from  the mechanism of
                        225 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
civilization by a folding of hands and a general promise
to be good. Yet this sort of thing is civilization commit-
ting suicide. Is n't it appalling to think of France, "the
land of the idea," being thus  compelled to abandon her
science  and art and to waste  her blood and  treasure in
this unspeakable massacre? We ought all of us,  young
Boches, too, to be fighting side by side in the endless war
men must wage on the various cussednesses of nature.
This cheerless life is acid to any one with memories of an
old, beloved New England hearth and close  family ties
and friendships.  To half jest, I am enduring war for
peace of mind.
  How lonely my old house must be  when  the  winter
storms surge round it at midnight. How the great flakes
must swirl about its ancient chimney, and fall softly
down the black throat of the  fireplace to the dark, un-
garnished hearth.  The goblin who polished  the pewter
plates in the light of the  crumbling fire-brands  has gone
to live with his brother in a hollow tree on the hill. But
when you come to Topsfield, the goblin himself, red flan-
nel cap and all, will open the door to you  as  the house's
most honored and welcome guest.
  A. fusee eclairante has just run over the wood, the "Bois
de la mort," the  wood of the hundred thousand dead;
and side by side with the dead are the living,  the soldiers
of the army of France, holding through bitter cold and a
ceaseless shower of iron and hell, the far-stretching lines.
If there is anything I am proud of, it is of having been
with the French Army, the most devoted and  heroic of
the war.
                                 Henry Sheahan l
  1 Of Topsfield, Massachusetts; Harvard, '09; served from August, 1915,
to April, 1916; author of A Volunteer Poilu. (See Bibliography in the
Appendix to Vol. in.) 
V
                 En Route —1916

Section Two left Pont-a-Mousson about February 21,
1916, and on Washington's Birthday our French Lieuten-
ant gave us our "order to move"; but all he could tell us
about our destination was that we were going north. We
started from Bar-le-Duc, where we had spent a few days
overhauling and painting the cars, about noon, and it
took six hours to make forty miles through roads covered
with snow, swarming with troops, and all but blocked by
convoys of food carts and sections of trucks. Of course we
knew that there was an attack in the neighborhood of
Verdun, but we did not know who was making it or how
it was going. Then about four o'clock in the short winter
twilight we passed two or three regiments of French
colonial troops on the march with all their field equip-
ment. They were lined up on each side of the road around
their soup  kitchens, which  were smoking busily, and I
had a good look at them as we drove along. It  was the
first time that I had seen an  African Army in the field,
and though they had a long  march, they were  cheerful
and in high spirits at the prospect of battle. They were
all young, active men, of all colors and complexions, from
blue-eyed blonds to shiny  blacks, and wore khaki, and
brown shrapnel casques.
  After that we rode north along the Meuse, through a
beautiful country where the  snow-covered hills, with
their sky-lines of carefully pruned French trees,  made
me think of masterpieces of Japanese art. In the  many
little villages there was much excitement and activity —
troops, artillery, and munitions being rushed through to
the front, and there were also the consequent wild rumors
of great attacks and victories. Curiously enough, there
were few who thought of defeat,  all sure, even when a
                        227 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
retreat was reported that the French were winning; and
that spirit of confidence had much to do with stopping
the German advance.
  At about six in the evening we reached our destination,
some forty  miles northeast of Bar-le-Duc. The little vil-
lage, Petit-Monthairon, where  we stopped had  been a
railroad centre until the day before, when the Germans
started bombarding it. Now the town was evacuated,
and the smoking station deserted. The place had ceased
to exist, except  for a hospital which was established on
the southern edge of the town in a lovely  old chateau,
overlooking the Meuse, whither we were called as soon
as we arrived to take such wounded as could be moved
to the nearest available railhead, ten miles away, on the
main road,  and  four miles south of Verdun. We  started
out in convoy; but with the conditions of traffic, it was
impossible to stick together, and it took some of us till
five o'clock the  next morning  to  make the trip.  That
was the beginning of the attack for us, and the  work
of evacuating the wounded to the railway stations  went
steadily on until March 15, during which period it was
left to the driver to decide how many trips it was physi-
cally possible for him to make in each twenty-four hours,
for there were more wounded than could be carried, and
no one could be certain of keeping any kind of schedule
with the roads as they were then.

            The Roads about Verdun
Sometimes  we spent five or six  hours waiting at a cross-
road, while columns of troops and their equipment filed
steadily by. Sometimes at night we could make a trip in
two hours that had taken us ten in daylight. Sometimes,
too, we crawled slowly to a station only to find it deserted,
shells falling, and the hospital removed to some still  more
distant  point of the line. Situations  and conditions
changed from day to day, — almost from hour to hour.
One day it was sunshine and spring, with roads six inches
deep in mud, no traffic and nothing to remind one of war,
                        228 
SOUr KITCHENS SMOKING  BUSILY BESIDE THE ROAD 
 
SECTION TWO
except the wounded in the car and the distant roar of the
guns, which sounded like a giant beating a carpet. The
next day, it was winter again, with mud changed to ice,
the roads blocked with troops, and the Germans turning
hell loose with their heavy guns.
  In such  a crisis as those first days  around Verdun,
ammunition and fresh men are the all-essential things.
The wounded are  the dechets, the "has-beens," and so
must take the second place. But the French  are too
gallant and tender-hearted not to make sacrifices. For
instance, I remember one morning I was slapped off the
road into the ditch, with a broken axle, while  passing
a solitary  camion, whereupon the driver got down, came
over and apologized for the accident which was easily
half my fault. Then we unloaded four cases of "seventy-
five" shells that he was carrying, put my three wounded
on the floor of his car,  and he set out slowly and carefully
up the ice-covered road, saying to me with a smile as he
left, "Don't let the Boches get my marmites while I'm
gone." For some time I sat there  alone on  the road,
watching the shells break on a hill some miles away to
the north, and  wondering when I could get word of my
mishap back to the base. Then a staff car appeared down
the highway, making its way along slowly and with diffi-
culty, because, being without chains, it skidded humor-
ously, with engine racing and the chauffeur trying vainly
to steer. There was a Captain of the Service des Autos
sitting on the front seat, who was so immaculately clean
and well-groomed  that he seemed far away from work
of any kind. But when the car stopped completely about
halfway up the little hill on which I was broken down, he
jumped out, took off his fur coat, and using it to give the
rear wheels a grip on the ice, he swung it under  the car.
As the wheels passed over it,  he picked it up and swung
it under again. So the car climbed the hill and slid down
the other slope round  the curve and out of sight. It was
just another incident that made me realize the spirit and
energy of the French Automobile Service.
                        229 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
  But the Captain had not solved any of my difficulties.
He had been too busy with his own to notice me or won-
der why an American ambulance was sprawled in a ditch
with four cases  of shells  alongside.  So I  waited there
about two hours until an  American  came by and took
back word of my accident and of the parts necessary to
set it right. In the meantime, about noon, my  friend
came back in his camion to take up his cases of shells and
reported  my wounded safe at the railway station. We
lunched together on the front seat of the camion, bread,
tinned "monkey meat," and red wine, while he  told me
stories about his life as a driver.
  As  soon as we had finished lunch he left me,  and I
waited for another two hours until the American staff
car (in other surroundings I should  call it an ordinary
Ford touring-car with a red cross or so added) came along
loaded with an extra "rear construction," and driven by
the Chief himself. It took us another four hours to remove
my battered rear axle  and  put in the new parts; but my
car was back in service by midnight.
  This was a typical instance of the kind of accident that
was happening, and there were about three "Ford casual-
ities" every day. But thanks to  the simplicity of the
mechanism,  and to the fact that,  with the necessary
spare parts, the most  serious indisposition  can be reme-
died  in a few hours, our Section was at the front for a
year — ten months in the Bois le Pretre, and two months
at Verdun — without  being sent back out  of service for
general repairs.  In the Bois le Pretre we had carried the
wounded from the dressing-stations to the  first hospital,
while at Verdun we were on service from the hospital to
the railheads. In this latter work of evacuation the trips
were much longer, thirty to ninety miles; so the strain  on
the cars was correspondingly greater. As our cars, being
small and fast, carried only three wounded on stretchers
or five seated, our relative  efficiency was low in compari-
son with the wear and tear of the "running gear" and
the amount of oil and petrol used. But in the period from
                         230 
SECTION TWO
February 22 to March 13, twenty days, with an aver-
age of eighteen cars working, we carried 2046 wounded
18,915 miles.  This would be no  record on good  open
roads, but with the conditions I have described I think it
justified  the existence of  our volunteer  organization, —
if it needed justification.  Certainly  the  French thought
so;  but they are too generous to be good judges.
  Except for our experiences on the road, there was little
romance in  the daily routine. True,  we were under shell-
fire, and had to sleep in our cars or in a much-inhabited
hayloft,  and eat in a little inn, half farmhouse and half
stable, where the food wras none too good and the cooking
none too clean.  But we all realized that the men in the
trenches would have made of such conditions a luxurious
paradise; so that kept us from thinking of it as anything
more than a rather strenouus "camping out."
                              Frank Hoyt Gailor 1

  1 Of Memphis, Tennessee; Sewanee and Columbia Universities;  spent
parts of 1915 and 1916 in the Service. Later served as First Lieutenant in
the American Field Artillery.
 
VI
     In the Midst of the Battle of Verdun
                                    Verdun, May, 1916
For two weeks the Section worked night and day with
scarcely time for sleeping and eating, but when our labor
slowed up, the men had time to catch up lost sleep. Sleep-
ing quarters were  in the loft of a barn between the lane,
which was the entrance to the estate, and the chateau.
Due partly to the rainy and damp weather, and the hard
work, many of the fellows were  on the verge of illness,
and at night the loft sounded very much like a consump-
tive retreat. Every available space was occupied by the
sleepers, and a few of the Section found accommodations
in a couple of small buildings in  the rear of the chateau,
on the edge of the park, a small shack used for storing
fishing paraphernalia,  and another near by which gave
shelter from nothing but the rain and snow. One of the
strangest things in that part of  the estate was an "Old
Town" canoe with a paddle made from a broken  air-
plane propeller which  belonged  to an aviator from the
flying field on the  top of the hill. From time to time sev-
eral of our  fellows  went canoeing in it on the Meuse
which flowed close by.
  The meals were served  in a farmhouse on the main
road, at the head of the lane, these eating quarters being
the worst part of our life there. The owners still hung on,
though they had been ordered to leave  long before, and
their presence did not add to the pleasures of the spot.
The dining-room was the kitchen and living-room, and
at eating times was jammed full of hungry Americans,
Frenchmen who were trying to buy wine of the Madame,
and the Madame's family of eight very dirty children.
A table in the centre  of the room was  reserved for the
Section, though there was scarcely place for half the men.
                        232 
SECTION  TWO
Plates and table hardware were seldom washed, and it
often happened  that nothing was  cleaned for several
meals, while to add to the unpleasantness of  the situa-
tion, hostlers kept opening and closing a door which was
the entrance to the foulest stable imaginable. Possibly
there would have been a general "kick" on the part of
the Section if it had  not been for the fact that we were
worn out from the hard work and long hours of driving,
which sometimes amounted to over 200 kilometres  per
day per car.
  The cars too were in a sad  state and most of them fit
for the "graveyard"  in  Paris. On March 4, one new car
and two overhauled ones came out from Paris, and two
days later, two  more arrived. That night  orders were
received at  eight o'clock to move to Vadelaincourt at
once.
  Heavy fighting was going on then between Hill 304 and
the Meuse and there was such a stream of wounded pour-
ing into Vadelaincourt that the hospital was  swamped.
There was no room at the chateau for the freshly operated-
upon men, so they were  taken at once to other hospitals
in the direction of  Bar-le-Duc and Revigny.  One French
sanitary Section and two British Sections had been doing
the work, but there  were too many wounded for these
outfits and Section Two was called upon to help.
  The majority  of our  cars arrived at the chateau by
10  o'clock, and after throwing  duffle-bags and blanket
rolls into  a  barn, the men set to work evacuating and
worked steadily at their task  for nearly three  days with
no sleep. The first night every car evacuated to Revigny
over the main Bar-le-Duc-Verdun  road, which  was a
continual  stretch of holes and ruts, so that no car could
go more than fifteen miles an  hour, due to the roughness
of the road and the dense traffic. After the first four days
the French Section and one of the British Sections left,
the whole work now falling to our Section Two and to
English Section Two. There was still plenty of it, but it
could be run more systematically.
                        233 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
                     At Camp
The Section slept in its cars, which were parked on the
side of the road near the hospital, and our kitchen was
established in one of the rooms of a farmhouse, very close
to a barn and a huge heap of manure. The dining-room,
which was a sort of  "lean-to" against the side  of  the
house,  was made of  blankets and canvas and not very
watertight. For three weeks we lived this way, and then,
during a spell of good weather, erected a tent (borrowed
from the head French military doctor, who wras  a very
good sort) in a lot across the road from the aviation field.
However, most of the Section by that time had found
sleeping-quarters in  two rat-infested  barns, everybody
however, taking the unpleasant life philosophically. One
of the barns was also occupied by the English Section, and
when one night it caught fire near the essence tanks, and
burned to the ground, several of the men had very narrow
escapes and five of the Americans lost  all their blankets.
   Night  work at a triage on the main Verdun road was
now being taken up every other night,  in addition to the
labor of evacuating  from Vadelaincourt, which  meant
long runs to Froidos, Chaumont, and sometimes Revigny,
all, however, interesting in their way.
  On April 8th, Frank Gailor ("Bishop") left us to the
regret of everybody. " Bish" was one of the most popular
men of the Section and told most interesting stories of
his work in Belgium  at the beginning  of the war, when
he was  a member of the  Relief  Committee.  What  his
"farewell party" lacked in elaborateness was made up
for in the sincere feelings of regret which each man felt.
  After eating in our "lean-to" by the manure heap for
three weeks, the same French doctor, already mentioned,
offered us, as our dining-room, the use of a spare tent
which was erected in  the field opposite  the aviation field.
The kitchen, too, was moved into a small tent which was
rigged up between two pine trees a few feet from the
dining-tent. A table in the form of a "T" was built, and
                        234 
SECTION TWO
 with the addition of a set of  shelves,  known as the
 "American  Bar," built in one  corner, everybody was
 satisfied with  our prandial arrangements.  "Bishop"
 Gailor's farewell  party, by  the  way,  occurred  in these
 new quarters,  and also took the  form of a  "house-
 warming," with  speeches by Emery  Pottle,  Graham,
 Harold Willis and one or two others.  A quintet formed
 with Pottle, Nolan, Graham, Willis, and Seccombe made
 its initial appearance on  this occasion, and  the  party
 broke up at a late hour with everybody more or less con-
 vinced that he was the next thing to a Caruso.
   For a few days thereafter the weather had been ideal,
 but a change for the worse took  place and the old tents
 had a hard time. There was no work to speak of and every-
 body spent the day "under canvas" around a small stove
 indulging in arguments on  any sort  of  subject,  while
 music  by Nolan and  Graham, on mandolin and guitar,
 caused the time to pass away agreeably. For three weeks
 we had nothing but rain, hail, and snow, and as the tent
 was pretty old, it leaked in many places. The field and
 side hill was a mass of slimy mud  six inches deep, and ten
 or twelve men were required to push every car into the
 road.
  The weather became better about  the first of  May,
 and as  the aviators became more active, we got better
 acquainted with Navarre,  Boillot, and Guynemer. This
 aviation field, by  the way, was one of  the largest on the
 whole front and had every type of  plane then used by
 the French.  Navarre was then flying a bright  red Nieu-
 port and never failed to give a thrilling exhibition when-
 ever he took the air.
  On Sunday, May 21, everybody attended an open-air
 funeral  service for the burial of three aviators, one of
 whom  was Boillot. An altar was erected between two
 trees and the service,  which was very impressive, was
 largely attended by artillery and aviation officers,  some
three hundred of whom followed the bodies to the ceme-
tery.
                        235 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
  The last of the month the fighting grew worse about
Fort de Vaux and  Fort  Douaumont and the Section
worked every night and most of the days at the triage.

     To Bar-le-Duc for Repos — Air Raids
The 31st found the Section moving to Bar-le-Duc, where
it was to be outfitted with new cars and where it was also
supposed to be en repos. But as we took the place of and
did the  work which an English section had been  doing,
this was far from being a rest, for during the twenty-
seven days there, an actual record of 10,500 men carried
was one of the things the men  pointed to with pride. It
meant that a man was on duty fifty-three hours at a
stretch,  sleeping at  one of  three places — wherever  he
was working — and then going off duty from 1 p.m. until
8.30 the next a.m.
                                           June 10
The second day in  town, the Boche planes raided Bar-
le-Duc  at 1  p.m. and the Section  saw some  exciting
work. There were many narrow escapes in driving round
picking  up the dead and wounded, Barclay l having the
closest call when a bomb exploded back of his car and
a huge piece went through  the body close to his head.
Twenty-four planes were counted in all, and 36 dead and
132 wounded were the results. On June 16 and 17, there
were two more raids, but they were not so severe  as the
first one.
  Our living quarters at Bar-le-Duc were in an old build-
ing built in 1575 and once a monastery, but now used to
quarter  troops in. The whole edifice was in the form of a
square with a large courtyard inside, where were always
every night a hundred or more poilus on their way to and
from the front. Towards the end of June was a change
of French officers, Lieutenant  Maas  being replaced  by
Lieutenant Rodocanachi, who became the most popular
commander the Section ever had.
 1 Leif Norman Barclay of New York City; killed in French Aviation, 1917.
                        236 
SECTION TWO
  At this period, many men used to have lunch with the
Lafayette Escadrille, which was stationed just outside of
town, where Victor Chapman was killed on the 23d, and
Balsley badly hurt a few days before. Walter Lovell left
on June 19 to enter the training school of aviation. He
had made a fine  Chef de Section and everybody hated to
see him go. Oliver Wolcott was made Chef, but was re-
called to the States when the  Mexican trouble started,
and so filled the  post only a week.

            Back to Petit-Monthairon
June 27 the Section moved back to  Petit-Monthairon,
where it did evacuation  work until  September 2, and
where we  had  a  small  house with  sleeping-quarters,
dining-room  and kitchen,  officers' rooms  and  bureau
which were fairly comfortable. There was not much work
to do at this moment so several ball games were played
with Section Eight and a Norton Section, all of which we
lost, with one exception, but which furnished good fun and
exercise. Several more new cars and men joined the Sec-
tion there, J. M. Walker, our new Chef,  being among them.
  Sections  One and Eight were  in Dugny  part of this
time and a certain amount of visiting was done by all the
Sections, Section Four, stationed  at Ippecourt, sending a
few men over to us from time to time. There were big
parties on the night of July 4th and again on July 14.
Then, too, Powel received a  cardboard  Victrola with
records and gave evening concerts in the "loft,"  while
we had good swimming in the  Meuse along with plenty
of mosquitoes. On July 29 we received a Hotchkiss work-
shop car and a new staff car.
  On August 6,  Mrs. Vanderbilt, who presented each of
us with a box of cigarettes, visited the Section for lunch
along with Mr. Andrew: everybody was "all dolled up"
after spending the whole morning in brushing, polishing,
and  prinking in general. On September  2, the Section
moved to Rampont and took over the postes at Esnes, and
Hills 232 and 272, which Section Four had been working,
                        237 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
Section Four taking over the postes between 2^2 and the
Meuse. Five cars  were on duty  every night, receiving
orders at the telephone station at Jouy, three of the cars
going to Hill 272 and the others to Esnes or Hill 232.  For
about ten days the poste in Esnes was the same old ruined
chateau which Section Four had used, when a new poste
was established on the outskirts of the town on the road
to Bethincourt, where the cars had to run quite a bit
farther through the centre of the town over a road full of
shell-holes and wreckage off the buildings.
  In September the French, in an effort  to straighten
their  line made an  attack on the Mort Homme. The
artillery barrage started at 5 p.m., and an hour later the
infantry  "went over." The whole Section  had been
ordered to Jouy at 6 p.m. and at 7 p.m.  the first call came
for cars at Hill 272. Shortly after, the rest of the cars were
called and we all worked until daybreak carrying in over
250 wounded.
                      Edward Nicholas Seccombe1
  1 Of Derby, Connecticut; served six months in S.S.U. Two in 1916; re-
joined the Service in November, 1917, and remained in the U.S.A. Am-
bulance Service during the war.
 
THE COURTYARD OF THE ESNES CHATEAU 
 
VII
                   At a Hospital
                          Petit-Monthairon, August 9, 1916
We are quartered in one  of the farmhouses belonging to
a chateau, which is now a hospital. You remember, no
doubt, the  French farmhouses — a blank wall on the
roadside with only an entrance to the courtyard; a dark
kitchen, a few bedrooms  and a loft,  with a few sheds out
back. The loft is  divided into two parts.  We sleep in
one of them on stretchers propped up from the floor by
boxes or our little army  trunks. Some of the boys don't
prop up  their stretchers, but I find it better to elevate
mine, as the rats run all over the floor and incidentally
over you if your stretcher rests on the floor. The fleas
seem more numerous near the floor, and there are spiders,
too.  I've been pretty well "bit up."  But yesterday I
soaked my blankets in petrol and hung them on the line
in the courtyard for an  airing, so I think I've left the
vermin behind. I also sprayed my clothes,  especially my
underwear,  with petrol,  which does n't make much for
comfort,  except in so far  as the animals are baffled. Flies
and mosquitoes are abundant, too. We all have mosquito
nets which we put over our heads in the evening, mak-
ing us all look like the proverbial huckleberry pie on the
railroad restaurant counter. The poilus around  us  have
adopted  our methods, and you see  them  sitting about
looking in the distance for all the world like Arabs. We
are better off than the other  Sections, though, for our
house is very commodious, and near by we have a river
to swim in every day. So it is no effort to bathe.
  We carry the wounded from the chateau to the trains.
Some trips are about seventeen kilometres one way, and
others are  more. As the roads are  well used, they are
rather bumpy; so you have to go very slowly. You can't
                        239 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
dash at full speed with wounded. It is slow work, for, in
addition to the necessity of making the trip as easy as
possible for the blesses, you  have to dodge in and out
among the transports, which usually fill up the roads.
There is  a steady stream going and coming — horses,
mules,  and auto-trucks.
  I never saw so many — thousands of each kind. Then
there is no lagging or loafing; you blow your whistle and
the driver of what is ahead of you gives you six inches of
road, you squeeze through and take a  chance that the
nigh mule on the team coming the other  way does n't
kick. You well know how dusty the roads are.  But we
have to drive  right ahead regardless of it; so you can
imagine what  sights we are  when  we get  back to our
farmhouse — scarecrows, each one. The  dust is powdery
and comes off easily, however, so one can get comfortable
in a short time.
  The  blesses are a quiet lot, especially after you give
them cigarettes.  I  always pass around the  cigarettes
before starting, for then I 'm sure those en arriere will be
still. Every now and then you have a "humming-bird,"
that is, a blesse who is so hurt that the least  jar pains him
and he moans  or yells. You can't help him any, so you
just have to put up with it. However, I don't like "hum-
ming-birds," for you feel, when you are carrying them,
that you hit more bumps than you  really do.

       The Poilu's Amateur Theatricals
I went the other day to a show in Trayon where some of
the troops are en repos. It was wonderful, for there, right
within range of the Boche guns, the French soldiers were
giving  one of the best musical performances I  have ever
seen. Among the performers — men who  only a little
while before had been in the trenches — were professional
musicians, singers, and actors.  It was not amateurish at
all; in  fact, it  was highly professional. The theatre was
fitted up more or less like the stage at the Hasty Pudding
Club of Harvard. There  was an amateurish  back-drop,
                        240 
SECTION TWO
however; but everything else savored of the real Parisian
touch. Among the audience were generals, colonels, under-
officers, poilus, and five of us. We were invited, inasmuch
as we had lent some of our uniforms for the actors. I saw
my cap walk out on the stage on a fellow with a little
head, so it did n't even rest on his ears, but rather on his
nose. The soldiers who could not get in thronged the
courtyard and cheered after every song or orchestra piece.
The orchestra was made up of everything in a city orches-
tra, including a leader with a  baton. You see each regi-
ment is bound to have  professional men in  it and they
get up these shows. On the whole, it was one of the most
impressive sights I've seen, and on top  of  it all, there
was a continuous firing in the  near distance. Imagine it,
if you can!
  We have a cook and a servant, — one of the poilus who
is quartered here, too, and who earns a few  sous on the
side by serving  us, — also a  French lieutenant who  is
really the head of the Section,  a marechal des logis, and a
few other French retainers. They sleep in the same loft
with us, and every night they chatter very late, kid each
other about the fish they caught or did not catch in the
river during the day, laugh and giggle at each other just
like children. They are awfully amusing. By  the way, all
the poilus who are en repos fish,  although there are only
minnows in the streams about here. To-day I asked  sev-
eral how many they caught, and they said they were only
fishing to  pass the time. It seems to be a great diversion,
for they all do it. Besides fishing the poilus en repos trap
foxes, hedgehogs, rabbits, and other animals and then
train them. Over across the road in one of the courtyards
are two of the cutest little foxes  I have ever  seen, which
play around and are  just like little collies until we show
up, when  they scamper off and get behind  a box or a
stove and blink at us. We tried to buy one of them, but
the owners are too fond of them to let them  go.
  They all bathe, too, every day — the poilus. We go in
with them, the mules, and the  horses. Probably some-
                         241 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
where else in the same river the Boches are bathing. Such
is life. We are extremely lucky to get a chance to wash at
all and I 'm afraid when we move from here — for wre
shall soon be moved to poste duty — we shan't have the
comforts we are now enjoying.
  I '11 write again soon, but  now I 'm going to bed, —
that is, roll up in my blankets on  my stretcher, for there
is an early call for to-morrow morning, which means get-
ting your machines over to the chateau at six o'clock, all
ready for the day's work. It's great fun and I am awfully
glad to be here. Moreover, there is a satisfaction in know-
ing that you are helping and that the French are very
appreciative, from the poilu up to the highest officers.
                              Charles Baird, Jr.1

 1 Of New York; Harvard, 'n; served in both Sections Two and Three;
the above extracts are from letters.
 
VIII
              In and Around Verdun
                           Petit-Monthairon, July 23, 1916
Here we are in this quiet little French village. We move
something over a hundred sick and wounded men a day
from one hospital to another,  or to the hospital trains
that take them out of the military zone. I don't find the
occupation trying. The men we carry have had hospital
treatment and most  of them are not in extreme pain; a
fact that makes it easier for the drivers when the road
is rough, as it generally is. The road service, however, is
really excellent. Gangs of men  are breaking stones all the
time and steam-rollers crushing the stones into  smooth
hard highways. But  the traffic is so enormous that it's
only a week  or two  before the road is worn into  little
ridges, much  like the waves in Florentine paintings.
  The dust makes an added complication in driving. A
convoy of camions raises a cloud of dust through which you
can't see for  five minutes after they have passed.  This
slows us up, for it makes it dangerous to cut around slow-
moving vehicles. Even on your own side of the road you
are n't entirely safe. To-day I was running  along when
out of  the dust, perhaps twenty feet in front of me, I saw
the radiator of a truck. Legally,  I would have been justified
in keeping on; but he was shut in by a forage convoy; so
I did n't stay to argue the matter, but took to the fields,
blessing the lightness of my car which made it possible
for  me to negotiate a pile of road material and  a culti-
vated field.
  I am getting quite blase to  the sights of the road, —
paying little  attention to ammunition trains or  soldiers
on the march;  but I still slow down when an aeroplane
rises near  me or  when  a fair-sized bunch  of German
prisoners go by.
                        243 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
                                      September, 1916
Went up to my poste de secours with my orderly. It was
a mean night, gray and dark. We started early so as to
get a little twilight and ran about a mile. Then I heard
the w^histle of a punctured tire. By the time we had that
fixed it wras  really dark. Nevertheless we went the next
mile to the central poste (Jouy) without trouble. Here we
waited.
  It is a dull place — a little tiny village,  headquarters
for our division; after  eight-thirty, no lights allowed in
the streets or showing from the windows. One of our cars
is always there on piquet duty. The two drivers of this car
were playing checkers inside their ambulance by candle
light. We watched them for awhile, then we went into
the poste,  which  is merely a recording and telephone
centre. The sergeant on duty sat at a desk reading a
French novel.  Another man was at one end of a bench
with "Alice in Wonderland." He did n't do it from choice,
he explained, but because he could n't find any other book
in camp  which he did n't know through and  through.
I sat on the  other end of the bench and did exercises in
French subjunctives.
  A little after midnight a 'phone call for a car  at Esnes
came in. We were rather hoping it would n't, for it had
begun to rain very hard outside, and it was impossible
to see your  hand before your face.  However,  we went
out and got started.  It wasn't so terribly hard,  though
our eyes ached from the strain  of  constantly trying to
see what wTe could n't possibly see. But we got along
up the hill and along the level,  passing innumerable ar-
tillery teams.  It was hard to make out the road here
and I was glad when I saw a gleam of light ahead and
heard the clink of harness.  I  thought it was a driver
lighting his pipe and steered for the light. In  a minute my
companion  yelled and jumped;  and  my  right  wheel
dropped down. I  had run over a wall at the side of the
road and my front axle was resting on the ground and
the whole car was so  canted that  there seemed every
                        244 
SECTION TWO
chance of its toppling over at any moment. On investi-
gation I found that the light I had seen was by the edge
of an artillery caisson which had gone all the way down
the bank!
  We could n't do much by ourselves, but some teamsters
came along  and joined us heartily as  French soldiers
always do. We were really too few for the job, but we
lifted with all our might and actually did get the car back
in the road again. So we once more drove on in the rain,
creeping ahead at low speed/however.  I remembered the
road pretty well from the night before, and finally pulled
into our poste (Esnes). Luckily our wounded weren't so
badly off and were able to sit up. We started back, passing
long lines of soldiers returning from the trenches, who
were very spooky in  the black. But a minute or so later
my right wheel dropped into a shell-hole where a big obus
had just exploded. I was glad there were plenty of soldiers
at hand. All  of these who could find fingerhold lifted and
the car pulled out. It seemed incredible but nothing was
broken.
  We got along  slowly  after that without accident.
About two miles from the Poste Central it began to rain
torrents and we could see nothing. It took real resolution
to push on. I 've seldom been so relieved over anything as
when we made out dimly the houses of the village. From
there on to the sorting hospital (Claires Chesnes) we could
use lights and my one flickering gas burner seemed fairly
to blaze. It had taken us three hours to do twenty miles.

                                    Fromereville, October
I went up and got three men with no more trouble than
dropping both rear wheels in a shell-hole as I  turned
around; but I got some poilus to  push me out and re-
turned to headquarters about 2 a.m. However, I had n't
much more than gone to sleep before there was a 'phone
call for Marre, which is a long way over dark and lonely
roads. I  wallowed through a number of shallow shell-
holes, turning over one spring-hanger thus pushing the
                        245 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
body against one wheel and creating a contact brake,
bad for the tire. Leaving the poste I dropped two wheels
into a shell-hole and had to get my blesses out and have
them help push. About halfway to the poste I ran out of
gas. I put in a gallon from my reserve, and when I had
got it in, found from the smell that it was kerosene. We
were not far from a French battery  and the road wras
fairly pock-marked with shell-holes;  so, although there
were no shells coming in at the time,  I thought it better
not to stay there, and ran on on  the kerosene. You can
do it  on low speed,  apparently.  I got down to head-
quarters absolutely dead tired.  Now I am  home again
also dead tired.

                                              Later
I've seen any number of  regiments  on the march and
never yet heard the men singing  or the bands playing.
In Paris this may seem a little cold and uninterested, but
here where the real work is done it is wonderfully impres-
sive — suggestive of endless determination  and  reserve
strength. Now, determination and reserve strength with-
out hysteria is  just what  France is showing.  I  am the
more struck with this because severe fighting is going on
close to  us and I have been in the midst of the wounded
coming  into the big evacuation  hospital. There were n't
enough ambulances to go around and  great crowds, writh
bloody bandaged heads and arms,  came in the big motor
trucks that carry the soldiers up to the line. All last night
I saw them coming in, grim and suffering  and  uncom-
plaining. It was one of the great uplifting experiences of
my life.  I have seen nothing to match it for sheer courage,
moral as well as physical.  There is n't the rawest, most
provincial driver in our work who has n't expressed the
most unqualified admiration for the French  poilus.  Cer-
tainly, as I looked at  them last night, they  seemed
to me sane, entirely  sane men, terribly brave and un-
beatable.
  The rumors are  that the victory was impressive and
                        246 
SECTION TWO
that Fort Douaumont is ours again. It's a fine achieve-
ment if true; but that  seems less important to me now
than  the spirit  I've seen.  Out  here at the  front one
does n't worry about the French Army.
                                    John R. Fisher1
  1 Of Arlington, Vermont; Columbia; entered the Service in May, 1916,
and a year later was put in charge of the organizing of the Field Service
Training Camp at May-en-Multien. Later Mr. Fisher became Captain in
the U.S.A. Ambulance Service.
 
IX
    The Last Days of the Battle of Verdun
                     Rampont (near Verdun), October 6, 1916
We are located here in the woods, overlooking Rampont,
between Sainte-Menehould and Verdun, near Nixeville,
and about twrelve miles from Le Mort Homme, Hill 304
and Hill 272. Already I have had some wonderful experi-
ences during these three weeks at Verdun. During the
attack a fortnight ago, we certainly had a time of it. In
addition, the loss of Kelley and the injuries to Sanders, of
Section Four, over at their poste at Marre, was a terrible
tragedy to us.  Both boys I knew and talked with only a
few days before the affair happened.
  The attack  lasted  three nights,  and we  had  many
interesting adventures. The main stunt is to keep on the
road. Out of eighteen cars, four were "in bad"; either their
drivers tried to climb trees or walls, or else supply wagons
with excited drivers kept to the middle of the road, and,
of course, side-swiped the little Ford into a ditch. Sec-
combe and  Struby  managed to ditch their cars nicely.
Iselin had a most wonderful "stunt" with  his. After
climbing an  embankment, it fell over on  its side, all four
wheels in the air; but to our amazement, it "chugged"
off nicely when righted by a dozen husky poilus,  always
ready to  help  Americans. Well, I had a little difficulty
myself finding the road, as I had made  previously only
one trip up to 272, which is about twelve miles; and with-
out lights on the dark highways, with much traffic going
up and returning, it is sometimes by pure luck that a
fellow gets by.
  Many drivers as well as their horses get excited, and
when passing  "Dead-Man's Turn" and "Shell-Hole-
Hollow"  everybody has steam up. In  addition, when
half the route has been gone over, the batteries are at our
rear, so that, with the racket from the trucks, the roar of
                        248 



MARRE —THE CORNER WHERE KELLEY WAS KILLED  AND SANDKI^
                   WOCNDEI) IN SEPTEMBER  OF 1916
THE STONE ABRI AT MARKE, 1917 
 
SECTION TWO
 the  guns,  and the whistling of the shells through the
 heavens, it certainly does seem as though hell were let
 loose. Then, too, the landscape all about us is so desolate!
 Montzeville and Esnes are terribly shot up — trees cut
 down, not a house standing complete, and debris filling
 the  streets; so that in a general state of depression our
 thoughts continually rest on our tires, expecting at any
 moment a blow-out, which means a half-hour's job in the
 "God-forsaken burg," as we call it.
   I  have had an interesting "twenty-four hours'" serv-
 ice,  which proved to  be  thirty-six hours, during these
 few  days that our division has been en repos. We were
 kept on the go, each making 300 kilometres. Our two cars
 made several trips to the many surrounding towns be-
 tween here and Vaubecourt, Revigny,  and Bar-le-Duc.
 Back here far behind the lines, it is quite a pleasure to be
 able to drive at night with lights. Revigny, by the way,
 is approached via the Argonne — a picturesque country
 it is still, though there are the many destroyed  villages
 and  towns, and farms dotted with graves of the fallen
 heroes of the Marne.
   The other night it was raining  in  torrents when I
 struck Bar at 1 a.m., with one malade, a victim of a mad
 dog's bite. Much to my surprise the entree pour malades
 was  apparently closed, so there was nothing for me to do
 but  climb up over the parapet, Jean Valjean style, and
 rouse the  sleepy brancardier, who hastily opened the
 porte, and then I made my get-away in the long trip back
 to Rampont, some fifty-five kilometres.
   It is  a  great life, full  of interesting happenings here
 with the soldiers; long trips,  including  many irregular
 and unexpected daily episodes; sometimes eating at camp,
 often at a field hospital kitchen; always finding a way out
 of a  tight fix, even though for a moment all looks black;
 while things are made all the better by the fact that we
 have some bully good fellows here, the spirit and the
work of the squad being such that it is a great satisfaction
to be a member thereof.
249 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
                                Neuilly, December 13, 1916
On October 23 last, during a bombardment in a French
village, Fromereville, I was hit in the leg by a fragment of
a shell which exploded a  few feet  in  front of my car.
Fortunately the car was  empty, as I had just returned
from a trip to the field hospital, and was turning about
to load up again at the poste de secours. Fortunately, too,
the eclat did not fracture the bone. Quickly stopping the
car, which was but a few minutes away from an abri
whither I managed to crawl, the doctors applied a band-
age, and a few minutes later I was on a stretcher. After-
wards  I was informed that two brancardiers were killed
and eight of us in the town wounded. Mine was the only
car on duty at the moment of the bombardment as my
comrade had left some time before on a call to a village
ten kilometres back. After three weeks at the small field
hospital, during which time the piece of shell was ex-
tracted,  I  was brought to our hospital,  the  American
Ambulance here at Neuilly, where I  am making  such
progress  that I am trusting to resume active service
with my Section at Verdun very soon, if by the will of
God I  am able.             William H.  C. Walker1

  1 Of Hingham, Massachusetts; enlisted in the Field Service, December,
1915; became a member of Section Two, at Pont-a-Mousson; wounded at
Verdun,  October, 1916; left the Field Service, August, 1917, and enlisted
in the Canadian Field Artillery; honorably discharged from the Canadian
Forces, December, 1917, in consequence of physical disability.
 
X
            Mud and Rats at Rampont

Until November 8, the Section continued to wallow in
the mud of Rampont, and it was "some mud." It clung
in great clots to our shoes, thence to our puttees, our
overcoats and to everything we possessed, including our-
selves. It was on this date that we packed up and moved
to Ville-sur-Cousances, where, for living quarters, we had
barracks, large  and airy; so airy in fact  that we soon
found  that our  beds were the only warm places. The
"General" clung to his tent which he pitched off to the
east in the windiest place he could find, and yet managed
to keep  himself  warmer than any one else in the outfit;
and five o'clock always brought a hungry crowd to his
tent-flap clamoring to be admitted for tea. These barracks
would  have been passable enough had we been the only
creatures present, but we were far from being alone in
our glory. Rats  were our rivals; rats of all sizes, small,
large, fat and thin.  They were present in ever-increasing
numbers, making our days doleful with discoveries of
half-eaten cakes of chocolate, biscuits, and cheeses, and
our nights hideous with an uproar that  sounded  like
Charlie Chaplin  in a tin-can factory. Olympic games were
their specialty, followed by social  dinners at the Ritz,
as Maclntyre's store of supplies might have been aptly
termed.
  Our postes remained the same, Marre and Hill 272. The
weather also remained the same, — rain, sleet, snow and
high winds. Roads were about the only thing that changed
and they grew  worse and worse.  Because of the bad
weather we had plenty of work to do, — ten cars on duty
regularly with extra cars on call and frequently the White
truck.  Under the circumstances, Diemer, the American
mechanic, and Saintot, the French mechanic, were kept
                        251 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
busy changing  broken rear axles, broken  rear springs,
broken front springs, broken radiators, bent mud-guards,
and all  other parts that came in contact with foreign
bodies on dark, rainy nights. The crowning achievement
of these mechanics  was the changing of an entire rear
axle at Marre,  in the pitch darkness of a rainy night,
without a single light to help them, as Marre was exactly
six hundred yards from the Boche lines and of course no
lights could be used.

Mort Homme — Glorieux — La Grange-aux-Bois
On December 28, the Boches "pulled off" an attack
on the Mort Homme which kept us fairly busy for one
night; but outside of that there was little to note  other
than the routine work, during which we were looked after
with infinite kindness by the non-commissioned officers
of the G.B.D., who, every morning at 3 a.m., at Marre,
shared with us drivers a five-course dinner, — and a very
welcome meal it was,  after a long night's work. At Fro-
mereville, whatever they had was ours  and we were as
members of a large family. These are things which none
of us will ever forget.
  On January 10 the Section moved for a short repos to
barracks at Glorieux, and had perhaps two or three calls
a day to camps where the different regiments of the divi-
sion were located; but the greater part of our time was
spent in Verdun walking about the city.
  On January 19,  1917, we again packed  up our  ever-
increasing  and never-decreasing baggage and  fled over
icy roads to La Grange-aux-Bois in the Argonne, where
we were allotted two  large rooms,'one good, the other
bad.
  The Section being divided at this time into two squads,
it  was quite obvious that one squad would inevitably
draw the poor room,  and as violent argument seemed
imminent, the "General" and Harry Iselin decided to
flip a coin for it. Much to our disgust, the "General,"
with true British nonchalance, lost the toss, and those of
                        252 
SECTION  TWO
us who were in his squad started out immediately to
locate other and better quarters. Most of us were success-
ful — Conquest, Struby, Heilbuth, and I getting palatial
chambers with  electric lights and a southern exposure.
Without boasting I should say that we had discovered
the Fifth Avenue of La Grange-aux-Bois. Maclntyre and
Wheeler contented themselves with what might possibly
be called Madison Avenue, while the "General," Bigelow
and MacLaughlan — and I make this statement with no
reservations of  any kind whatsoever — lived in a snug
little rat-infested attic on the Bowery.

              Work in the Argonne
From this time  on our life was an easy one. We had only
two main postes, one up in the woods, Sept Fontaines —
later changed to Chardon, the other in a beautiful valley
at the Abbaye  de Chalade. For the first few days we
worked another poste, Le Chalet, nearer the lines, but the
Germans as usual became most unpleasant and  nearly
"finished off" several of our cars  as well as several of
our drivers.
  As there was practically no work here,  it was decided
to  send cars there only on call from La  Chalade, with
the immediate  result that  there were no more close
"squeaks," — at least not  for  some  time.  The Boches
picked a quarrel with La Chalade and shelled the district
intermittently,  but beyond planting a few shells in the
buildings and peppering one car with eclats, succeeded in
doing no damage. During our five months' rest cure in
the Argonne, the only casualty suffered by the Section
occurred in the afternoon of April 25,  when Raymond
Whitney was bitten in an unmentionable part  of his
anatomy by a  large black  dog. This severe wound was
cauterized at the hospital amidst the cheers of the  assem-
bled drivers.
  As  the spring advanced, rumor as to our leaving the
Argonne followed rumor. First we were to  go to Saint-
Mihiel, then to the Champagne,  and  finally we were
                        253 
THE  AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
relieved by Section Nineteen, which arrived on May 25th
when we were put en repos to await further orders.

                                       John E. Boit1



  1 Of Brookline, Massachusetts; Harvard, '12; joined  Section Two in
May, 1916; became Sous-Chef; subsequently was a First Lieutenant, U.S.A.
Ambulance Service.
 
XI
               The Summer of 1917

From La Grange-aux-Bois we were ordered to Dombasle-
en-Argonne; and great was the rejoicing; for after five
months of inactivity and monotony, the prospect of active
service was a pleasant one. We reached Dombasle on June
25 without incident, and after turning out  Section Fif-
teen,  took up their quarters in a large building at the
edge of the town. They had fixed up the place to the nth
degree of comfort, with a shower-bath, garden, pavilion,
and in fact  all the modern conveniences. Hence it was
with a well-satisfied air and an anticipatory smile that
we settled down  in what seemed the best  quarters we
had ever had. Before Section Fifteen left, the members
assured us of "easy work" and a "quiet time enjoyed by
all," and left us to the working out of our own damnation.

             The ex-Village of Esnes
There is no use describing  the ex-village  of Esnes to
those members of the Field Service who have seen it;
and as a  corollary,  there is no use in describing it to
those members of the Service who have not seen it,  for
they have had  it described to them ad infinitum and ad
nauseam. Suffice it to say that Esnes was our poste and it
lay under the Cote  304 and in full view of the  Mort
Homme — and the seeing was fairly good in those  days.
We have  never yet  found  out whether our friends of
Section Fifteen were amusing themselves at  our expense
or not, about the prophesied "quiet time" which we were
to have there. Anyway, shortly after our arrival we found
ourselves in  the midst of one of the nicest little parties
ever given on the Verdun front, and there are those who
claim that they have seen "some parties" on said front.
It seems that the Boches had been meditating the pro-
                        255 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
spective taking-back of various portions of Cote  304
which they had lost previously and elected June 29 as
the most propitious time to try to do so. Whatever faults
the Boche may or may  not have, and we do not claim
that he is without them, one of them was not to let things
stagnate on the Verdun front. So for the next three days
we had ten cars continuously on duty, and what is more,
they were running continuously.
   This at the front. Meanwhile, events at the rear were
not entirely devoid of interest. The Section, or rather the
part of it which was not up  at the poste  was at supper
when something suspiciously like  an arrivee was heard
in the immediate vicinity. The "older" men looked at
one another, the rookies looked at the "General,"1 who
went on with his soup.  A second came in,  still closer;
then a third which knocked the plaster from the ceiling,
a generous piece of which fell in the  "General's" soup.
He rose, calmly looked round and muttered, "Well,  I'll
be damned," — and left  those parts. He did n't run, for
that would have been undignified, but he simply left —
and he was n't the last to reach the shelter of a neighbor-
ing and friendly haystack some hundred yards  off  out
in the open.
  We moved camp that  night with never a sigh for  our
late  palatial and very unhealthy  quarters. What with
Boche attacks and  French counter-attacks,  we found
little time  to do anything but eat, sleep, and work, and
for the entire period from June 29 until July 18, when our
Division,  the 73d,  finally  ended that particular chap-
ter of Verdun history   by making one  big and very
successful  attack,  retaking all the ground  which had
been  lost and  taking many  prisoners, the Section  did
all the evacuations for  these several attacks and won
for itself a Divisional Citation — the second from this
Division.

  1 Francis D. Ogilvie, a Britisher, of Lindfield, Sussex, who was Sous-
Chef and later Chef of the Section, and who, when the United States
entered the war, transferred to the British Ambulance Service.
                         256 
SECTION TWO
          The Death of Harmon Craig
For us, the most tragic part of the whole summer came
on July 15, when Harmon Craig was killed at Dombasle.
After having gone over some of the worst stretches of
road in the whole sector for three weeks with a smile on
his face and a jest on his lips, he was wounded at his poste,
by the side of his car while it was being loaded, and died
six hours later as bravely as he had lived. He was buried
in the cemetery back of Ville-sur-Cousances, and as he
was laid to rest, the guns behind Montzeville, roaring out
a last farewell, sped the 73d over the top to avenge him.

     A Peaceful Repos at Ligny-en-Barrois
Ox July 23 we received our orders to leave, and with as
much joy as we had arrived a month before, we packed
up, and after  a last visit to Craig's grave, set out for
Nancois-le-Grand,  a village of several hundred inhabi-
tants seven kilometres from Ligny-en-Barrois, where we
arrived, after a dusty run of several hours.
  The quiet  of the  little town  was as grateful  to our
nerves as the beauty of the surrounding country to our
eyes, accustomed to desolation.  After a month of hard
work,  it was good to lie  in our cars, for we lived in our
cars, which were drawn up in a field, happy in the assur-
ance that five or ten of us would n't have to hurry up to
the front  and after thinking  great calm thoughts, serve
the best interests of the country by drifting off to sleep,
not to awaken until 10.30 the next morning. It was good
to lie under the trees and meditate, or simply to lie under
the trees. It  was good to stroll  in the dusk and finally
wind up a perfect  day with a perfect omelette. In short,
it was Paradise!
  Then after a week of this pastoral life, as the charms
of the succulent omelette gave way to those of the fra-
grant grape,  wine and wassail became the order of the
day. Who can adequately describe the farewell parties of
Walker, or do justice to the entertaining which Whitney
                        257 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
furnished on that occasion? Who can describe the fare-
well parties of Whitney and Whytlaw and the eloquent
farewell speeches, made on these occasions, or the still
more eloquent responses  by  Maclntyre, that  "prince
of bon vivants" ? What pen could picture  the joys of
whympus hunts,  commenced precisely at 12.01 p.m.; of
crap games commencing at reveille (10.30 a.m.) and lasting
until taps (12.30 a.m.) ; of swimming parties in the canal,
which invariably ended at the Cafe de la Meuse at Tron-
ville? Who can declare our elation at the decoration of
Whitney,  Ames,  and the  "Mec," a condition of affairs
which  naturally called for another party? And  finally,
how can we relate how deeply our hearts were touched
when we found that our cars had been decorated  by the
girls of the village as the short weeks of repos came to a
close on August 16?
  We left for Sommaisne that day, and I think we may
say with truth that our departure was regretted  by the
entire village; certainly we regretted departing, and look
back on those five short weeks as on a pleasant dream of
golden sunshine, green hills, and France in summertime.
We remained at  Sommaisne three days, after which we
followed our new  Division, the 48th, to Souhesme.
                          Henry D. M. Sherrerd1
  1 Of Haddonfield, New Jersey; Princeton, '17; enlisted in the Field Service
in May, 1917; served in the U.S.A. Ambulance Service until the end of
the war.
 
XII
                 In Line at Verdun
                  Ville-sur-Cousances, Thursday, June 28, 1917
 We were now brought face to face with the reality of the
 coming offensive, and began to appreciate on what  an
 enormous and terrifying scale a modern attack is carried
 out. As soon as we reached the main road we came upon
 an endless line of camions all rumbling along in the dark-
 ness, each filled with infantry to its uttermost capacity,
 the men  being jammed in like cattle.  There were also
 guns, huge guns such as I have never seen in the Argonne.
 For three hours we kept passing this solemn parade of
 men and  cannon. At each cross-road were stationed offi-
 cers and  sentinels with shrouded lanterns who directed
 and urged on the procession. Most of the men were riding
 in silence, many even managing to sleep in their awkward
 positions; but  occasionally we passed  a camion whose
 crew was chanting some weird song of war or love. I am
 told that  this concentration of men has been going on for
 many days. Here at Cousances the whole atmosphere is
 impregnated with the vague imminence of an approach-
 ing offensive.
   This region is totally different from the Argonne where
 we were before. The country is barren and deserted and
 the fields  of stubble stretch for miles along the white and
 dusty roads. The sun is burning everything and the thick
 white alkali dust gives all objects a gray and withered
 appearance. We no longer see the beautiful rich green
 of the Argonne vegetation. Everything seems baked and
 dead. Every three or four miles one comes upon  a small
 ruined village, now deserted. The whole region has been
 blasted by shells; nowhere does the country fail to re-
 mind one  of the terrible struggle that  has been going on
for so long in this sector. Cousances, itself nothing but a
                        259 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
group of wrecked houses, is quite close to the front, and
there is certainly much more activity here than in our
former sector.
  Putting it literally, this Section was baptized in fire as
soon as it reached here,  for to-night  about eight-thirty
a despatch-rider came  tearing up to the bureau on his
motor-cycle and said that the Boches were attacking at
Hill  304. So  instantly  we began to hustle around and
prepare for heavy work.
  Harper and I were  the  first  to leave,  he being the
driver and myself orderly. As we passed out of Cousances
we saw several artillery field pieces hurrying up the road
toward the first lines, and later passed two battalions of
the 346th drawn up by the roadside and ready to be sent
ahead. A heavy  rain was falling  and frequent flashes of
lightning lit up the country; but the night was not very
dark and we had little difficulty  in keeping on the road,
which is well screened all the way. But of course we could
not use any lights. French batteries on both sides of us
were firing steadily,  and the whistle of the departing
shells was incessant; but we heard no Boche shells coming
in. At the poste we found the Lieutenant hurriedly giving
directions to the fellows, and heard that the French were
to counter-attack at daybreak.

                  Hell's Corner
No blesses had come in as yet but many were expected.
Before  long  Whytlaw came down  with a  load  and
Harper and I started up to relieve him. I had heard a lot
about the danger  of this poste,  and  in no detail was it
exaggerated. The road is covered with  stones which have
been hurriedly thrown into shell-holes, and  there were
also  many new holes which had not been filled in. For
over a mile after making "Hell's  Corner" we are in plain
sight of the Boche trenches. We  can see their star shells
start from the ground,  and it seems as if they exploded
directly over our heads. The road is being shelled all the
time but one  can never go fast on account of the danger
                        260 
PANEL FROM AN AMBILANCE SHOWINO  THE FAMOUS
       CRESCENT OF THE MOROCCAN DIVISION
            WHICH SECTION TWO SERVED 
 
SECTION TWO
of these shell-holes. We passed trucks, and some squads
of infantry which were difficult to see in the darkness. By
this time the din of the cannonading was terrific and the
bursting of the Boche shells occurred at no very comfort-
able distance.
  The road grew worse and worse, and finally it became
almost impassable.  I doubt if any car but a Ford could
ever make that trip at night. I  did n't go sightseeing at
all, but having reached our destination,  made  a fairly
straight  line toward the  abri,  where we learned that
Bixby's car had just been smashed by a shell while stand-
ing in the yard and would be useless for the rest of the
night.  We were  also  told that  the  Boches had just
dropped  in some gas bombs, and we were ordered to be
sure that our masks were in  readiness.  Ray and I, the
first to go back after having a brief  smoke in the shelter
of the abri, carried an assis and two couches. We breathed
a lot more easily after once gaining "Hell's Corner," and
accomplished the rest of the trip without  mishap. It was
after two when we got back here. But as a counter-attack
was expected we had to await word and be ready to start
out again any minute. So both of us simply crawled into
our car and managed to fall asleep very easily. We slept
soundly until the Lieutenant  woke us and told  us to go
to bed as we probably  should n't be needed.

          Heavy Work during an Attack
                                       Sunday, July I
It is now three days since the attack commenced and it
appears to be still going on. There are Boche attacks and
then French counter-attacks, then artillery duels, and
then more attacks. As close  as we are to the lines,  we
know very little of what happens, or who is winning. The
losses have been terrible on both sides, but this does not
mean that the attacks  have failed. Our Section has been
working  at a terrific pace. I am so tired that the events
of the past few days seem all confused and even unreal.
It is such a wonderful  relief to be sitting way back here
                         261 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
in perfect safety and with no responsibilities that I feel
as if I had just recovered from a long sickness. I  slept
quite late Friday after the hard work of the night before,
and after rising had little to do for the rest  of the day;
both sides had ceased activities for the time, and  we
heard but little firing until evening.  But we were warned
to be prepared for a large dose at night, as the French
were scheduled to  attempt a rush on  their lost  posi-
tions.
  About 6.30, just after the dinner gong had rung and as I
was leaving my room, there was suddenly a "swish-bang"
and a big shell exploded on the opposite side  of the road,
about fifty yards from our headquarters. Of course I
flopped  on the ground as soon as  I heard the warning
whistle, and then rising, proceeded with more or less un-
dignified hustle for the abri  under our main building.
Everybody else thought of the very same place and joined
in the general stampede. In about three minutes another
came in and we could hear the falats flying about outside
and clipping pieces  of stone off the houses.  After a few
more shells the Boches let up on us for awhile and we
went upstairs and began dinner. But we had n't finished
our soup before they started dropping again, the first one
so startling us that  we spilled more or less soup around
the room. We continued eating, however, until suddenly
there was a terrific explosion followed  by  a  horrible
crunching sound of falling bricks  and plaster. A  shell
larger than  the others had struck  the house, or what
remained of the house, directly opposite our building. It
would have been foolish for us to remain where we were,
because our building,  already tottering from the effects
of many shellings, might bury us alive if one  of those big
marmites ever landed squarely on it. The abri was also
a dangerous place, being very poorly made and liable to
cave in upon  us. The safest place, therefore, was out
doors; so we all streaked for  a field which was well  re-
moved from all the crumbling foundations which made
up this  village and  which are ready to fall almost  from
                        262 
SECTION TWO
the mere concussion of a large shell. We gathered behind
a large haystack where already several  others had col-
lected, and waited. The shells came in regularly,  every
once in a while striking some building and reducing it to
still further ruin. One landed about thirty yards from the
big tent where twenty of us sleep and we later found over
a dozen rips in the canvas, some big enough to admit one's
body. No shells  came near enough, however,  to do any
damage; but at every explosion  one had to  lie flat in
order to avoid the flying eclats.
  At seven-fifteen, the time set  for those on  duty to
start for the poste, the shells were  coming in about every
minute. So there was nothing to do but to  streak for
our cars which were in front of the main building, near
which the majority of the shells were  landing, and to
make as quick a get-away as possible.  The "General"
and Reed left first and the last  we saw of them they
were hurrying very ungracefully over the rough field to
where the cars were, about 250 yards away. The Lieuten-
ant then told Newcomb and myself to get ready and to
leave as soon as the next shell landed. So we lined up as
if we were runners waiting for the sound of the starting
pistol, and, as soon as the "R-R-ang" came, in we legged
it. One shell came in while we were running and we both
went down on our bellies. We gained the house before
the next one landed and then waited for it. It  came in
too close for comfort  and then I  went out  and  cranked
my car while Newcomb ran  back to his shack for his
coat.
  Just as I got the motor started I received  one of the
biggest scares of my life. A shell  came  in and burst so
close that I thought surely it  had  me. I was just getting
into the car and so could not flop.  I was hit by the flying
earth and falling stones thrown up by the shell, which
struck the car in several places,  one piece even strik-
ing and  glancing off  my  helmet. Newcomb, who then
appeared, looked surprised to see  me still alive; and be-
fore the next shell landed, we were well down the road
                         263 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
and  both joined in a long-drawn-out sigh of genuine
relief.
  The French attack had now fairly commenced and on
all sides of us the batteries were pounding away. Not for
a moment did the screeching of shells and the roaring of
guns cease. At one point John Ames and I clambered up
on a ruined house and took a  look over the country. It
was a view I shall never forget.  Our task is comparatively
small, and we are prepared to do it faithfully. Nine cars
are lined up ready to cover the attack,  and the drivers
and  their orderlies stand  waiting orders.  The Lieuten-
ant is here  directing  us and  planning  the shifts  and
reliefs.
  The road which we have to go over is the most damnable
stretch I have ever known. As  fast as the old shell-holes
are filled in with stones, new ones are made. As we drive
along in the darkness, straining our eyes to keep the car
out of holes and ditches, the noise of the French batteries
and German shells is deafening. Far down the road we see
a flash followed by a roar.  It is German shrapnel and we
crouch instinctively in our seats as we realize that in
another minute we shall be passing over that spot. In
back of us is an explosion and flying rocks and earth are
scattered  about the slowly moving car.  We  can't go
faster because of  the  condition of  the  road,  although
instinct cries out to us to  open the  throttle and streak
for our destination.  We  plod slowly along, trying to
talk unconcernedly and longing for the  termination
of the ride.
  We pass through the town and enter the driveway of a
fallen chateau, the cellar of which is now used for a poste
de secours. This driveway  is about fifty yards long. To
look at it one would say it was impassable, but over those
rocks and stones and through the shell-holes we go. This
is the most dangerous  place of all, and so often do the
shells fall that no one ever ventures out to repair the road.
We have to slow down practically to a standstill, and crawl
and bump our way along. How I hate the  sight of this
                        264 
SECTION  TWO
 place.  It  is all so cruel and  relentless — the wrecked
 houses, the torn-up roads, and  the huge shell-holes, some
 of the older ones half filled with stagnant water. Here
 and there a wagon which has been struck sprawled by
 the roadside. It is a scene of sickening desolation.
  I  made  the first  trip to  Esnes with  Newcomb  as
 orderly. It had not yet grown dark, so we easily passed
 by  the shell-holes. When we reached  Esnes we had  to
 take our gas-masks from their cases and wear them about
 our necks, ready to put them  on when passing through
 the gassed area. They served us well, and in less than two
 minutes we could remove  them and  breathe fresh air
 again,  but our eyes burned from the poisonous fumes. The
 odor of the stuff left us horribly depressed. It has a sicken-
 ingly sweet smell like that of over-ripe fruit and makes
 one's lungs feel as if some heavy weight had been imposed
 on them.

            The Day after  the Attack
 It is the day after an attack that our hardest work takes
 place. The wounded men are  brought in continuously and
 we have more than we can handle. In this instance, I had
 to stay on all day. I grew dizzy with the monotony of the
 work. Several of my wounded were  Boches and I found a
 little comfort in managing to get from them a steel hel-
 met and a couple of buttons as souvenirs. The attack was
 something of a failure and every one was  horribly low-
 spirited. Some of our blessSs were frightfully mangled.
 The dead  at the poste wrere so numerous that many were
 lying around the yard uncovered and  uncared-for. It is
 sights such as this that have a terribly depressing effect
upon one's morale.
  I thought I  could go back and rest at seven o'clock
after having worked  twenty-four  hours  without  any
sleep, with only a little cold canned meat to eat. I was
tired, and, moreover,  felt very low-spirited.  But word
came that another big attack was to be made that even-
ing, so I had to stay on and work. Some of the other
                        265 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
fellows who had been on duty much longer than myself
simply had to leave  and return for rest. At nine the
artillery duel commenced and it was worse even than the
firing of the previous evening. Some large naval  guns
opened up on the German positions and it seemed as if
the earth must split open so great was the shock of the
explosion. At eleven the Boches started shelling and we
all retired to the abris. The shells were big ones and the
eclats from them flew for almost  a  quarter of a mile.
Going up to  the lines under that bombardment was no
simple task. I managed to get an hour's sleep about four
in the morning, dozing off as I sat in the abri waiting for
my turn.
  About five I went up and upon returning saw a ter-
rible sight. A caisson or  artillery truck had been hit by
a shell about four o'clock and three men had been killed
and  one  wounded. Of the  six horses, four were killed,
and  the other two untouched. This  happened right on
our road over which we had been going back  and forth
all night. The dead men were terribly disfigured and pre-
sented a horrible sight. When I reached my destination
with  my  load  I found Whitney there asleep. He had
brought down a load and was so fatigued that he had
to have a short nap before returning to work. We both
decided  that we could not go on and so asked for men
to relieve us. There were  several fresh men just starting,
so we drove to the camp and both rolled in for a  long
sleep. I  had driven thirty-five hours  with three very
scanty meals of cold  canned meat and bread and less
than  two hours' sleep. When I got back,  my  brother
Jack reminded me that it was my birthday.

                                      Monday, July 2
Slept most of yesterday and feel greatly rested.  Am
scheduled to work to-night. At noon to-day  Whytlaw
came in. He says that the Boches are shelling every car
that goes by "Hell's Corner." Dresser's car was pierced,
just over his head, several times by eclats, but he was not
                        266 
SECTION TWO
touched. This morning when about eight shells dropped
in at once the aumonier was badly wounded, and my
brother took him to the hospital in a critical condition.
All the cars have had narrow escapes and have been hit
by flying earth and stone.

                   A Short Rest
                      Ville-sur-Cousances, Wednesday, July 4
It certainly is a relief to be back here again after twenty-
four hours in that hole. It is great to feel perfectly safe
all day long and never to hear an obus or smell any gas.
I was orderly this time and it was a terrible job. It is no
joke spending twenty-four hours in sight of Mort Homme.
Monday night the Boches shelled us, dropping in "210's"
every minute. A poilu was  wounded in front of our abri.
I was in the room when his wound was dressed. The air
outside was so thick with dust that had been kicked up
that we  could n't see the cars. I don't mind admitting
that my  knees were shaking when we got a call to go up.
I rode up with Reed and though only one shell came in on
the trip,  it was a big one and not too far away. I managed
to get  three hours' sleep although they were shelling all
around us. Four of us were cooped, two in a bed, in a little
black,  stuffy room in the cellar of the chateau.
  As you come around "Hell's Bend," you get an excel-
lent view of Mort Homme. It is a fearful place and one
can  always  see there the  smoke from  shells rising and
floating slowly away. There are  no trees, no houses, no
sign of any living thing on  that bare shell-racked stretch
of land. Several new holes  were  put in our road to-day,
but we had no really narrow escapes. The chateau where
the poste is  located  has  been hammered again and again
by shells. Most of its western wall is still standing, and
it is behind this meagre protection that we pull up and
leave our cars.  Only the cellar of the house can be used
and  very few ever venture out of the  court, where our
cars are, for more than a  minute. Not fifty yards  from
where we sleep is the morgue, a room where the dead are
                        267 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
placed when brought in from the trenches. Sometimes
when the losses have been great, the corpses are piled
one upon the other until the room is so full that many
dead are left on stretchers in the court. We certainly are
being continually impressed with  the most horrible side
of war.

                                       Monday, July
We are expecting a French attack within a few days; so
huge  guns go rumbling  toward the front. The attack
when it comes will be enormous.
  Resting again, and getting my  car in good condition.
My last period of work was very easy. I had only one trip,
which came about 3.30 a.m. On my last drive up, with
Ames as orderly, we played tag with a half-dozen shells,
one digging a big hole in the road five seconds after we
passed over the place. There is a great deal of activity on
Mort Homme and we could see shells landing continu-
ally, the black smoke rising slowly from the scarred hill-
side. Arrived at our destination, we ate beside the morgue,
and the odor was sickening. Moreover, the room is very
unprotected and often we  are  forced to interrupt our
eating long enough to drop when a shell lands somewhere
near.  But the bedroom is worse. In  a little dark hole
where the sun and fresh air never penetrate,  we are two
in a bed, one above the other, with loose straw for mat-
tresses.  The straw is damp  and "earthy" and is alive
with fleas. Everybody is beginning to be troubled by
fleas, even those who have been insisting that they were
never bothered by these pests now scratching and scratch-
ing with the best of us. This is where we sleep when a lull
gives  us a short repos;  but one can't sleep there, one
merely drops, if fortunate, into a spasmodic and feverish
sub-consciousness.  The inconvenience of resting two in
a bed combined with  the noise of the shells outside, make
complete rest an impossible luxury. I shall never forget
those moments as we lay there waiting for our next call.
Nor shall I forget some of the conversations we had,
                        268 
SECTION TWO
embracing  all possible topics,  but usually falling some-
where between the horrors of war and the pleasures that
we promised ourselves when it should be over.
  On the road last night three more men were killed and
eight wounded. Between ten o'clock and one the road was
shelled heavily because of the ravitaillement which goes
up to the lines at that time. Naturally this is the moment
when we least enjoy trips. Two more cars, my brother's
and  Freer's, were  hit by eclats last  night when a shell
burst in the courtyard.

           The Impedimenta of Attack
                                      Tuesday, July 10
Just as I got into bed last night I was  called out to go
for two blesses at  a distant town.  It was pouring  and
there was no moon; so the trip was not too pleasant, espe-
cially since the road was new to me. Boit had a narrow
escape  at the cross-road to-day. Everything is in a fever
of excitement here, for the attack is due to start to-night
or to-morrow morning. Over 4000 big guns are clustered
on this bank  of the Meuse  ready to drench the German
lines when the word comes.  The bombardment will prob-
ably start to-morrow and as I am going up to the poste
to-night I will be present at a wonderful and mighty spec-
tacle. The roads will be riddled by German shells. They
have been shelling all  around here to-day and shells
landed in the road this side of the place. Section Sixty-
Seven with the big Fiat trucks will carry the wounded on
portions of the way, thereby helping a great deal.

                                     Thursday, July 12
The attack has not yet begun, although the Lieutenant
said to-day that everything was in readiness. The recent
rain has  caused so much mud that assaulting the hill
would be a difficult job. I have been at the poste for twenty-
four hours, but there was very little work. I had two trips
during  the night which kept me from sleeping, but then
I had a good long rest,  not stirring from eight in the
                        269 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
morning until eight at night. There were many French
aeroplanes up directing the fire. A German spy was caught
in the lines this morning. He had a uniform of the 346th
Regiment which had been replaced by the present regi-
ment; so that he was quickly spotted. He will be shot
to-morrow. Did not get chummy with any shells except
once during  lunch, when five landed just outside our
eating-room. One was very close, exploding right in the
courtyard. But the earth was soft after all the rain and
the eclats did not spread.  However, we  all did the
"Kelleys" and finished our meal in the cellar. Last night
the Boches shelled our front line trenches. With "210's"
they pulverized the place. Fifty men and an officer were
buried when a shell closed up an abri, and as yet they
have not been rescued. No one can find where the abri
was located, the place is so changed.  The French  posi-
tions on Mort Homme and  on 304 are  now absolutely
untenable.  From  their higher positions the Boches can
sweep our trenches at will with their big guns, those on
Mort Homme having a side range on the French trenches
in front of the Hill. The sun has been out all day and the
country is getting a good drying;  so the artillery  may
open up at any  time. Fifteen new batteries  were set
up just outside of here last night. Freeborn, our Chef,
who has been away for  a month, returned to us  yes-
terday.  He is very popular and we were all glad to see
him again.

                                            July 14
We are the third section to have covered this poste  since
Christmas and as yet not a man has been hurt, so  that,
considering our country is  at war, we get off  pretty
easily. It is fascinating work especially during an attack
when all the batteries are blasting away in one prolonged
roar. When I stand at our poste and hear that terrible din,
I take my hat off to the line of men at the very front who
are charging  bravely across "No Man's Land" in dis-
regard of those murderous shells. The men in the infantry
                        270 
DOMBASLi EN-ARGONNE, JINE, 1917.  THE VILLAGE WHERE
               HARMON CRAIG WAS KILLED
THE STREET - CORVEE- IN A  WAR-ZONE VILLAGE,  FROMEREVILLE, 1917 
 
SECTION TWO
are the bravest in the war and I think that this war calls
for more real bravery and endurance than any that has
ever been fought.
                                       Harmon B. Craig 1
  1 Of Boston; Class of 1919 at Harvard; was killed on July 15, 1917, the
day following the last entry from his diary given above. Engaged in load-
ing an ambulance with wounded, at Dombasle, an eight-inch German shell
fell close to the spot where his car was standing, killing three men outright and
wounding two others. Craig, who received a very severe wound in the right
thigh and three or four smaller ones in other parts of the body,  was dis-
covered lying in an abri — how he reached it is not known — and was
directing the attendance of the other wounded whom he considered more
vitally  hurt. When finally taken to the hospital, it was found necessary to
amputate his  right  leg.  But he was too weak to recover from the shock.
General Corvisart,  who commanded the Sixteenth French  Army Corps
where Craig was serving, thus refers to him in an official citation: "This
American volunteer was a very conscientious and cool driver, who, on every
occasion when under the fire of the enemy's artillery, showed devotion to
the wounded and disdain of danger, while displaying the greatest energy in
accomplishing his duty on June 28 and 29, on a highway which was being
bombarded."  Craig's brother,  John, also served with distinction in the
Field Service and later became an  artillery officer in the French Army.
 
XIII
      After the French Attack at Verdun
                   August, 1917

During  the  third week in August  the  long-expected
French effort to regain Hill 304 and Mort Homme took
place, and our Section was moved up for the attack. It
was a dusty ride we had from Sommaisne to Souhesme
where our  proposed cantonment was — a field behind
some barracks housing a few troops of our new Division.
It was an interesting sight  to see the different soldiers
prepare to leave for the trenches. They did not seem at
all dispirited; indeed  one swarthy Arab with ribbons
denoting  the several decorations on his breast grinned
broadly and  caressed  his gun-butt with a lean brown
hand. Then tents  were dug out from the recesses of the
Renault and we set them up. Supper came next and after
that the first ten cars were called out to take their stand
at Sivry-la-Perche, the camp of a French sanitary section
with whom we were to work. Boit, Sous-Chef, was in charge
of the party. I managed to squeeze in through the kind-
ness of the Lieutenant and rode with him in his staff car.
The night passed without any untoward event obtaining.
In the morning all guns seemed to cease and we were
ordered to the postes, and glad we were to go. The ground
being familiar to many of us, we helter-skeltered to the
postes, but found to our surprise that what we had known
as front line postes were no longer such. The French storm-
ing troops had been so successful that we evacuated the
wounded from what is known as Chattancourt Ravine,
a devilishly difficult bit of manoeuvring even for Fords;
but we managed as usual to go through with whatever
was asked of us. Boit and I stayed up at this  place and
assisted the  stretcher-bearers. So engrossed were we in
the task of loading and getting off the various cars that
                        272 
SECTION  TWO
we noticed with surprise, when a lull in the coming in of
wounded gave us time to look round, that there was no
one there but we two and some two hundred Boches, —
prisoners who had been doing brancardier work. I remem-
ber Boit glancing at me in a funny way and I 'm sure I
appeared scared when I whispered, "Good Lord, Winnie,
what'11  we do if they start for us?" "Run," he replied,
and at that we both laughed and spent the rest of the
morning ordering the Boches hither and thither to our
vast satisfaction.  It was an amusing situation.
  For two days  we worked this ravine and then, the
French positions having been consolidated, we had regu-
lar postes. One was at Ferme-la-Claire, and the other  at
Chattancourt Station, or what was left of it. In the near
distance could be seen Cumieres, which  the French had
taken, and which looked like anything but a town, hardly
a stone left  standing upright,  and near  the entrance  of
the village several great holes made by the French "400's."
Shelling was intermittent here and, at first, gas attacks
not infrequent. The La Claire poste was given up after a
few days and all the wounded were handled from the
Chattancourt poste.
  We kept four cars on duty, three at Marre and one at
the station,  the others relieving successively as trips be-
came more frequent. During the first few weeks of Sep-
tember,  the Boches showed an extreme antipathy  to
Marre. At all hours of the day or night they bombarded
the town. During the first real bombardment, our fellows
had to roam the streets, having no abri to take shelter in.
Many cars received eclats and two were quite demolished.
It was an exciting period. The Boches seemed to delight
in shelling the place just as reliefs arrived and many  a
wild dash was made through the "Place de l'Opera,"  as
we called  the main square of the town.
  About this time rumors became current of the "taking
over" by the U.S. Army of the Field Service and many
of the  arguments, pro and  con, anent  the proposition
awoke echoes.  It  seemed to be the consensus of opinion
273 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
that we had earned the right to be a free body and not
to lose our identity in the vastness of enlistment. How-
ever, came to pass the inevitable, and on September 26,
1917, at Sivry-la-Perche, old S.S.U.Two became a U.S.A.
Ambulance Service Section and thirteen members signed
up as enlisted men in the U.S. Army. It was a sad affair
and  we did n't relish it a  bit; but  we knew that our
Section whatever they might  make it, would do busi-
ness as S.S.U. Two and try to continue in the confidence
of our kindest Allies,  the French.
                            Ewen MacIntyre, Jr.1
  1 Of Boston, Massachusetts; joined Section Two of the Service Septem-
ber 30, 1916; later First Lieutenant, U.S.A. Ambulance Service.
 
XIV
  Summary of the Section's History under the
                United States Army

Section Two, now Six-Twenty-Six, was attached to the 48th
Division, made up of zouaves and Algerians on August  17,
1917, and stayed with the same Division right up to the time
of going home. From the above date we worked for three
months on the left bank of the Meuse above Verdun, and then
changed over to the right bank, with postes at Vacherauville,
Bras, and two postes nearer the lines which were only abris.
While we worked on the left bank, our cantonment was a barn
near Sivry-la-Perche.  On December 1,  it was changed to a
school building at Glorieux. We stayed  on the right bank for
a month, and then  the Division went en  repos near Wassy,
which town  was the cantonment for the Section. After three
weeks the Division was ordered south, and eventually reached
a point south of the Toul sector and was placed in  reserve.
We were cantoned in the village of Bettoncourt from January
26 to February 8. Then we moved to Nancy, where we were
cantoned in  the hospital barracks at Essey from February 8
until March  15.
  After making a number of moves in a general northerly
direction, we finally reached the front at  Soissons, and took
over the lines in front of Coucy-le-Chateau on April 11, 1918.
We were cantoned in abris on the hillside above the village
of Fontenoy.  Postes were established in  Pont  Saint-Mard,
Mont Givry, Trosly, and the Ferme Bonne Maison. The Divi-
sion was drawn from the lines on May 8, as Algerian fever was
spreading so rapidly that there were scarcely enough officers
to carry on  the work. The Section was cantoned at Pernant,
near Soissons, from May 8 to 15, and then moved north, as  the
Division was ordered into reserve back of Arras. We were can-
toned at Saint-Pol, where the nights were made unpleasant by
the many air  raids. After  the one which  took  place on  the
night of May 29, in which the Section was  in the centre of  the
bombarded zone, we moved into a near-by wood.
  On June 3  the Division was ordered en reserve north of
Meaux, at Acy-en-Multien, where the Section was cantoned
until the nth. The  Division then took part in the counter-
offensive which started on  the morning  of June  11  in  the
275 
THE  AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
Montdidier sector. The cantonment for the Section during the
attack was  Grandvillers, and postes, as  the  line advanced,
were established at Wacquemoulin, Neufvy, and the evacua-
tions were to Saint-Remy and the chateau at Ravenel. During
the attack the top was blown off one car, and two men, New-
comb and MacKenzie, were wounded.  MacKenzie died  two
days  later  at the hospital in Beauvais. The Section went
en repos on June  13, spending its time  in the  woods near
Crepy-en-Valois.
  On July  10, the Division took over the line in the woods,
relieving old Section Four's Division. We worked the line  just
in front of Longpont. We took part in the Foch counter-attack
of July 18. The Division stayed in until the morning of July 20,
but the Section  worked several days after that, helping old
Section Four, and doing some evacuation work to Crepy-en-
Valois. The Division was en repos until August 18, the Section
being cantoned during that time in Chavres, Vivieres, Chavres
again, Grand Champ, Emeville, Chelles, and Pont Chevalier.
The Division attacked again on the morning of August 20 in
the Aisne and Oise offensive, being in  line at Moulin-sous-
Touvent. It stayed in line until September I,  when the lines
were established in front of Coucy-le-Chciteau. As the lines
advanced, we had postes in  Nampcel,  Blerancourdelle, Ble-
rancourt, Saint-Paul-aux-Bois, Trosly, and numerous abris in
the hillsides between these two places. Shaw, Kendall,  and
McCreedy  were wounded during this  attack,  and Iselin,
Bender, and Russell.
  On  September 2, the Division went en repos near Coulom-
miers, the Section being cantoned at  Chauffry. We left Sep-
tember  21 for a sector in the Champagne. We followed  the
attack of the 26th, and went into line on the 29th, where we
stayed until October  16. As  the line advanced,  postes were
established  at  Perthes,  Tahure,  Aure,  Mars-sous-Bourcq,
Semide, Contreuve, Grivy, and  Loisy. The Section was can-
toned along the road until October 12, when it took a canton-
ment near Semide, where it stayed until October 18. All evacu-
ations were made to Bussy-le-Chateau. The division was en
repos from October 16 until  November 1,  near Chalons-sur-
Marne.  We were  cantoned  at Saint-Germain la  Ville.  In
November the Division went en reserve back of the lines near
Vouziers. We were cantoned at Semide until the 7th, and then
moved up.  staying at Le Chesne, Grandes Armoises, and
Chemery. It was while we were in Le Chesne that the Armis-
tice was signed. The Division was just about to take over the
line north of Chemery.
  After the Armistice we  followed the Germans through Bel-
                          276 
SECTION  TWO
gium and^ Luxembourg, stopping at Pouru-Saint-Remy, Flo-
renville, Etalle, Belgium; Hermiskiel,  Boppard, and Nassau,
Germany. We crossed the Rhine during the afternoon of De-
cember 14 and were cantoned in Bad  Nassau, where the Sec-
tion appropriated a hotel. We stayed here until ordered in to
Base Camp  on March  5, 1919. We took our cars to a town
near Mainz and  turned them over to a new  Section. Our
Division  was disbanded on the day we left  for Base  Camp,
March 5.
                                 Edward N. Seccombe j
  1 Of Derby, Connecticut; served with the Field Service in Section Two,
1916, and in the U.S.A. Ambulance Service during the remainder of the war.
 
 
     Section Three

   I. On the Western Front

   THE STORY TOLD BY
   I. Preston Lockwood
  II. Tracy J. Putnam
 III. Waldo Peirce
  IV. Luke C. Doyle
     Stephen Galatti
   V. Walter Kerr Rainsford
 VI. Alwyn Inness-Brown
 VII. William M. Barber
VIII. Walter Kerr Rainsford
     Charles R. Codman, Jr.
 IX. Edward I. Tinkham

       II. In the Orient

   THE STORY TOLD BY
   I. Charles Baird, Jr.
   II. Lovering Hill
 III. Robert Wthitney Imbrie
  IV. Lovering Hill
     Donald C. Armour
     J. Marquand Walker
     John Munroe
   V. Lovering Hill
     J. Marquand Walker
     Robert Whitney Imbrie
  VI. Charles Baird, Jr.
 VII. Charles Amsden
VIII. John N. d'Este 
SUMMARY
Section Three was organized in Paris in April, 1915, and sent
to the French Seventh Army for trial.  Within a fortnight it was
assigned to duty in reconquered Alsace. The Section was quar-
tered successively at Saint-Maurice-sur-Moselle, Mollau, and
Moosch, and served twenty-five kilometres of front in the moun-
tainous region between the valley of Metzeral and Thann. The
sector included Hartmannsweilerkopf, for possession of which
so many battles were fought  in 1915. In February,  1916, the
Section moved to Lorraine, where, although en repos, it per-
formed evacuation work around Baccarat and Saint-Die.  In
the middle of June it was moved to  the great battle front of
Verdun, where it did its part over the dangerous run to the
poste at Bras. Early in July the Section, with its Division, went
to Pont-a-Mousson, where  it  worked for three months in the
woods of Bois le Pretre.
  With the beginning of the autumn of 1916, it was decided,
owing to the  request of  the French Government for a section
such as had been able to work in the mountains of Alsace, to
send Section Three to the Balkans with the French Army of the
Orient.  Consequently it was ordered  to Marseilles, sailing for
Salonica October 20, and arriving in that city the 28th. In No-
vember the Section was assigned to the Monastir sector. Several
times cars  were detached and sent over into the wild, moun-
tainous country of Albania to serve French troops there, and
on one occasion the whole Section was sent to Greece with the
French force  ordered there to maintain Greece's neutrality.
The Section remained in the Balkans until October, 1917, when
the United States Army took over the Field Service work. The
United States, not being  at war at that time with Austria, Bul-
garia, or Turkey, the War Department was unwilling to take
over the Field Service work in  this region. The personnel of the
Section was obliged to return  to France, but the material was
turned over to the French Army of the Orient in order that this
much-needed  work might continue. It is interesting to  note
that the cars of the two Balkan sections were still in sendee dur-
ing the last great advance which ended the  Balkan campaign. 
                Section  Three

              I. On the Western Front

             En avant! Tant pis pour qui tombe;
             La Mort n'est rien. Vive la tombe
             Quand le pays en sort vivant.
             En avant!
                             Paul Deroulede
                          I

              Alsace and the Vosges
                                       December, 1915
The trenches in this part of the Vosges— "Alsace Re-
conquise"— are cut along the brows of heights which
directly overlook the Rhine Valley. From these summits
can be seen, beyond the smoke which deepens the mist
above the famous cities of  Mulhouse and  Colmar, the
shadowy boundary of  the  Black Forest and the snow-
topped  mountains of Switzerland.  A few yards behind
the mouths of the communication  trenches are the first
dressing-stations, everywhere and  always one of war's
most ghastly spots.  Paths  make their way from these
dressing-stations down the mountain-sides until  they
become  roads, and, once they become roads, our work
begins.
  Nowhere else  are  foreign soldiers upon German soil.
Nowhere else, from Ypres to Belfort, do the lines face
each other in a mountain range of commanding summits
and ever-visible, village-dotted valleys. Nowhere else can
                        281 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
 one study, in history's most famous borderland, both
 war and one of those problems in nationality which bring
 about wars. And surely nowhere else are Detroit-man-
 ufactured automobiles  competing with Missouri-raised
 mules in the  business of carrying wounded men over
 dizzy heights.
   Until our light, cheap cars were risked on these roads, a
 wounded man faced a ten-mile journey with his stretcher
 strapped to the  back of a mule or put on the floor of a
 hard, springless  wagon. Now he is carried by hand or in
 wheel-carts from one-half to two miles. Then in one of our
 cars there is a long climb followed by a long descent. And
 over such roads! Roads blocked by artillery convoys and
 swarming with mules staggering, likely as not, beneath a
 load of high-explosive shells; roads so narrow that two
 vehicles cannot pass each other when both are in motion;
 roads with a steep bank on the one side and a sheer drop
 on the other; roads where  lights  would draw German
 shells; roads even where horns must not be blown!
   Our base was the village of Saint-Maurice, twenty-five
 miles to  the rear on the French side  of the mountains,
 but strategically located in relation to the various dress-
 ing-stations, sorting-points, base hospitals, and railheads
 which we served, and, in this war of shipping-clerks and
 petrol, one of  those villages which is as much a part  of
 the front as even the trenches themselves. It was a "lit-
 tle, one-eyed, blinking sort of place."  It was not as near
 to the fighting as some of us, particularly  adventurous
 humanitarians fresh from New York and Paris, desired.
 But, picturesquely placed on the banks of the Moselle
 and smiling up at the patches of hollow-streaked snow
 that, even in late July and August, stand out on the tops
 of the Ballon d'Alsace and  the. Ballon de Servance, it is a
 lovely, long-to-be-remembered spot, and every one in the
 Section quite naturally still speaks of it as "home."
  We were billeted in some twenty-five households as if
we were officers, although our rations were  the rations
of common soldiers.   Our  lodgings ranged from hayloft
                        282 
WHAT NIGHT TRIPS  WITHOUT LIGHTS SOMETIMES MEAN
THE DANGERS OF  THE ROAD 
 
SECTION THREE
to electrically lighted rooms; but the character of our
welcome was always the same — pleasant, cordial, to be
counted upon — "You are doing something for France
and I will do what I can for you."

           The Base at Saint-Maurice
We parked our cars in the public square, on a hillside,
along the fence of the cure's yard and against the walls of
an old church, where their bright-red crosses flamed out
against the gray flaking stone.  And, on a cold morning,
it was always possible to save a lot of cranking by pushing
them down the hill. About half the Section on any given
day was to be found at the base and "in bounds," which
meant the square, the hotel where we had  our mess,  or
the room  where one was billeted. These men composed
the reserve list and were liable to be called at any minute,
when they must "roll," as we say, instantly. The rest of
the Section was on duty in detachments of from one  to
eight cars and for periods of from twenty-four hours to
a week at various dressing-stations, sorting-points, field
hospitals,  and so forth. The men on reserve  were used to
reinforce these places, to fill up  quickly trains sanitaires,
and to rush to any one of a half-dozen villages which were
sometimes shelled.
  Often, when the fighting was heavy, not a man or a
car of Section Three  was  to be found at Saint-Mau-
rice. The  repair car even would be driven to some cross-
roads or sorting-point where our ambulances brought the
wounded  from several dressing-stations.
  Our Chef was Lovering Hill, succeeding Richard Law-
rence, who,  after a short  time,  had been compelled  to
return to the United States. A French lieutenant and an
official interpreter were attached to the Section.  This
French personnel was a link between the French Auto-
mobile Service and our American organization, and they
were  busy from morning until night keeping abreast of
the required reports, for five-day reports had to be made
on the consumption  of gasoline, the number of miles
                        283 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
run, the number of wounded carried, the oil, carbide, and
spare parts needed, the rations drawn,  and,  in  great
detail, any change in personnel.
  There were no orderlies or mechanics attached to our
Section, and each driver was responsible for the upkeep
and repair of his own car. We did as much of this work as
possible in the square where we parked our cars. So we
patched tires, scraped carbon, and changed springs  while
the church bell rang persistently and mournfully for masses
and funerals and while people came and went about their
daily tasks and laughed at our strange language.
  Around the railway  station is  a group of  temporary
tents, where the wounded are given, by the ladies of the
Croix Rouge, a cup of coffee or a glass of lemonade before
being packed into the train sanitaire to begin their long
journey to the centre or south of France. The ambulances
evacuating the hospitals draw up among these tents under
the orders of the sergeant in charge. Four or five French
ambulances arrive and are unloaded. Then a smaller car
takes its place in the line — a "Flivver."
  The driver, after  clearly doing his best  to  make a
smooth stop,  gets down and helps in lifting  out the
stretchers. One of the wounded, as his stretcher is slid
along the floor of  the  car  and lowered to the ground,
groans pitifully.  He has groaned this way and sometimes
even screamed at the rough places on the road. So the
driver's conscience hurts him as he pulls some tacks out
of his tires and waits for the sergeant's signal to start.
It is  his first day's work  as an  ambulancier.  He can
still see every rock and every rut in the last mile of the
road he has just driven over, and he wonders if he really
has been as careful as possible. . . .
  One wet night the writer was stopped en route  by
a single,  middle-aged soldier trudging his way  along a
steep road running from a cantonment behind the lines
to the trenches. Embarrassed a little at first, and pulling
at his cap, this man said that he had heard in the trenches
of the American ambulances; that a friend had written
                        284 
SECTION THREE
 back that he had been carried in one of them; that this
 was the first time he had had an opportunity of shaking
 hands with  one of the volontaires americains. Then, as I
 leaned over to say good-bye, he shook both my hands,
 offered me a cigarette, shook both my hands again, say-
 ing, as he pointed  towards where, in the black distance,
 sounded the rumble of guns, "Perhaps you will bring me
 back to-morrow."

              The Beauties of Alsace
 Away from our base, in  our nomadic dressing-station-to-
 hospital existence, we were pretty much "on our own."
 This part of our life began in a valley reached through
 the famous  pass of Bussang. Starting from the valley of
 the  Moselle,  easy grades along a splendid  highway
 crowded with trucks, staff cars, wine-carts, and long lines
 of yellow hay-wagons, bring one to a tunnel about three
 hundred yards in length. In the middle of this tunnel is
 a low white marble stone with  a rounded top that un-
 til August, 1914, marked the boundary between France
 and Germany. To an American driving  an  automobile
 in the dim tunnel light, this stone is simply something
 not to be hit. To the French, who have fought so bravely
 that it may no longer stand for a boundary, it is a sacred
 symbol. I have seen the eyes of returning wounded glisten
 at the sight of it.  I have heard companies of chasseurs,
 as they passed it going to the trenches, break into singing
 or whistling their famous Sidi-Brahm march.
  Beyond this tunnel the road, wrapping itself around
 the mountain like a broad, shining ribbon, descends in
 sweeping curves sometimes a kilometre long into the fer-
 tile commercial valley of the Thur, which flows into the
 Rhine. On one side are  high gray rocks where reservist
 road-menders  seem to hang by their teeth and break
 stones; on the other, a sheer drop into green fields; behind,
 the tunnel-pierced summit; and in front, the red-roofed
houses of several Alsatian villages nestling against yet
another line of mountain-tops.  And  along this road we
                        285 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
have made our way at midnight, at daybreak, in the late
afternoon, running cautiously with wounded and running
carelessly empty. We were at home, too, in  the villages
to which it leads; at home with the life-size portrayals of
the Crucifixion that are everywhere, even in fields and
nailed to trees in the mountains, and at home with the
gray stone churches and their curious bulb-shaped towers
and clamorous bells.
  The appearance of an American ambulance in the vil-
lages was no longer a novelty. Sentries let us pass without
a challenge, school-children did not any more rush over
to us at recess time, or soldiers crowd around us and say
to one another, " Viold, une voiture americaine!" We had
friends everywhere — the officer who wanted to  speak
English and invited us so often to lunch with him; the
corporal of engineers who was a well-known professor; the
receiving sergeant who was a waiter at the Savoy Hotel
in London; the infirmier who was in charge of the French
department of one of the largest of New York's publish-
ing houses.

        The "Cuistot" — A Popular Man
But cooks were the people we cultivated the most assid-
uously. We were forbidden to leave our cars and  eat in
a cafe.  Besides, the time of day when we were hungriest
was  the  time — maybe  midnight or early  morning —
when no cafes were open or when we were marooned on
some mountain-top. For single cars and small wandering
detachments there were only informal arrangements for
"touching" rations. So we depended upon the good-will
of the  chief cooks and  we seldom  went hungry. But
the staunchest sustainer of every American ambulance
driver presided over the kitchen of the largest sorting-
point in the valley. We called this  cheery-voiced, big-
hearted son of the Savoy Mountains, who before the war
washed  automobiles in  Montmartre, "Le Capitaine,"
"Joe Cawthorne," or "Gunga Din."  He was never tired
or out of spirits: he never needed to sleep.
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SECTION THREE
  It will be a rush period. We leave our ambulances only
to get gasoline, oil, and water while the wounded are be-
ing  discharged. " Le Capitaine," too, is up to his neck in
work, cooking a meal for a hundred people, hurrying out,
at the Medecin Chef's order, soup for  thirty and tea for
twenty more, and still he will find time to run out to our
cars with a cup of coffee and a slice of cheese. There is
but a single occasion on record when "Joe Cawthorne's"
word  and smile were not those  of cheer, and this was
when  one of the fellows was on the point of leaving for
America. Recalling that his escapes from sleeping at the
wheel and running off the bank, thereby endangering his
life, were due to "Le Capitaine's" coffee, he offered him
an envelope with some money in it. "Jamais ! jamais!"
said the chef, returning the envelope, very indignant and
hurt as he turned back to his work.

             At the Mountain Postes
We were housed at  one of the postes  in  a long,  low
shack built against the side of the crest. Violent storms
sometimes took the roof off this shack, with the conse-
quent drenching of the surgeon in charge,  ourselves, a
half-dozen stretcher-bearers, and as many mule-drivers.
Bunks were built crosswise against the side  of the walls,
and over some of these bunks the words "Pour intrans-
portables" were written. The rest, however, were occupied
by  people on duty there, for it was merely a relay-point,
and the wounded, unless unable to stand a further journey
or arriving by mules in numbers greater than we could
handle,  were merely changed from one mode of convey-
ance to another and given such attention in passing as
they might need.
  When one of the beds for intransportables was occupied,
it generally meant that the man died  in a few days and
was buried close by, a corporal of stretcher-bearers, who
was before the war a Roman Catholic  missionary in
Ceylon, borrowing from one of us a camera to take for
the dead man's family a photograph of the isolated grave
                        287 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
marked with one of those simple wooden crosses from
which no mile of northern France is free.
  These mountain-tops were often  for weeks on end
bathed  in a heavy  mist varied only by rainstorms. At
such times, when there was no work to do — and very
frequently there were no wounded to carry for twenty-
four hours or more — the surgeon, ourselves, the brancar-
diers,  and the mule-drivers, would close in around the
stove. One of these stretcher-bearers was transferred after
being wounded at the battle of the Marne from the front-
line troops to the Service Sanitaire, and before the war he
had served five years in the Foreign Legion in Africa.
His stories of this period  were endless  and interesting,
and, after listening  to them for a week, we would all go
back to our base calling soldiers nothing but poilus;
coffee, jus; wine, pinard; canned beef, singe; and military
irregularities, Systeme D. There was also a good deal of
reading done by many of the Section on the rainy days
of no work.  It was part of the daily relieving-man's un-
official but well-understood duties to  bring along any
magazines and newspapers that he could get hold of, and
generally, too, books gradually accumulated and grew to
be considered as a sort of library that must not be taken
away. Indeed, at one poste de secours our library consisted
of two or three French novels and  plays, "The New-
comes," a two-volume "Life of  Ruskin," "Tess of the
d'Urbervilles," and  "Les Miserables."
  When a group of  men are on duty  at an isolated poste
de secours like the one  I am describing, they take turns in
carrying the wounded who may arrive, the man who has
made the last trip going to the bottom of  the list. And
there  is something  comfortable  about  feeling  that you
are the last to "roll" on a stormy night when every plank
in the little hut rattles and groans, when the wind shrieks
in the  desolate outside, when the sinister glare of the
trench rockets gleams through the heavy blackness like
a flash of lightning, and the wet mule-drivers, who borrow
a little of your fire, shake their heads and, pointing to-
                        288 
SECTION THREE
wards the road, say, "un mauvais chemin." And then, as
you settle a little deeper in your blankets and blow out
your lantern and assure yourself for the last time as to
where your matches are and how much gasoline you have
in your tank, you are pretty apt to think, before you go
to sleep,  of  the men  a little way off  in the rain-soaked
trenches.
  They are certainly not very far away — only over there
on the next ridge where the shells are exploding. They
have been there, you know,  without relief for ten days.
You remember when they marched up the mountain to
take their turn. How cheerful they seemed! Not one of
them is sleeping, like you, in blankets. They won't go back
to-morrow,  like  you,  to a pleasant  dinner, with good
friends — outside of  the danger  zone. Some will come
back, and you will carry them in your ambulance. And
some will never come back at all. Well . . .
  "Did I leave that spark-plug wrench  under  the car?
God knows I can never find it on a night like this and I
change a plug every trip."
  "Wake up! Don't talk in your sleep!"
  "What, is it my turn to roll? Wounded?"
  "No; Steve is en panne halfway down the mountain."
  And you begin to take things in, with one of the Sec-
tion's sous-chefs leaning over your cot  explaining that the
first man on the list with a load of  wounded  has had
an accident. The others are waked up too. Some are left
to take care of such other wounded as may arrive and the
rest form a rescue party. Two ride in the rescue ambu-
lance ; two more probably walk. The wounded are moved
from the broken-down car to the other ambulance, and
then daylight finds three or four of us, rain-drenched and
mud-smeared,  changing a  brake-band or digging  into a
carburetor.
  On clear  days  during  summer and  early  autumn
weather,  we stayed indoors  very little, for the air was
champagne-like and the view on all  sides magnificent.
It is possible, also, from a  number of these eminences to
                        289 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
follow in a fascinating fashion the progress of artillery
duels, and, with a good pair of glasses, even to see infan-
try advancing to the attack. When the cannonading is
heavy, the whole horizon pops and rumbles and from the
sea of green mountains spread out before you rise puffs
of shrapnel smoke, flaky  little clouds about the size of a
man's hand and pale against the tree-tops, as one thinks
of death as pale. They hover, sometimes too many at a
time to count, above the mountains and then sink down
again into general greenness.
  Soldiers march by these postes on their way to and from
the trenches. Whenever they were allowed to break ranks
near our cars, they would crowd around us with little
bottles in their hands asking for gasoline to put in briquets
which they make out of  German bullets.  Most of these
men belonged to battalions of Chasseurs alpins, and I do
not believe there are any finer soldiers in the world than
those stocky, merry-eyed men from the mountain prov-
inces of France, with their picturesque  berets and their
dark-blue  coats set off  by their horizon-blue  trousers.
They are called, indeed, the "blue devils," and when the
communiques say, '' After a heavy shelling of some of the
enemy heights in the Vosges, our infantry advanced to
the attack and succeeded in taking so many of the enemy
trenches," it is probably the Chasseurs alpins who have
led the way in the face of the hand-grenades and machine-
gun fire and the streams of burning oil that, in this coun-
try especially, make the "meaning of a mile"  so terrible.
                              Preston Lockwood1
  1 Of St. Louis; Washington University; who was in the Service during
most of the years 1915 and 1916. Subsequently was a First Lieutenant in
the U.S. Field Artillery. This article was written in December, 1915. 
II
               Notes from a  Diary
                                 Saint-Maurice-sur-Moselle
                                    September 5, 1915
I was invalided down from Dunkirk to Paris on August
20,  assigned to our American hospital at Neuilly,  and
discharged ten days later. I started on September 4 for
the Vosges and arrived here at noon to-day. It is wonder-
ful to see the hills and smell wood smoke once more. There
is a pleasant set of men here, rather less boisterous than
at Dunkirk. Lovering Hill,  the  leader, is quiet, almost
taciturn, but apparently well  liked.  There are  about
twenty-six cars in the Section, a third of which are over
the ridge  in the next valley and the lines  are on the
second ridge beyond.

                                   Friday, September 10
Strolled up toward the Ballon d'Alsace. In a hundred
ways this region reminds me of our own beautiful moun-
tains at home. The contours and colors of the hills; the
trees and grass; the rock and soil; especially the little wild
flowers and odors of pine, burning wood, and  damp earth
— these are all familiar. The inhabitants, too, seem to be
shaped by their environment to  a manner different from
that of the other peasants of France.

                                 Thursday, September 16
I rolled to Trehkopf to-day. The hospital is  behind a lit-
tle  knoll, just where the line of woods stops, and the view
is wonderful, especially toward  evening. Just  the other
side of the crest are a few  shepherds' houses and some
" 105's " are hidden there which were firing off and on all
day. Kingsland was there holding down his ambulance
when I  arrived and we took dejeuner with the cook at
10.30; dined witfr the  cook about 5, after having chopped
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THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
him some wood with a cross-eyed French axe; and then sat
and watched the sunset. The first load of men came about
8.30 and I took them down to Kruth. On returning, found
another load waiting  for me and returned at once.
                                  Sunday, September 19
Mellen came in on his way from Treh just as they were
testing some gas-masks.  We each tried one on and went
into a chamber full of gas. Breathing was rather difficult
through the heavy pad  over the mouth; but otherwise
there was  no discomfort. Later they showed us various
forms of apparatus — the French bombs, glass spheres
full of  acetone bromide  enclosed in a broken iron shell;
flame bombs; sprinklers for hyposulphite against chlo-
rine; oxygen and hypo-respirators for thick clouds; and
masks of all sorts.
  Waited  until almost midnight for some men whom I
took to Saint-Amarin.  Slept in the large salle without
blankets.

       A Poste on Hartmannsweilerkopf
                                           October I
In a checkered automobiling experience, the most anxious
drive I ever had occurred last evening. It was at a new
poste in the mountains,  not far  from Hartmannsweiler-
kopf. I was there for the first time when a call came from
a station just behind the lines. It was dusk already, but I
knew no better than  to start. The road is new since the
beginning  of the war; it follows the steep route up an old
path and  no lights are  allowed  on it lest the Germans
might locate and shell it. This road is narrow,  winding,
and very steep, so steep that at places at the  top of a
descent it looks as if it ended suddenly. There was barely
enough twilight through the  mass of trees to allow  me
to see the  pack-mules returning from the day's ravitaille-
ment; but I finally made my way to the  poste, where I
was given  a poor, blind soldier to carry back. What a trip
he must have had. If it  was trying for me, it was worse
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SECTION THREE
for him. It was now dark — a moonless, starless night in
the woods. When I started back, I could seldom see the
road itself. I had to steer by the bank or by the gaps in
the trees ahead. Occasionally I would feel one of the front
wheels leave the crowm of the road, and would quickly
turn to avoid going over the precipice; but with all this
I had to rush the grades which I could not see, but could
only feel. At last the machine refused a hill and stalled.
I knew that there wrere steeper hills ahead, worse roads
and thicker woods. I deciaed that a German bullet would
be better than a fall down the mountain-side, and so I
lit one of my oil lamps. Some passing soldiers gave me a
push and by the flickering light of the lantern I felt my
way more easily back to the poste. I was glad to arrive.

                                    Thursday. October 7
I started down with four malades assis. About two kilo-
metres down the road I suddenly noticed that the engine
had stopped  firing. Meanwhile it had  grown dark. My
malades — especially one — were getting anxious. I sent
word to Kruth by an  automobile that was passing and
then sat down to wait. About nine o'clock Douglass ap-
peared and took my men. I told him what parts I wanted,
and we pushed the car to a better place in the road. Then
he gave me a piece of bread and left me. I  made a chilly
meal of the bread and some sardines, lighted my lights
and went to bed on a rickety old stretcher, with my three
blesse blankets and my overcoat. It was more comfortable
than I expected.

         Mist and Rain on the Mountain
                                      Friday, October 8
A little  passing sun. A  shivering, white, misty dawn
woke me about five o'clock. I decided, on reflection, that
I should be warmer walking around than under my blesse
blankets, and so I screwed up my courage to rise. Warmed
my socks on my lanterns before putting them on. Once
up, I felt better. I found in the woods the  coals of a fire
                        293 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
built by the road-menders and then I toasted the remains
of the  bread  and stood in the ashes to warm  my feet.
About  seven I began to hear the rattlings of wagons and
the swearing of mule-drivers across the  ravine, about
a kilometre away by the road.  Half an hour later the
wagons themselves began to come into view — the long
pack-train of  the day's ravitaillement. A man in a chauf-
feur's coat greeted me. He had spent the night  out also.
He was very  pleasant — a wholesale dealer in  pearls in
Paris — and gave me  some p&tb and wine as breakfast.
We chatted for about an hour. A  little later, some men
from the French Section brought up the new parts. One
of them was a Ford  dealer — also very pleasant, as they
all were. They pushed me to a steeper part of  the road
and left me. Then I  coasted down, partly  in gear, as far
as the  artillery  barracks at Kriith, walked down to the
hospital in order to telegraph, and ate an enormous lunch
at "The Joffre." At night slept long and deeply.

                                   Monday, October n
There had been a  bomb-attack at Hartmanns during
the night and I had a  trip almost at once. Returned lei-
surely  to lunch  and  tried to take a nap before going on
another trip. But about 3.30 I was awakened to go to a
farm called Hay, way up in the mountains, to get an
artillerist who was wounded in  the  abdomen. The trip
took about an hour and a half. The road was narrow and
rough and the steepest I have ever  seen.  The last kilo-
metre but one was so  steep and gravelly that the bran-
cardier who was with me had  to call in a score or so of
artillerists to  push us over the rougher spots. At last in
the dusk I arrived at  the communication  trench, where
the blesse was  waiting, unconscious and white, on  a
stretcher, while the  doctor was impatient. They put the
former in the machine and we  started back over that
steep, rough road. At every little jar he would groan and
cry out. I was going as slowly as possible at the  roughest
place; but the stones in the road were very large, and the
                        294 
SECTION THREE
infirmier wrent round and spoke to him. He was breathing
faintly, but unable to reply. A man at the roadside came
and peered inside, too. "II est mort," he said, whereupon
the infirmier almost struck the intruder. A little way
farther on, still going  as  gently as possible, we  again
stopped to look at the patient and found he was  dead.
We noted the hour and went on, though no faster than
before, for we might have been mistaken. It took us longer
to return than to climb up. When we reached the hospital
and took the body in, it seemed to me once that he moved.
But no; my eyes were strained and he was really  dead.
Then I went over to the Restaurant zur Poste, where pretty
Fraulein Anna served me  the quickest meal I have had
in Alsace. Bed about midnight.

             Flivver vs. Motor Truck
                                   Thursday, October 28
Moore  appeared in the evening much excited. He had
knocked a camion from Hill 408 into the river at Urbes!
He had followed it some way, trying to pass, but it would
not move over. At that, he attempted to squeeze past.
The hub of his front wheel wedged in under the hub of
the truck's wheel, and upset its steering so that its mo-
mentum carried it off the road. Moore felt no shock, and
except for a dent in the hub-cap, old  58 is undamaged.
But the camion, with three cannon-barrels  on board, is
in the river!

                                   Monday, November 1
There is a new medecin auxiliaire here — a tall,  quiet
medical  student. He had just returned from being a pris-
oner in Germany, having been captured thirteen months
ago.  The German military authorities found a revolver
on him  and were about to shoot him on this account,
when an officer intervened, saying that their doctors also
carried revolvers. They should have  returned  him at
once; but, instead, they kept  him and  almost starved
him. He lived mostly on food  sent him from home. He
                        295 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
was owed a salary, but it was not given him until he left,
as his captors were afraid he would buy food with it.

                                   Tuesday, November 2
One of the evacues from the hospital at La Source was
the German I took there during the attack. The bran-
cardiers were not very careful of him then. They jerked
him  out and slammed  him down muttering,  " salaud,"
and  "cochon." But during the two weeks he was there,
they had come to know him  better, and he, instead  of
being afraid he was to  be shot, as he had been at first,
was now laughing and joking  in broken French with his
infirmiers. As he left, they all shook him by the hand and
one called after him "Bonne chance, camarade!"

           Late Autumn in the Vosges
                                Wednesday, November 10
It both rained and snowed! A white day — misty and
snowy. The sleety snow in the mountains was heavy rain
in the valley.
  The Section moved  to-day from Saint-Maurice  to
Mollau near Wesserling, a tiny little village smaller than
Saint-Maurice and  built along a brook  on the side  of
the mountains. I had not known that there was a town
there, it is so  shut in by hills. A very pretty spot; the
slopes partly smooth and grassy, partly rocky,  partly
woods. We all sleep together — except the officers and
Curley — in the schoolroom on stretchers placed on top
of plank beds. There is a splendid tall porcelain stove  in
the room; but the only wood that is provided for us is  to
be found in a tract of forest on the Ballon d'Alsace, which
we cannot possibly get  at. However, we procured some.
In the middle of the room is a table and a good enough
light in the ceiling. The two disadvantages are that the
place is noisy until  eleven o'clock at night so that it is
difficult to write  or sleep, and that we  have not even
hooks to hang our things on. We eat army rations, cooked
at the hotel. For the moment the cooking is superb; but
                        296 
SECTION THREE
we are soon to get an army cook, who will probably
change all that. The  chefs landlady is from Atlanta,
Georgia, and her children speak some English. We get
cream instead of hot milk for our coffee in the morning,
and we are soon to have butter. The inhabitants here are
less German than most of the Alsatians and speak French
as well as patois.

                                  Tuesday, November 16
Fair and cold. A call to Kruth — fifty frozen feet  from
Adsinfirst — came in the middle of the morning. Did vari-
ous odd jobs in the afternoon, brushed out car, made a hood
of green burlap, chopped wood, and wrote a little;  went
out walking with Fenton and otherwise amused myself.
In the evening a contagious call came in. I took it and in
the moonlight, carried the man from Kriith to Le Thillot.

                                Wednesday, November 17
A dark morning. There was a Bussang evacuation. Hill
sent me over.  Col de Bussang very  slippery. Wagons
and camions en panne all the way along. Evacuated for
about an hour. Fenton tried to avoid a woman, skidded,
and smashed a rear wheel.  Returning  found even more
camions  en  panne on the Col. Our cars were skidding
badly also. Luckily I had a pair of chains and got along
fairly well. There was a convoy of four fourgons, however,
which was having a hard time of it. One had gone  over
the edge, spilling its load of shells all over the road. An-
other had gone into the ditch. Still another was stuck
crosswise on a steep part of the highway so that I could
not pass. In one place, I was kept waiting an hour before
the vehicles moved up. Next we met a convey of wagons
climbing the hill, or rather failing to climb it, and again
had to stop. Farther on a team of six horses ran away on
an icy slope and rushed into my car, but, luckily did no
damage to anybody. So, altogether, it was night when
I reached Herrenfluh; and I had to return by moonlight
— not at all difficult and most beautiful. On returning
297 
THE AMERICAN  FIELD SERVICE
 to Tomansplatz,  I  had to take another  trip — a  man
 there had had a grenade explode in his hand. A cold night.

                                   Saturday, November 20
 Yesterday, on  the eve of the Harvard-Yale  football
 game, we sent the following cable to Percy Haughton,
 coach of the Harvard football team:

        A la veille de votre combat, salut!  Serrez vos
        ceintures,  fixez vos baionnettes, chargez vos
        fusils, grenades a main, et en avant les gars!
        On vous regards meme des sommets des Vosges.
                    Le Harvard Club d'Alsace Reconquise

                                   Monday, November 22
 The  Harvard-Yale  score was  announced, 41-0.  The
 Harvard Club of Alsace Reconquise celebrated suitably,
 for Doyle, our only Yale man, was away.

                                  Thursday, November 25
 Light snow. Carey and Waldo Peirce are making a pack
 of caricature playing-cards. I sat for the queen of hearts.
 Our Thanksgiving dinner was a great  event.  Our new
 French officer was our guest. We had a delicious  turkey,
 two geese, cranberries,  chestnuts, apple pie, plum pud-
 ding — a wonderful gorge. Late  to bed.

                                  Saturday, November 27
 Fair. Very cold. This morning it took me three quarters
 of an hour to start the car. Had to lay a red-hot poker on
 the carburetor.

                                   Sunday, November 28
 Cold.  Every one had frightful struggles getting off. Hot
water on the carburetors would  freeze before the motor
would catch. Was orderly. After clearing up the barracks,
I took a call to Thillot with Fenton. We stopped at Saint-
Maurice to pay our respects to all the pretty girls. Bought
a goose. Arrived at Mollau about dark.
                         298 
SECTION THREE
                                   Monday, December 6
The Captain of the English Section which is to replace
us rolled up from Rupt yesterday in an enormous  car.
Rice took him up to Tomans.  He was  much disgusted
with the road and thinks it will be impossible to continue
the service there. He was also horrified, and not without
reason,  at our quarters.

                                   Friday, December 10
The road, wherever it is not a morass, is ridged and  gul-
lied by  the rains and the fields near Urbes are flooded.
Both the Moselle and the Thur are out of their banks.
Hall declares he saw some "504" shells; probably wine-
barrels !

                                   Tuesday, December 15
An English "chauffeur" (to be distinguished from "vol-
unteer") brought over his Ford for Fenton to repair to-
day, and spent the night. Matter committed a social sole-
cism at  Kriith by inviting both volunteer and chauffeur
to lunch together with him.

                                   Friday, December 17
The boys have sometimes complained, not without  rea-
son, of the hardships and fatigues of the work. But now
that there is no work, they complain still more, and I not
least of  them. They are peevish; I also. They will not go
to bed at night or get up in the morning. They are rest-
less, and yet the smallest tasks are done unwillingly. I am
tempted to write as  a general proposition that men are
happiest when working hardest.  But it must not be for-
gotten that I am writing  in a time of idleness.

      The Attack  on Hartmannsweilerkopf
                                   Tuesday, December 21
The attack is on! Terrific bombardment. An atmosphere
of ill-suppressed excitement. No work in the morning or
early afternoon, as the attack did not begin until noon.
Walked  up to the boyau  leading to the  trenches on the
                        299 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
 Sudelkop and cautiously peered over the ridge at Hart-
 manns. A terrible  sight.  There  was a band of trees,
 stripped bare by shell-fire, from the valley to the crest.
 A company of soldiers passed up, going to the trenches.
 At the entrance  to the boyau, they stopped to  load and
 then went on, stopping behind the parapet. It did  not
 seem possible that any of them could go  down to that
 shell-clotted hillside and return alive. I wonder if any of
 them did?
  We crawled down the ridge again, mostly on our bellies,
 through the light, wet snow, and so back to the poste,
 where we at last found a cabin which at least kept  the
 wind off, and I went to sleep, waking up hungry and cold.
 In the meanwhile,  the others  had found a  travelling
 kitchen and we got something to eat. Just before dusk,
 the prisoners and wounded began to come in. The road
 from Tomans down is icy and slippery; Mellen was unable
 to descend with only one  chain, wagons everywhere in
 trouble. I reached Moosch in safety, however. Luckily
 there is a moon. Mounting to Tomans again, took two
 trips down, and stayed for an hour's sleep.  Gailliard, the
 cook, is established, with food and the means of cooking
 it, in a little house opposite the hospital. There  is also
 room for about six to sleep comfortably, and there I slept
 with the others.

                                Wednesday, December 22
Blesses coming in rather slowly, but still fast enough to
 keep us busy. Last night Hill and the Divisionnaire were
 down near Bains-Douches when they came across a body
of Germans, unarmed but unguarded. So they had to act
guard;  marshalled them and marched them to the fort,
 Hill giving the commands in German. On one of my trips
to Moosch, was able to pick up a peau de mouton and some
 Boche boots. The latter were much needed, for both my
pairs are soaked through. The hospital is getting more
and more crowded. The corridors are so full of stretchers
that  it is  almost impossible to move along them.
                       300 
SECTION THREE
  There is room in the salle de  triage for six  stretcher
cases, and there is a rule against removing any of them
into the wards until all have been entered on the books.
So to-day six cars waited two hours to be unloaded, the
poor wretches inside crying to be taken out. Slept three
hours at Tomans.

                                  Thursday, December 23
Bombardments by the Germans.  After a slight lull in the
morning, work began again. Rolled pretty steadily. But
the shortage of men in  the Section is serious. Three are
laid up with illnesses, and the strain is telling a little on
all of us. Only Curley is a man of iron. But he is so un-
comfortable at Moosch that he rolls up to Tomans, and
is so disgusted with Tomans that he at once rolls down
again to Moosch. The cars, too, are  giving way.  The
Bitschweiler road is wearing out brake-bands faster than
they can be put on. Several axle-shafts have broken,
among others that on the supply car which is now repos-
ing among *the corpses in the garage at Tomans.

                                    Friday, December 24
Heavy showers. Mist.  Fitful bombardment,  evidently
much hampered by the fog. Made one trip in the morning
and one in the early afternoon. Returning from the lat-
ter was impressed into service by Dick Hall,1 who rolled
back to Moosch while  I rolled up the mountain. Poor
Dick! Poor  charming, whimsical  Dick! I  never saw him
again. Had a trip down in time for supper at Moosch. On
my way up, found Cate in trouble with a tire — his sixth
since the beginning of the attack  — and stopped to  help
him. When we were finished, we went  on, but found
Douglass, Peirce, and Jennings all waiting at the watering-
trough for some trucks to reach the top of the hill,  as it
was impossible to pass  by them.  Finally we started off
  ' Richard Nelville Hall, of Ann Arbor, Michigan; Dartmouth, '15; joined
Section Three of the Field Service in May of 1915; killed by a shell on
Christmas Eve, 1915-
301 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
again, a munitions convoy stopping to heave Peirce's old
'bus up every little grade. A cart stuck in the middle of
the steep corner complicated matters.  But we finally
reached Tomans.

                                 Thursday, December 30
The French attack  has been  more or  less  a failure.
General Serret was wounded the night before last. About
one in the morning Curley went down to Bains-Douches
to get him. It was a very dark night, and he was, of course,
unable to use any lights. The "Wilier" road was kept
clear of  traffic  and  the general was rushed  down  to
Moosch.
  They have found it necessary to amputate the General's
leg.1
                                Tracy J. Putnam
General Serret died on January 6, 1916.
 
Ill
               Christmas Eve, 1915

In one of the most beautiful countries  in the world, the
Alsatian Valley of the Thur runs to where the Vosges
abruptly end in the great flat plain of the Rhine. In turn
a small valley descends into that of the Thur. At the head
of this valley lies the small village of Mollau where was
billeted the Section. At the end of 1915  it had  been
through months of laborious, patient, never-ceasing trips
from the valley to the mountain-tops and back, up the
broadened  mule-paths, rutted and worn  by a  thousand
wheels and the hoofs of mules, horses, and oxen, by hob-
nailed boots and  by the American ambulance cars (for
no  other Section is equipped with cars and  men for
such service), up  from the small Alsatian towns, leaving
the main valley road to grind through a few fields of ever-
increasing grade  on  into the forest, sometimes pushed,
sometimes  pulled, always blocked on the steepest slopes
by huge army wagons deserted where they stuck, rasping
cartloads of trench torpedoes on one side, crumbling the
edge of  the ravine on the other — day and night — night
and day — in snow and rain — and,  far worse, fog —
months of foul and days of fair — up with the  intermin-
able caravans of ravitaillement supplies  with  which to
sustain  or blast the human body  (we go down with the
human  body once blasted), up past small armies of  Alsa-
tian peasants of  three generations (rather two — octo-
genarians and children) forever repairing, forever fight-
ing the  wear and tear of all that passes, — up  at last to
the little log huts and rudely made postes de secours at the
mouth of the trench "bowels" — a silent little world of
tethered mules, shrouded carts, and hooded figures; light-
less by night, under the great pines where is a  crude ga-
rage usually filled with grenades into which one  may back
at one's own discretion.
                         303 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
  Day  after day,  night  after night,  wounded  or  no
wounded, the little ambulances ply with their solitary
drivers. Few men in ordinary autos or in ordinary senses
travel such roads by choice, but all that is impossible is
explained by a simple "Cest la guerre." Why else blindly
force and scrape one's way past a creaking truck of shells
testing  twenty horses, two abreast, steaming  in  their
own cloud of sweaty vapor, thick as a Fundy fog?  Tak-
ing perforce the outside, the ravine side,  the ambulance
passes. More horses and wagons ahead in the dark, an-
other blinding moment or two, harnesses clash  and rat-
tle, side bolts and  lanterns are wiped from the car. It
passes again. Cest  la guerre. Why else descend endless
slopes with every brake afire, with three or four human
bodies, as they should not be, for cargo, where a broken
drive-shaft leaves but one instantaneous twist of the
wheel for salvation, a thrust  straight into  the bank,
smashing the car, but saving its precious load?  Cest la
guerre.
  The men in time grow tired as do the machines. A week
before Christmas they rested quietly in their villages —
a week of sun and splendid moon, spent tuning  up their
motors and gears and jogging about afoot after all their
"rolling." A lull in the fighting,  and, after three weeks of
solid  rain, nature smiles. The Section had been ordered
to leave shortly, and it was only held for a long-expected
attack which would bring them all together for once  on
the mountain  in a  last great effort with  the Chasseurs
alpins and the mountains they both loved.
  On December 21 the mountains spoke, and all  the cars
rolled upwards to the  poste of Hartmannsweilerkopf—
taken and  retaken  a score of  times — a bare,  brown,
blunt, shell-ploughed top where before the forest stood —
up elbowing, buffeting, and tacking their way  through
battalions of men and beasts, up by one pass and dowrn
by another unmountable (for there was no going  back
against the tide of  what was battle-bound).  From one
mountain-slope to another roared all the  lungs of war.
                        304 
RICHARD  HALL'S GRAVE 
 
SECTION THREE
For five days and five nights — scraps of days, the short-
est of  the year, nights  interminable — the  air  was
shredded  with shrieking shells — intermittent  lulls for
slaughter  in attack after the bombardment,  then again
the roar of the counter-attack.

  All this time, as in all the  past months,  Richard
Nelville Hall drove his car up the winding, shell-swept
artery of the  mountain at war — past crazed mules,
broken-down  artillery carts, swearing drivers,  stricken
horses,  wounded stragglers still  able to hobble — past
long convoys of Boche prisoners, silent,  descending in
twos, guarded by a handful of men — past all the per-
sonnel of war, great and small  (for there is but one road,
one road  on which to travel, one road  for  the enemy
to shell), past abris, bomb-proofs, subterranean huts, to
arrive at  the poste de secours, where  silent men moved
mysteriously in the mist under the great trees, where the
cars were loaded with an ever-ready supply of still more
quiet figures (though  some made sounds), mere bundles
in blankets. Hall saw  to it that those quiet bundles were
carefully and rapidly  installed — right side  up, for in-
stance — for it is dark and the  brancardiers  are dulled,
deadened by the dead they carry; then rolled down into
the valley below,  where little towns  bear stolidly their
daily burden of shells wantonly thrown from somewhere
in Bocheland over the mountain to anywhere in France
— the bleeding bodies in  the car a  mere corpuscle in
the full crimson stream, the ever-rolling  tide from the
trenches to the hospitals of the blood of life  and  the
blood of death. Once there, his wounded unloaded, Dick
Hall filled his gasoline tank and  rolled again on his way.
Two of  his comrades had been wounded the day before,
but Dick  Hall never faltered.  He slept where and when
he could, in his car, at the poste, on the floor of our tempo-
rary kitchen at Moosch — dry blankets — wet  blankets
— blankets of mud — blankets of blood; contagion was
pedantry — microbes a myth.
                        305 
THE AMERICAN FIELD  SERVICE
  At midnight Christmas Eve, 1915, he left the valley
to get his load of wounded for the last time. Alone, ahead
of him two hours of lonely driving up the mountain. Per-
haps he was thinking of other Christmas Eves, perhaps
of his distant  home,  and of those who were thinking of
him. . . . The next American to pass, found him by the
roadside halfway up the mountain. His face was calm and
his hands still  in position to grasp the wheel. A shell had
struck his car and killed  him instantly, painlessly. A
chance shell in a thousand had struck him at his post, in
the morning of his youth.
  Up on the mountain fog was hanging over Hartmanns
Christmas morning, as if Heaven wished certain things
obscured.  The  trees were  sodden with  dripping rain.
Weather, sight, sound, and smell did their all to sicken
mankind, when news was brought to us that Dick Hall
had fallen on the Field of Honor. No man said, "Merry
Christmas," that day. No man could have mouthed it.
With the fog forever closing in, with the mountain shaken
by a double bombardment as never before, we sat all day
in the little log hut by the stove, thinking first of Dick
Hall, then of Louis Hall, his brother,  down in the valley.
  Dick Hall, we who knew you, worked with you, played
with you, ate with you, slept with you, we who took
pleasure  in your company, in your modesty, in your
gentle manners, in your devotion and in your youth —
we still pass that spot, and we salute. Our breath comes
quicker, our eyes grow dimmer, we grip the wheel a little
tighter — we pass — better and stronger men.
                                   Waldo Peirce 1
  1 The artist; of Bangor, Maine; Harvard '07. In France when the war
broke out; joined Section Three, in which he served until this Section was
transferred to the Balkans. A number of the paintings and sketches repro-
duced in these volumes are the work of Mr. Peirce.

                        306 
SECTION THREE
   Editor's Note : Richard Hall was buried with honors of war
 in the valley of Saint-Amarin, in Alsace, which once more be-
 longs to France. His grave, in a crowded military cemetery,
 is next that of a French officer who fell the same morning. It
 bears the brief inscription, ''Richard Hall, an American who
 died for France." Simple mountain people, in the then only part
 of Germany where foreign soldiers were, brought to the grave
 many wreaths of native flowers and Christmas greens. The fu-
 neral service was held in a little Protestant chapel, five miles
 down the valley. At the conclusion of the service, Hall's cita-
 tion was read  and the Cross of War pinned on the coffin.  On
 the  way to the cemetery sixteen soldiers, belonging to  a bat-
 talion on leave from the trenches, marched in file on each
 side with arms reversed. The Medecin Chef spoke as  follows
 at the grave:

 Messieurs — Camarades —
   Cest  un supreme  hommage de reconnaissance  et d'affection
 que  nous rendons,  devant cette fosse fraichement  creusee, a ce
 jeune homme—je dirais volontiers — cet enfant — tombe hier
 pour la  France sur  les pentes  de VHartmannsweilerkopf. . . .
 Ai-je besoin de vous  rappeler la douloureuse emotion que nous
 avons tous ressentis en apprenant hier matin que le conducteur
 Richard Hall,  de la Section Sanitaire Americaine N° j, venait
 d'etre mortellement frappe par un eclat d'obus,  pres du poste de
 secours de Thomannsplatz oil il montait chercher des blesses?
   A VAmbulance 3/58, oil nous eprouvons pour nos camarades
 americains une sincere amitie basee sur des mois de vie commune
 pendant laquelle il nous fut permis d'apprecier leur endurance,
 leur courage, et leur  denouement,  le conducteur  Richard Hall
 etait estime entre tous pour sa modestie, sa douceur, sa complai-
 sance.
   A peine  sorti de Vuniversite de Dartmouth,  dans la  genero-
 site  de son cceur d'adolescent, il apporta a la France le precieux
 concours de sa charite en venant relever, sur les champs de bataille
 a"Alsace, ceux de nos vaillants soldats blesses en combattant pour
 la patrie bien-aimee.
   II est mort en "Chevalier de la Bienfaisance" — en "Ameri-
 cain" — pour Vaccomplissement d'une ceuvre de bonte et de charite
 chretienne.
  Aux etres chers  qu'il a laisses dans sa patrie, au  Michigan,
 a ses parents desoles,  a son frere aine, qui, au  milieu de  nous,
 montre une  si stoique douleur, nos hommages et Vexpression de
 notre tristesse sont bien since-res et bien vifs!
  Conducteur Richard Hall, vous allez reposer  ici d Vombre du
drapeau  tricolore, aupres de tous ces vaillants dont vous etes
307 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
I'emule. . . . Vous faites d juste titre  partie de leur bataillon
sacre! . . . Seul, votre corps,  glorieusement  mutile, disparait —
votre dme est remonte  trouver Dieu — votre souvenir, lui, reste
dans nos cceurs, imperissable! . . . Les  Frangais n'oublient pas!
  Conducteur Richard Hall — Adieu!
 
IV
                From Two Diaries
                               Mittlach, December I, 1915
The other night, just as I was going to crawl in, three
blesses arrived from the trenches, and another was down
the road in a farmhouse waiting for the Medecin Chef; he
was too badly wounded to go farther. They asked me to
take the men to the hospital at Kriith, which is back over
the mountains twenty miles. I dressed again — I hated
to because it was warm in the little log shack and it had
begun to rain outside. I lit my  lantern,  and went out
to the shelter where the cars were,  got my tank  filled
with gas, and my lights ready to burn when I could use
them. It was so black one could see nothing. We put two
of the blesses on stretchers and pushed them slowly into
the back of the car; the other sat in front with me. This
we did under the protection of the hill where the poste de
secours is located. When one goes fifty yards on  the road
beyond the station, there is a valley, narrow but clear,
which is in full view of the trenches, and going and com-
ing, it is necessary to pass over this road. In the daytime
one cannot  be seen, because the French have put up a
row of evergreens along it which hides the road. I started
and proceeded very carefully, keeping my lantern under
a blanket, and we soon arrived at the house where the
other blesse was waiting for the doctor. It was a little old
Alsatian farmhouse. I pushed in the door  and stepped
down into the flagstone kitchen.  On the floor lay the
chasseur on a stretcher, his face pale under the lamplight
from  the  table. The MSdecin Chef was bending over
him injecting tetanus anti-toxin into  his  side, and with
each punch of the  needle the poor fellow,  already suf-
fering from terrible wounds, would squirm, but not utter
a word. The soldiers stood around the tiny room,  their
309 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
 heads almost touching the brown rafters above.  We
 took  the man out to my car on the stretcher, carrying
 the light under the coat of one of the stretcher-bearers;
 for if the Germans see a light moving anywhere in French
 territory, they will fire on it if they think it near enough.
   I started up the mountain with my load of wounded.
 On either side of the road the French guns at certain
 places pounded out their  greetings to the Boches;  the
 concussion shook the road so that I could feel it in my car.
 I could light my lights after about a mile; so I proceeded
 slowly up the mountain in low speed while the heat from
 my motor kept the blesses and myself warm. About half-
 way up, we ran into the clouds, and it became so foggy
 one could scarcely see; farther up it became colder and
 began to snow. I had no chains on my car, and it worried
 me to be without  them,  especially with three  helpless
 men inside and one out.  However, I kept  climbing  up,
 and the higher I went the more it snowed and the harder
 it blew. Near the top  it became veritably blinding —
 snow, sleet, and wind — a typical northeasterly American
 blizzard. The little car ploughed on bravely; it stuck only
 once on a sharp turn, and after backing I was able to get
 on by rushing it. But I could not see the road,  the sleet
 was blowing so into my face and the snow was  so thick.
 At last, however,  I reached the summit where the wind
 was strong enough at one time actually to  lift my car a
 little. On one side of the road  was a high embankment
 and on the other a ravine sloping down at  least a thou-
 sand feet. I was scared to death, for without chains we
were liable to skid and plunge down this depth. The snow
had been falling all day, and in places had drifted over a
yard deep. Twice I took a level stretch to be the road, but
discovered my mistake in time to back up. The  third
time was more serious — I plunged ahead through a drift
which I thought was the road, and finally I stuck and
could move  neither way. I could not leave  these men
there  all night wounded, and the blizzard did not stop,
so the only thing to do was to find help. I  walked back
                        310 
LA NEIGE
WINTER  DAYS  IX  ALSACE 
/ 
SECTION THREE
to what I thought was the road and kept on towards a
slight, glimmering light I could see at a distance. It turned
out to be an enclosure for the mules which haul ammuni-
tion over  the mountains;  and  I felt better again, for I
knew there were a lot of territorial  soldiers  with them.
I pulled them out of bed;  it was then 10.30.  They came
with me and pushed me back on the road, also pushed me
along — ten of them — until they got me on the descent,
and from there on the weight of my car carried me down
through the drifts. I arrived at the hospital at 12.30, the
happiest man one ever saw to get those poor fellows there
safely.

                                          December 2
I was sent back to Mittlach the next day to get four more
wounded.  They were assis, not couches, fortunately, for
the snow on top of Trehkopf had been falling and drifting
all day and night and rolling was not easy. When I got
to the top of the mountain and started down, I found the
roads had been broken and beaten down by munition
wagons and were like a sheet of  ice. I started down with-
out chains, when the car, though all my brakes were on,
began to slide slowly down the road. It even slid toward
the edge of the ravine until the two front wheels went
over; but there, fortunately, it stopped, and I got it back
on the road again.  I then turned the radiator into the
bank on the other side and tried tying rags  on the rear
wheels to  keep  the  car from sliding. Then a big wagon
with four horses came behind me down the hill, which
was so slippery at this spot that the horses began to slide
down on their haunches, and the driver, even with brakes
on, could  not stop them. The horses came on faster, and
faster, slid into the rear of my car, pushed it along for
about six  feet,  and then nothing could stop it. It, too,
started down the road going faster and faster.  I yelled
to the wounded  to jump.  They understood my  poor
French and piled out just  in time, for the car ran across
the road and plunged down into the ravine. There was a
                         3H 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
lot of snow on the side of the ravine, which had piled up
in such a way that the car was stopped part-way down
so that it was not injured very much, though it took nine
men and as many mules to pull it out.
                                   Luke C. Doyle1

                                     December 31, 1915
Some little time ago we received our first taste of winter,
and  my first experience made me put more faith in the
rumors of larger falls of snow here than an American
likes to concede to any country but his own.
  The car I  was to relieve got a trip late  one night in
what was, even at Mittlach, a terrific rainstorm. The next
morning it continued  raining, but I could see the peaks
of the mountains covered with snow. Late  in the after-
noon, just after dark, the familiar sound of a Ford brought
me out of the poste de secours, and I found Rice, with his
car covered with snow  which even the rain had n't yet
melted. His story was of helping the car I had relieved,
and of having worked all morning, in their efforts to pull
it back on the  road  from  which a  heavy  ammunition
wagon had pushed it, neither vehicle being  able to stick
to the icy road. Farther on, he had met continual snow-
drifts.  His eagerness to bring  me chains, my only chance
of getting up, persuaded him to keep on, and he eventu-
ally got through with everybody's help on the road. We
decided to wait until the storm  was over — our only
alternative — and proceeded to make ourselves as com-
fortable as we could, which means a stove, somewhere to
sleep, and plenty of books to read  and tobacco to smoke.
It was four days before the snow let up and we had visions
of a  long and lonely  winter; but as soon as the storm
broke we started up, and, as it proved, in the nick of time,
as the five kilometres along  the crest were  again swept
by snow and sleet and drifts were beginning to form. The
Mittlach service had to be abandoned after this, although
  1 Of Worcester, Massachusetts; Yale, '09;  in the Service during part of
1915 and 1916; Captain and later Major in U.S.A. Sanitary Corps.
312 
SECTION THREE
in late November and early December a car could go
through, but it was impossible to assure the service and
it was found better to have sleighs and wagons do the
work.
                                   Stephen Galatti1
  1 Of New York City; Harvard, '10; joined Section Three in 1915 in Alsace;
later adjoint at Headquarters to Mr. Andrew, and second in command of
Service; first a Captain, then a Major in the U.S.A. Ambulance Service,
when the United States took over and continued the Service.
 
V
                    In Lorraine
                                         March, 1916
We  left  Alsace one  morning early in  February, 1916,
when the valleys were filled  with tinted mist and the
snowy hill slopes were glowing pink with sunrise, and
we hated to leave. We still look back upon it as the Prom-
ised  Land. We formed a convoy of twenty-three cars, in
which  170 was placed immediately behind the  leader,
an arrangement to which twenty-one persons objected.
Every time the side-boxes came open and the extra tins
of gasoline scattered over the landscape, or when the
engine stopped through lack of  sympathy  with the
engineer, three or four cars would manage to slip by.  It
was a sort of progressive-euchre party in which 170 never
held a winning hand.
   No one concerned had the least idea whither we were
headed. The first night we spent at Rupt, where there is
an automobile park.  We took it on hearsay that there
was  an automobile park, for  we left the next  morning
without having seen it; but when two days later we joined
the Twentieth Army Corps — "the Fighting Twentieth"
— at Moyen, we were reported as coming straight from
the automobile park  at Rupt.  Consequently we were
assumed  to be ready for indefinite service "to the last
button of the last uniform," but when we had explained
that mechanically speaking our last uniform was on its
last button the Fighting Twentieth shook us off.
   We spent a week at Moyen however — in it up to our
knees.  The surrounding country  was dry  and almost
dusty; but Moyen has an atmosphere of its own and local
color — and the streets are not clean. Yet to most of us
the stay  was intensely interesting. At that time it lay
just  back of the high-water mark of German invasion,
and the little villages and towns roundabout looked like
                       3H 
SECTION THREE
the broken wreckage tossed up by the tide — long streets
of roofless, blackened ruins, and in the midst the empty
skeleton of a church, whose tower had  been  pierced by
shells, and with the broken chimes blocking the entrance.
Nothing had been done to alter or disguise the marks of
invasion. The fields surrounding Moyen were pitted with
shell-craters, which had a suggestive way of lining the
open roads, along whose edges were rifle-pits and shallow
trenches filled with a litter of cartridge-boxes and bits of
trampled uniform and accoutrements, blue and red, or
greenish-gray, mixed  together; and  always and every-
where the long grave-mounds with the little  wooden
crosses which are a sadly familiar feature of every land-
scape on the Western Front. The Moyen region lacked,
perhaps, the bald, grim cruelty of Hartmannsweilerkopf,
but it is a place not to be forgotten.
  From  Moyen we moved on to Tantonville, a place not
lacking in material comforts, but totally devoid  of soul;
and  from there  we made our round  of postes — of one,
two, or four cars, and for two, four, or eight days.  At
some postes, the work was fairly  constant, carrying the
sick and second-hand wounded from poste to hospital and
from hospital to railroad; in others, one struggled against
mental and physical decay.
  At Oeleville, we saw the class of 1916 called out —
brave, cheerful-looking boys, standing very straight at
attention as their officers passed down the line, and later,
as we passed them on the march, cheering loudly  for "les
americains" — and so marching  on  to  the open lid of
hell at Verdun. The roads were filled with soldiers, and
every day and all day the troop-trains were rumbling by
to the north; and day after day and week after week the
northern horizon echoed with the steady thunder of artil-
lery. Sometimes, lying awake in the  stillness of dawn to
listen, one could not  count the  separate explosions, so
closely did they follow each other. The old man who used
to open the railway gate for me at  Dombasle would shake
his head  and say that we ought to be up at Verdun, and
                         315 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
once a soldier beside him told him that we were neutrals
and not supposed to be sent under fire. I heard that sug-
gestion several times made, and one of our men used to
carry in his pocket a photograph of poor Hall's car to
refute it.

               A Call for Baccarat
There was a momentary thrill of interest when a call
came for four cars to Baccarat — a new poste and almost
on the front, where was an  English  section  in need  of
assistance; and we four who went intended  to "show
them how." But it seemed that the call had come too late
and the pressing need was over — the last batch of Ger-
man prisoners had been brought in the day before and
the active fighting had ceased. We stepped into the long
wooden cabin where they waited — the German wounded
— and they struggled up to salute — a more pitiful, un-
dersized, weak-chested,  and woe-begone set  of human
derelicts I hope never to see again in uniform; and as we
stood among them in our strong, warm clothes, for it was
snowing outside, all of us over six feet tall, I felt suddenly
uncomfortable and ashamed.
  Once we were startled at lunch-time, while we were
eating the rarity of blood sausage, by an explosion near
the edge of town, when three of us stepped to the door,
but the fourth man kept his seat to help himself from
the next man's plate, a striking example of coolness under
fire. As we looked out there came a second explosion a
little farther off, and then in a few moments a telephone
call for an ambulance, with the news that a Taube had
struck a train. When I reached the place, the train had
gone  on, carrying ten slightly  wounded to  Luneville,
while I brought back the other two on stretchers — one a
civilian struck in a dozen places, but otherwise appar-
ently in excellent health and spirits; the other,  a soldier
in pretty bad shape. It must have been excellent marks-
manship for the Taube, since we had seen nothing in the
clear  blue  sky  overhead nor heard  the characteristic
                        316 
SECTION THREE
whirr of the motor, and yet both shell-craters were very
close to the tracks.
  In Alsace these Taubes were constantly in sight, but
seldom attacked and almost never scored a hit, while the
French gunners seemed perfectly happy to fire shrapnel
at them all the afternoon with the same indecisive result.
One could not even take  the white shrapnel clouds  as a
point of departure in looking for the aeroplane,  though
the French artillery is very justly famous for its accuracy
of fire.  In this instance,  as in all air raids,  the  success
scored seemed pitifully futile,  for it was not a military
train, and  most of the wounded were non-combatants,
while it added its little unnecessary mite of suffering, and
of hatred to  the  vast  monument which Germany has
reared to herself and by which she will always be remem-
bered.
                         Walter Kerr Rainsford j
  1 Of Ridgefield, Connecticut; Harvard, '04; in the Field Service during
the greater part of 1916; subsequently Captain in Infantry, U.S.A.
 
VI
                 "On to Verdun"
                                          July, 1916
Our journey from the Lorraine front carried us to a small
village where was quartered the Etat-Major and which
was situated directly on the main Verdun road. There
was no mistaking our destination now. The first impres-
sions  in that village will always be clear and  distinct.
Here was the first evidence of the immensity and awful-
ness of a modern battle — the Verdun road. The village
itself  was nothing; simply a spot through which passed
the Verdun road. This was a broad street, and it  well
needed to be. It was rough, too, for the constant churning
of the thousands of wheels that passed upon it destroyed
any surface as fast as it could be  made. Where were all
these trucks with their loads of men and material going?
To Verdun!
  There they come now. First appears a squad of twenty,
thirty, or fifty French trucks, loaded down with men;
close upon them is another squad, larger even, of American
Whites, said to have been captured by the British fleet on
their way to Germany; then another squad of an Italian
make; then a  French make; then the Americans again;
and so the never-ending line moves on. An ambulance
slips by; the men are beginning to return already. Were
we to be doing that soon? Now a staff car rushes on and
another passes  returning. A truck comes by bearing the
compressed hydrogen for the many artillery observation
balloons. And so this terrible traffic of the awful business
of war pressed back  and forth —an almost unending
stream. Such was the first impression of the Verdun road.
   Our stay in the village was short. Two or three  days
passed and we were again on the move, stopping this time
at a little town called Sousbrienne, well off from the main
Verdun road. Here we waited five or six days to be sent
                        3i8 
SECTION  THREE
up finally to near Nixeville, whence we did the work of
removing the blesses back from the fight around Verdun.
Our cars were parked on the slope of a small hill rising to
the north of the village. A short walk brought one to the
top of it, where could be distinctly heard the tremendous
battle tune of the cannon, and at night the bright flashes
of the larger guns would appear.
  Across the hollow in which was built the town and on
a level plateau was situated the aerial station, whence
flew  the  battle planes  to do the service about Verdun.
This was real flying and made what we saw near Nancy
seem nothing. All the machines here were of the fastest
type and the pilots were in a class with Navarre. It was
a wonderful sight to see three or four Nieuports swoop-
ing about in the air, looping the loop, or doing the leaf-
drop or the war-hawk swoop. Like swallows they seemed,
not only in numbers,  but in dexterity. On one side we
had  these birds of war and their nest — the aerodrome
— rising from  just beyond the top of the hill; below
us was the village full of  soldiers; and beyond it  the
fields filled with wagons and horses, and to the  right the
same.
  In front of us, up the hill, and to our right, lay Verdun
and the immense area of fighting that was involved in the
defence of it. Here was that steady sound of guns which,
like  the  pounding of the sea, made one stop in awe to
wonder why it  is and whence come the great forces that
drive it on. At times, as one questions how best to describe
the one small chapter of the story of Verdun with which
one is  familiar, there comes a terrible feeling of disgust
that  any attempt should be made to put into words things
that  have been recorded already in  the blood of some
members of practically every family in France. It is a
sacrilege  to make the attempt,  and any one who  reads
such efforts to describe this terrific struggle must remem-
ber that words do not count, but that the real story, the
real evidence, is found only in the pain and suffering and
loss of  life of a  nation's great.
                        319 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
               Service at Verdun
The first night of our service at Verdun began. Fifteen
of our twenty cars "rolled " along the main Verdun road
past the long line of camions, ammunition wagons, and
soup kitchens; then into the city itself, through the ruins
of the heavily shelled district and across the river to a
small poste  just in the outskirts of the town. All about
us in this suburb of Verdun were batteries of "75" or
"105" or "220" guns, all firing at regular intervals up
over the projecting cliff and upon the German positions
beyond.
  Occasionally the Germans sent an answering shell, and
the  men in the neighborhood would  seek safety in the
many abris close by. That night the Germans were mak-
ing  a gas attack, and they threw thousands of gas-shells
upon the French trenches and beyond, to interfere with
the   ravitaillement. The gas reached  us, and men not
equipped with proper masks began to cough and choke
and gag, and were sent deep into a cellar where the air
was still fresh. The time for us to go to the advance poste
and start bringing in the wounded arrived; but  the road
had been blocked by incendiary bombs which had set a
house on fire. About an hour later this  was cleared and we
could begin our work.  Happily  also at about that time
there was a severe thunderstorm, the breeze and rain of
which cleared  away the gas.
  This road to the advance poste, Bras, ran along the side
of the river a short distance, when it turned to the right
off  over the field, passing  between a  row of trees, then
through a wood, and finally over the fields again until it
reached Bras. Due to the blockade earlier in the evening,
this road was covered with traffic of one sort and another,
and it was difficult,  terribly difficult sometimes, to get
through, the darkness of the night and the need  for haste
making the danger of a smash-up exceedingly great. One
French phrase will always  remain in the vocabulary of
the  American  ambulance  drivers even if  every other
                        320 
SECTION THREE
word of the  language  be forgotten. It is " ct droite, ct
droite" which has saved men and machines many times.

                        Bras
On arriving at Bras, a  town of mines, we found a great
number of wounded and men suffering from gas poison-
ing. It was terrible to see their eagerness to get back and
farther back  from the  horrors they had left. Our work
lasted till daylight, when it was impossible to pass over
the road as it was in plain view of the Germans. Once
daylight came, however, there yet remained  the task of
carrying to Verdun those wounded we had brought down
from Bras, and from Verdun back  inland again to  the
first stationary hospital. This work kept us "rolling" on
till nine o'clock in the  morning when other men took it
up and completed  it later in the day.
   The next night there was no gas attack and we could
begin our work promptly just after dark. But while we
did n't have the terror of the gas, we were made to realize
the terror of the shrapnel shells and  high-explosives. One
of our drivers had the  front of his  car broken open and
two men were killed beside it, while he just saved himself
by sliding under the car when he heard the whistle. An-
other man had a shrapnel bullet pierce his purse and stop;
and another was bruised in the ankle by a stone driven
by the near-by explosion of a shell. The cars, with  the
one exception just mentioned, were untouched, and  the
work went on till daybreak made it too dangerous to stay,
when  began  the  work of carrying the wounded, gas-
poisoned, and burnt, back from Verdun.
   The next night was much the same thing as the previ-
ous one; but as it is fairly representative, it is well to con-
sider it in detail. The first man goes at about 9.30; then
another, followed  by two more.  The  first man returns
and  reports lots of wounded, shelling of the road, and
much traffic passing out. Five other men go.  They meet
first some loose horses and then a man riding a horse at a
gallop back toward us.  A shriek, d droite, just keeps him
                        321 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
 from running into the cars, and as he passes he cries out
 in turn, "Tir de barrage." We soon  come to a block of
 long lines of traffic, and are told we can't go farther. But
 by dint of much urging and squeezing,  we finally reach
 the head of the line,  where  we find a terrible mix-up of
 dead and dying horses  and  men.  Then begins the tir de
 barrage again, and the  shrill whistle of  an approaching
 shell gives warning that it is coming to kill. We crouch
 low, hoping nothing  may happen. Then comes another
 and another, and one close enough to cause the rattle of
 pebbles about us; but the others are wild shots. Now they
 cease and for the moment we thank God for the darkness
 that hides us and the immense crowd of wagons about us
 from the eyes of the Germans.
   Then some one takes a chance, finds there is room  to
 pass in the ditch at the side of the road, and the block
 gradually clears.  We are  able now to move on, after
 removing the body of the  man just ahead  of us,  and  at
 last succeed in arriving at Bras. One of the five, however,
 remains behind to pick  up the wounded  from about the
 road. If luck had been with us we could have got a load
 and returned; but we are  compelled  to wait,  and while
 we wait some German shells begin to find the town and
 we go to the cellar. A rattle  of eclats  and stones tells  of
 one near shot. But now we can get our wounded and we
 start back,  picking our way carefully about some of the
 large shell-holes that fill the  roads in the town.
   We roll on,  but only  to be stopped farther down by
 another block. This time we stay where we are, waiting
 for the block to be cleared,  while the air is alive above us
 with the passing shells, both French and German. Beside
 us in the fields near the  roads, batteries are going off at
 regular intervals. Far  off to the right  in the direction of
 Mort Homme,  a terrific bombardment  is on and the
whole horizon is a line of flashing  lights.  Back of  us are
rising and falling German and French star-bombs which
throw a  light that to us seems enough to disclose our
whereabouts.
322 
AX UXDERGROINI)  "POSTE"
(>N< I)  AX AVKXI'K OF STATELY  TREES 
 
SECTION THREE
   The block clears, and we pass on  and come without
 hindrance to the top of a long hill that leads down into
 the valley where lies Verdun. Below us is booming forth
 a series of sounds from the " 105 " French battery, and it
 seems as if the shells must graze us as they pass on to-
 ward their goal among the Germans. It is but a short
 distance then to the poste in Verdun, and we discharge
 our wounded to start on  a second  trip which repeats
 with  little variation the experiences  of  the first.  Then
 comes a third, and for one or two men, a  fourth.
   The next night the same things were repeated in vary-
 ing degrees. Perhaps that night you did n't have the fright-
 ful tir de barrage, but you had a narrow escape from being
 smashed by  an artillery wagon coming full tilt past the
 quarry  which was often a mark for the  German shells.
 Perhaps you  had some frightful moments when, listening
 to the pleas  of the wounded and nerve-shattered  men
 along the road, you took a heavier load than a Ford could
 stand and then found yourself rocking and rolling and
 smashing through some deep shell-holes you had forgot-
 ten, amid the cries of the frightened  wounded. Perhaps
 that night your machine was caught and held by tangled
 barbed wire and you had  to be cut free. These were all
 part of some  man's experiences if not  the experiences of
 all of us.
  Such  in brief and very imperfect outline were some of
the things we did and felt and saw during the eight ter-
rible days of strain at Verdun; and when the moment
came  for our  release, it was like casting off great weights
of lead. But if the strain upon us, who really could not
have seen more than a small  part of  the horror of this
struggle, was so great, what must be said of the endurance
and suffering of the  soldiers who saw  it all and endured
it all?
                            Alwyn  Inness-Brown1
  1 Of  Charleston, South Carolina; University of Virginia;  entered the
Field Service in April, 1916, and served for nine  months; later Captain,
U.S.A. Sanitary Corps. 
VII
             The Glory of the French

I have noticed that French soldiers everywhere are most
eager to talk and make friends with us Americans, and
they are the most sympathetic, appreciative, and gener-
ous people I have ever known. They often run across the
street just to shake hands with us or say a word or two,
and invite us to have a glass of wine  with them which
they in  their unbounded generosity always want to pay
for. It hurts me to see them reach down into their jeans
for their meagre change, and I can never allow them to
treat  me out  of  their  small and hard-earned savings.
Whatever they have, however,  is yours if you want it.

                                  Ligny, June 10, 1916
As I  was walking through the town  to-day a French
soldier called to me from across the street and said he had
a present he wished to give me. He then produced from
his pocket an English copy of " Robinson Crusoe," which
in his simple and unconventional way he presented to me,
after writing his name and a few words in the front of it
— a perfect example of the genuineness of the French
spirit.

                                Conde, Monday, June 12
Yesterday  dawned with heavy rain.  I packed up my
regular load of section material, which  is allotted to me
to carry from  place to  place as we travel, and we  pro-
ceeded to Bar-le-Duc once more on our way to Verdun.
We stopped there to eat, and  after lunch we went on
farther to the little town of Conde, recalling the Duke of
Conde, and drew up our machines in a barnyard. I no-
ticed that the lady at the farmhouse by which  we had
stopped  was crying. At first we thought it was because
                        324 
SECTION THREE
she did not like us to stop on her premises; but we soon
learned that she had more reason than that for her grief,
for she had just received a letter saying that her only son
had been killed on the battle-field. She recovered her com-
posure soon, however, and extended rare  hospitality to
us. Wonderful people are the French!
  It has rained here for more than a week, and the old
story is certainly an apt one — when  a soldier walks in
French mud and lifts up one foot, he is sure all of France
is  clinging to it, but finds he is mistaken, for when he
lifts the other, he discovers that half of France is there!
Here we see long files of troops going to and  returning
from the front.

                                            June 22
Late this afternoon Mr. Hill  asked a  few of us if •we
wanted to accompany him and the French  Lieutenant on
a trip to our future working-ground. We were eager to go,
and taking our gas-masks with us  and putting on our
iron derbies, we set off. I was in the French Lieutenant's
car — a Berliet — and here began what proved to be the
most interesting four hours that I have had since I joined
the  American Field Service.,We took a "switch road"
to Verdun, getting onto the main  road when we  were
halfway there. It was twilight and the countryside with
the setting sun glow on  it was beautiful. On the hillsides
could be  seen the  French encampments and  hospitals,
and over the roads — we were continually in sight of
two besides the one we were on — were passing constant
streams of traffic to and from Verdun. Ahead of us and
at the right could be seen continual flashes of light which
grew brighter and  brighter,  and the  cannonading grew
louder and louder as we neared the trenches.
   Passing through  the outskirts of  the city we came to
the  ancient walls, gateways, and moat  of Verdun, and
once in Verdun the sight was like a three-ringed circus,
so many things claiming one's notice at a time that it was
hard to determine just where to  fix one's  attention.
                         325 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
Verdun was absolutely deserted and in complete ruin; I
saw no stores and but a few walls were left standing.
Debris was piled so high on both sides of the road and
took up so much space that there was only enough room
left for one machine to pass at a time. There was  not a
light to be seen in the town, and no horns or klaxons were
supposed to be used. Shells shot by us over our heads, but
so near that the noise  was deafening.
  We finally drew up at an American Field Service poste
in Verdun, where I saw the first signs of life anywhere.
Here we met the American boys who had been doing the
work we were about to begin. There were twelve of them
who had had five  days of it  and were to leave in the
morning. Each ambulance section is assigned to an  army
division,  follows  it  to  the front, and when it leaves, the
ambulance section  leaves also. The division  sometimes
stays  until about  forty per cent have  been killed or
wounded. During the past five days fourteen of  their
ambulance cars  have  been hit by shells or scattering
fragments; two of  the twelve  men have  been  wounded,
and I was not surprised to find them rather glad to get
away  from the lines.

                 Verdun to Bras
The road from Verdun to  Bras is dangerous, filled as it
is with deep shell-holes, and it  leads along a very difficult
way. There is a choice of two roads to Bras; but one was
under constant fire, so we were forced to take the other,
proceeding along this road up to the very top of a steep
cliff, below which are the French guns and beyond which
are the trenches. It was at this point that we heard explo-
sions  the din of which more than doubly eclipsed any-
thing we had previously  heard. They were simply tre-
mendous. We were  at that point which is the very muzzle
of some big French guns, and because the Germans are
most  anxious to get  the  "battery," they direct their
heaviest firing against  it. We had to go as fast as we could
in order to escape  the shells, and yet we had to go cau-
                        326 
SECTION THREE
tiously enough to avoid the  terrible holes in the road,
some of which were five or six feet deep and as big as the
machine itself. I was almost hurled from the back to the
front seat of the machine when Mr. Hill, going twelve
miles an  hour,  hit one of these holes. We got out of it
soon, however,  and approached a bridge, about the only
bridge that the Germans have not taken in that local-
ity, and they want that badly. It was under intermittent
fire all the time, and we were supposed to stop if shelling
were going on and wait for it to cease. All along the road-
side was a deep trench into which we could go if the shell-
ing became too severe. We soon approached Bras, where
great rockets kept flashing out green, yellow, and red
star-bombs, lighting up the sky and exposing the enemy's
trenches.
  Bras is simply a ruined village. At one spot just off the
field of battle is a sort of first-aid station to which the
stretcher-bearers carry the wounded from the field. If
anything can be done to ease temporarily their suffering,
they are taken at once down into the cellar and treated.
It is there that we are to get our blesses, and from there
we are to take them back to the poste at Verdun. Every
trip from  Bras to Verdun has to be made between the
hours of 9 p.m.  and 2 a.m. No traffic goes over that road
in daylight. The week before our arrival,  an ambulance
had been sent out during the daytime and as a result was
shelled and hit twice. After treatment at the Verdun poste,
the wounded are taken in daylight to Baleycourt beyond
Verdun and put in the rear hospitals. It is at Baleycourt
that our  encampment  is to be. There is a cellar at the
Verdun poste where the boys can catch a wink of sleep, if
possible, between trips.

                                    Baleycourt, June 24
As per order we left promptly at 8.30 yesterday for Ver-
dun. The  camp which is to be our eating and sleeping
place is  in this little town of Baleycourt, about  seven
miles from Verdun. We pulled up  here  in  the usual
                        327 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
fashion, our  ambulances lined up straight  before  the
camp,  and pitched  our tent, in which we set the beds
which we  have carried all the  way from Nancy.  It was
very hot, and being one of the first to arrive I pushed my
cot up into the corner by the door so as to get plenty of
air. Whenever we pitch camp, it always  reminds me of
a Western land-lottery in our  own country. Every one
rushes into the tent with  some  of his possessions — suit-
case, bag,  or bed — and flings them down in a desirable
place, so that, later, his chosen spot is claimed by prior
right of possession.

                 Lost in Verdun
                                            June 25
Before going to bed last night  I learned that I was to be
on duty for the twenty-four-hour stretch  to-day, and I
went to sleep anticipating some new experiences, espe-
cially as the men sent out the night before  had run into a
heavy  gas attack and had come  back with their eyes
inflamed,  paining terribly,  and their lungs choked  up.
I was called to work at seven this morning, and made the
trip to the hospital at Baleycourt for a load of wounded
whom I evacuated to Queue-de-Mala farther back. I had
no sooner returned  to camp than Clark suggested that
I had better help him evacuate the wounded from Ver-
dun, as that job  was getting  ahead of him. I  accord-
ingly started for Verdun, entered by the wrong gate, and
was completely lost for some time. This is no fun, getting
lost in Verdun, for there is scarcely a man to be seen on
the streets, and if by chance you do see one, he is sure to
be on the run to the nearest cellar. People know better
than to promenade in  Verdun!  I finally got my bearings,
and after getting some horribly wounded men, I returned
to our poste,  after which  I  made several  of these trips.
Often I would notice fresh shell-holes in the road, which
had to be  filled in, and quantities of debris, which  had to
be cleared away, before I could proceed, so narrow was
the way. Occasionally a dead horse had to be put aside
                        328 
SECTION THREE
from the road. During one trip two of the poor fellows I
had in my ambulance died before arriving at the hospital,
and as the attendants took another out of  the car they
noticed  that he looked deathly white and lifeless, when
one of them said,  "He is dead, isn't he?" "Yes,  he is
dead," replied the other as they proceeded to leave him;
but the wretched  soldier spoke up  for himself at this
point, and said feebly, "No, I am not dead," and so they
carried him in with the others.

                                            June 26
It was six o'clock yesterday before I lay off for supper
and a general  fixing-up of my car for the evening work.
When the time came for us to set out, we left in pairs at
intervals of five minutes. Munroe and I started out to-
gether, and here began for me one of the worst nights I
have ever experienced. We arrived at our poste at Verdun
all right, and  in half  an hour we went on toward the
Croix-de-Fer, which is two thirds of the way to Bras, to
get the  wounded there.  I started  back before Munroe
was ready, with five wounded in my machine. Driving on
a dark night over  a narrow road full of shell-holes with
five wounded  mortals  is bad  enough, but when in ad-
dition to this it rains pitchforks and lightning flashes
continually, it is much worse.  The  lightning absolutely
blinded  me so that I could not see an inch of  the  road,
while all the time passing on both sides of me were  great
streams of infantry, cavalry, carts,  and trucks; conse-
quently many were the collisions  and scrapings  that
night. We were never allowed to use our horns, and would
press  on desperately until,  hitting some one, we would
back up, get out of the mess, and start on again.
  Finally,  I reached my destination, filled  my car with
injured  soldiers, and  started back.  Nearing  Verdun  I
missed the road I was supposed to turn in on and lost my
way entirely. Lost in the dead of night between Verdun
and the trenches,  my ambulance full of wounded men! I
was desperate. I drove my car back and forth, in and out,
                        329 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
in great confusion of mind, into all sorts of places.  Fail-
ing to find the right way, I at last gave up in despair and
decided to wait until it began to grow a little lighter,  al-
though I knew that this would be a dangerous thing to do.
Then I thought of the poor fellows in my car and decided
I must devise some  way of getting them back.  It at last
occurred to me, if I  could discover the railroad station in
Verdun, I could, since I knew the location of that place,
find my way onto the road I  usually took. This I decided
to do even though it was quite  a distance out of the
way; and after inquiring of several men who did n't seem
to understand what I was trying to get at, I got one of
the less injured soldiers in my ambulance to get informa-
tion in French from one of them and in turn direct  me
how to go. In this way, although I  was  side-tracked sev-
eral  times, I made my way towards the railroad station.
Before  reaching it, however, I  came, by accident, upon
the old familiar road and made my way straight to our
poste.  When  I arrived there I was in a state of nervous
exhaustion.
                     Wounded
                 In the French Military Hospital,  Vadelaincourt
About four o'clock on the afternoon of June 30, we were
 all seated around our camp when we heard shells dropping
 within a mile of us and learned that our large  front hos-
 pital was being shelled. Our work was  to carry wounded
 from this hospital to one farther back, which was not so
 likely to be shelled. After leaving Vadelaincourt, I started
 out for Verdun at 8.45, and at 10 o'clock Dawson and  I
 got orders to go to  Bras. Before we started, Dawson said,
 "Barber, if we get into very thick fire, just stop and we
 will get under our cars and wait until it is over." I agreed
 and we started off. The night  was very cloudy and  the
 darkness was intensified by the heavy overhanging foli-
 age of the trees. Everything went as well as ever at first,
 and  I  arrived at  Bras before Dawson. I  loaded three
 blesses into my ambulance and started back to Verdun.
                         330 
SECTION THREE
I passed Dawson's car not far out, grimly standing by
the roadside en panne. I had not gone far from Bras when
the shelling became very heavy. I climbed out of my car,
and after instructing the wounded soldier with whom  I
was sharing my seat to get under the car, I did so myself.
We stayed there ten or fifteen minutes until shells began
to explode back of us, and I thought it would be better for
us to jump into the machine and make a dash for Verdun
before another volley of shells was sent ahead of us.
  I got out from under the car and walked around to the
front of it. This, however, is where I made my fatal mis-
take, for no sooner had I left the protection of the machine
than I recognized the shrill whistle and  swish of what
seemed to me to be the largest obus that I had ever heard.
The loudness of the noise was probably  caused by the
nearness of the shell. I had stooped in front of the car's
radiator to gain its protection and when the shell exploded,
I saw for an instant a great band of  flame around my
stomach and for the moment  I thought  surely the end
had come.  I noticed that my car was ruined. The rear
was completely demolished and every one of my three
wounded men killed. Recovering a little from my  dazed
condition, I distinctly remember trying out my various
faculties. I  found out that I  could still breathe, with
difficulty, however,  for every respiration hurt  my lungs;
I tried to walk and succeeded, with pain, however; I could
see with both eyes and could swallow, and I still had my
two arms.
  At this point I began to feel a sharp, stinging sensation
all over my body,  became  very  weak and could only
stagger along. I was in great pain. It was agony to breathe.
My legs and back hurt, and I  reasoned out that I must
have been struck by pieces of shell in numerous parts of
my body. I  struggled along a few  yards on the road and
then fell prostrate. I thought if I  could only get back to
Verdun some way, I could be fixed up. As I lay there on
the road helpless, it occurred to me that when the next
ambulance came along I could call out the name of one
                        331 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
 of the drivers, get in an English word or two, and perhaps
 thus  attract his attention. In about fifteen minutes one
 loomed in sight, coming down the road with great speed,
 whereupon I yelled out the first name  I thought of, that
 of a  boy in our Section, "Tison, Tison!" The scheme
 worked, and although Wheeler was driving he pulled up
 with  "What's the matter here?" A soldier whom I  had
 spoken to explained to Wheeler the situation, and I called
 to him from the other side of the road where I lay under
 a soup  cart. When he found out that I  was hurt, he
 jumped out  of his car and helped me over to it. The
 shelling was  continuing very heavily, and  I thought we
 had better get under  his car until it subsided a bit.  We
 stayed under the car for a  few minutes,  but Wheeler
 finally dragged me out and placed me on the floor of the
 front  seat of his ambulance. He was already sharing his
 seat with one wounded soldier, and another fellow, who
 was eager to be taken back to Verdun, climbed onto the
 car, too. Wheeler told him to get off, but he insisted that
 he would be needed to hold me on, which he did all the
way back. This made  seven in the car already, and in the
 excitement of the moment another had jumped onto the
other side of the machine. In a hurry to get me to Verdun,
Wheeler with his load went at top speed  over a dark,
muddy, thickly travelled road. It was a masterpiece of
 driving. I was by this time very weak; but we had come
 upon  Bluethenthal,1 who gave me water from his canteen,
which revived me somewhat. Wheeler, intent  upon get-
ting me to Verdun as quickly as possible, got  out of his
 car at the bridge over the canal, ran across, and succeeded
 in getting some passing troops to stop long enough for
us to  go over, so that we finally got through the gates
 of Verdun  and drew up at our poste. There I was taken
 in, injected for lockjaw and  my wounds bound up a  bit,
  1 Arthur Bluethenthal, of  Wilmington, North Carolina; Princeton, '13;
joined  the Field Service in   May, 1916, serving with Section Three in
France  and Salonica until May, 1917, when he entered the French Aviation
 Service; he was killed in July, 1918, at the front,  when his  machine was
shot down in flames.
332 

*    * 
 
SECTION THREE
when it was found that I was hurt in over twenty-five
places. Later at the Vadelaincourt Hospital I was laid
on the operating-table and chloroformed, which was all I
knew until I awoke the next morning, bound up in band-
ages, in a long room with a row of cots on each side.

                 In the Hospital
Then followed three or four of the most uncomfortable
days I have ever spent. I was comfortable in no position,
my body paining me on all sides, and the ringing in my ears
continuing. For three days I was not allowed to eat or
drink. Some French officers came into the hospital a few
days later, inquired for me, came up to my bed, said a
lot in French which I  did not understand; this much,
however, I did get:  " In the name of the French Republic,
we have the honor to confer upon you, as a reward for
your services, the Medaille Militaire" — which they then
and there pinned on my nightshirt, shook hands with me,
and departed. This was quite a compliment, although I
could not feel that I deserved such a distinction, since I
had done no more than the other boys. Some of them
came in to  see me  every day, and General  Petain, com-
mander of  the army of Verdun, visited the  ward and
shook hands with me.
  At my second operation the surgeon took out of me a
piece of my Ford radiator as big as the end of my middle
finger. My radiator always had given me trouble! Some
of the boys who came  to see me  brought  with them a
handful of shots which they had taken out of my car the
day after  I was wounded,  and  said they could have
brought me a basketful. Every once in a while, little
pieces of shell would be removed from my body, but I
had no more serious operations.
  The ambulance I had been driving was given by Mr.
and Mrs. Allston Burr,  of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts,
in memory of their nephew, Francis Hardon Burr, and as
soon as they learned that it had been demolished,  they
immediately replaced it by a new one.
                       333 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
  When I  began looking around  me in the hospital, I
recognized several  blesses  whom  I  had carried in my
ambulance on previous days. I spent a peculiar Fourth of
July, the only feature of it for me being a small American
flag which  my nurse gave me and which I stuck on the
wall by my bed.. In the evening, an American from Sec-
tion Four came in to see me and brought me a bottle of
champagne and a sack of apricots. He was the cheeriest
fellow I ever met, and though he stayed but five minutes
with me, the  spirit he put into me remained with me for
the rest of  the night. Balsley, the American aviator who
was seriously injured in his encounter with three German
airplanes at once, was in the same hospital. He wrote me
a very friendly note and sent me some of his magazines
to read, and  I sent him in return a London newspaper
giving details of his own experiences and those  of Chap-
man, who was on his way to get oranges for Balsley when
he was killed by a German shell. I had not been long in
the hospital at Vadelaincourt before the Section, in which
I had been, moved back to Ligny,  and though  I missed
their coming in to see me, I was glad for their sakes that the
dangerous part of their wrork was over for a while at least.
                              William M. Barber1
  1 Of Toledo, Ohio; Oberlin, '19; left college May, 1916, for ambulance
work in France; was severely wounded during his first month at the front
and invalided home; received the Medaille Militaire. In 1918 became an
aspirant in French artillery.
 
VIII
             Verdun Days and Nights
                                         June 22, 1916
Twelve of our men were out last night on the Bras serv-
ice and struck the edge of  a gas  attack. One  of them
gave me a cigarette this morning  from  the case he had
carried, but it reeked  so of gas that I could n't smoke it.
The air here was tainted with gas all the morning, but
whether from the patients or from the occasional shell
that struck in the woods above, I could not tell. The gas
patients are in a terrible state, those less affected cough-
ing and choking continually; but  the others  are far be-
yond that. Two of us took the less desperate cases on to
the evacuation camp at Queue-de-Mala; the others went
down the hill on stretchers — uncovered, for treatment
— with blanketed face, for burial. After twelve  hours'
work and about ten trips apiece, we came in for supper,
utterly unrecognizable in our masks of dust.

                                        Bras, June 30
During the shelling of the road last night, I  found my-
self repeating the chorus we had sung those long months
ago in Mirecourt:
           "Hardis, mes gars! Cest pour la France."
  We shall have  only one night more here. As I waited
for my last load, sitting on the end of the sandbag wall,
I looked about me. A pace inside  the doorway rose the
piled debris and wreckage of the house, and  above it a
weird perspective of broken  beams and masonry against
the morning stars. I wondered if I  should ever return to
walk in  safety up these dark hills of fear. We are leaving
to-morrow, and very soon I am leaving France — leaving
it with a fading memory of things unreal, and with a great
gladness that  in  some slight way I have been able to
                        335 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
bring a message of sympathy to her in her time of agony
and travail.
          "Hardis, mes gars I Cest pour la France."
                        Walter Kerr Rainsford x

                                    Verdun, June, 1916
It is an extraordinary and exhilarating feeling to be
actually taking part in the greatest battle of history, in
a front-row seat, so to speak.  Those who declare that
there is nothing picturesque about modern warfare are
all off. It is gorgeous.

                                             July 10
Our run from Verdun to Bras was over a road which was
shelled intermittently every night. Looking back on those
ten days (we are now en repos),  I feel that it was perfectly
miraculous our getting away with only one man badly
wounded.  Half the cars have holes in them from eclats,
two or three men were grazed by shrapnel, and one bullet
actually lodged  in  Waldo Peirce's pocket-book in the
most approved melodramatic manner.
  The night  after our  arrival,  the Germans launched a
gas attack, which is about  the most unpleasant thing
imaginable. Fortunately, we had been equipped with gas-
masks that really fitted and which were entirely effective;
but it was impossible to see through them clearly enough
to drive a car, so that when actually on the road we had
to go without them. Most of  the gas was of the "lacrimo-
gene" variety, which merely makes your eyes  run and
your throat sting; but out toward Bras one got a whiff
of the chlorine, which is fearful. Many of those whom we
brought in overcome died soon after  in horrible agony.
We all noticed, as a curious after-effect of the gas, that
for days afterwards cigarettes  tasted like the most hor-
rible sulphur fumes, and all liquor like powerful acid.
  It is really an extraordinary experience to be right in
           1  The above is from Mr. Rainsford's diary.
                        336 
SECTION THREE
the thick of the most acute stage of this terrific battle,
where, second only to  the wonderful fortitude of the
French wounded, who  are always magnificent, is the
really heroic behavior of the brancardiers, who crawl out
between the lines and carry in wounded on their backs.
To me it seems that their work requires more real courage
than any other branch of the service.
                           Charles R. Codman, Jr.1


  1 Of Boston; Harvard, '15; member of the Field Service from March,
1915; subsequently entered the U.S. Aviation Service and was taken pris-
oner. These extracts are from home letters.
 
                         IX

             En Repos after Verdun
                                         July 3, 1916
We are back, far back of the lines, en repos, with the tat-
tered remains of our French division. W7e have just come
back from two weeks at Verdun and our cars are battered
and broken beyond a year's ordinary service. It began
strong. The first night I was off duty and missed out on
one disagreeable experience — a gas attack. One has to
breathe through a little bag affair packed with layers of
cloth and chemicals!  The eyes are  also protected  with
tight-fitting isinglass,  which  mists over and makes driv-
ing difficult. The road  was not  shelled that night, so
things might have been worse.
  The second night was my go. We rolled all night from
the poste de secours back to the first sorting-station.  The
poste was in a little town with the Germans on three sides
of the road and all in full view of them, which made day-
light going  impossible.  The day work  was evacuating
from sorting-stations to field hospitals. There our work
stopped.  English and French sections worked from there
back to the base hospitals. The road ran out through
fields and a little stretch of woods, with French batteries
situated on both sides the entire way, which drew the fire.
Four trips  between dusk and dawn were the most  pos-
sible. The  noise of French fire was terrifying  until we
learned to distinguish it from the German arrivees.  It is
important to know the difference, and one soon learns.
The depart is a sharp bark and then the whistle diminish-
ing. The arrivees come in with a slower, increasing whistle
and ripping crash. In noise alone it is more than disagree-
able. The poste  de secours was an abri in a cellar.
  Of the town there was scarcely a wall standing — mar-
mites had done their work well. The road  wras an open
                        338 
SECTION THREE
space between, scalloped and scooped like the moon in
miniature. We would drive up, crawling in and out of
these holes, turn around, get our load, and go. When the
place was shelled, we had time to hear the obus coming
and dive under our cars. The drive back was harrowing.
One  was sure to go a little too fast on a stretch of road
that felt smooth and then pitch into a hole, all but break-
ing every spring on the body. I '11 never forget the screams
of the wounded as they got rocked about inside. At times
a stretcher would break and we would have to go on as it
was. Of course we had  to drive in utter darkness, with
passing convois of artillery at a full gallop going in oppo-
site  directions on either side. Each  night a bit  more of
tool  box or mud-guard would be taken off. Often I found
myself in a wedge where I had to back and go forward
until a little  hole was found to skip through, and then
make a dash for it and take a chance. One night there was
a thunderstorm with vivid lightning and pitch darkness.
The flashes of guns and of lightning were as one, and the
noise terrific. That night, too, the road was crowded with
ammunition wagons. But worst of all, it was under shell-
fire  in three  places so that traffic became demoralized
because of the dead horses and wrecked wagons smashed
up by shrapnel. All our cars were held up in parts of this
road. There is no feeling of more utter helplessness than
being jammed in between cannon and caissons in a road
under shell-fire. In order to get through, two of the men
had  to run ahead and cut loose dead horses; but no one
was  hit that night.
   The next night was  the climax of danger, as things
eased off a bit after;  but the strain was telling  and our
driving was not so skilful. For instance, next to the last
night I collided with a huge ravitaillement wagon coming
at full gallop on the wrong side of the road, with the result
that the entire front of my car went into bow knots. But
I landed clear in safety. This occurred under the lee of a
cliff, so we went in search with a wrecking-car the next
day. After twenty hours my car was running again, shaky
                         339 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
on her wheels, but strong in engine. She goes to Paris soon
for shop repairs. Poor old Alice! A wrecked car in so short
a time! Patched with string and wire and straps, she looks
battle-scarred to a degree. Her real battle souvenirs are
five shrapnel balls embedded in the roof and sides. I don't
believe in collecting souvenirs, but these I could hot help
preserving!
  There  were  humorous incidents; that  is,  humorous
when we look back on them safely in camp. One goes as
follows: Three cars running out to the poste about thirty
yards apart. The whistle of  shells and a great increase in
speed in the cars. (Somehow speed seems to give the feel-
ing of more security.)  Road  getting  too hot — shells
falling between the cars as they run.  First car stopped
short and driver  jumped about thirty feet into a trench
by the roadside. Landed in six inches of water and stayed.
Car  No. 2 stopped,  but not short enough  to prevent
smashing into tail-board of No. 1. Driver made jump and
splash No. 2 into trench. Ditto for car No. 3 (me). Whistle
and bang of shells, crash of hitting cars, and splash of
falling men in water. Here we remained until the "storm
blew over."
  I am mighty glad  we are through  and out of it all.
Whatever action we go into again, it cannot be harder
or more dangerous than what we have been through. That
will be impossible. I don't yet know whether I am glad or
not to have had such an experience. It was all so gigantic
and terrifying. It was war in its worst butchery. We all
of us lost weight,  but health and morale are O.K., and we
are ready for more work after a rest.
                              Edward I. Tinkham1
  1 Of Montclair, New Jersey; Cornell, '17; served in Sections Three and
Four, and commanded in 1917 the first Motor Transport Section sent out by
the Field Service; subsequently entered naval aviation, in which service he
died in Ravenna, Italy, March 30, 1919. 
M^
                   II. In the Orient

               Tout vient vers elle et tout en part;
               Elle est le progres, elle est l'art,
               Sol qui produit, peuple qui pense.
                  Gloire a la France!
                                Paul D£roul6de

                          I

              En Route to the Orient
                                       October 25, 1916
To-day will be our fifth day at sea. We left Marseilles on
Saturday in a strong mistral, and packed our bags and
blanket-rolls in our bunks down in the hold along with a
great number  of Indo-Chinamen. We were on the lowest
deck. The bunks were in tiers of two and squares of eight,
merely steel or tin braces like those of a strawberry crate.
We stayed there till five o'clock when Lovering Hill made
arrangements  to move us up a deck nearer the open air.
We moved. The Chinamen moved down at the same time.
Such confusion! These Chinese are so small and yellow
that you cannot tell them from their khaki packs. They
bumped us and jabbered like monkeys. We bumped them
and  cursed. They continued jabbering. Their talk is a
funny, monkeyish twang. At about 6.30 that night we
were fed on the deck, although we looked longingly at
the officers' mess-room. It got dark early, and we retired
early. Luckily  Hill gave me a chance to sleep on the floor
of his cabin, so I did n't have to go below. Some of the
fellows slept on the floor of what was once the smoking-
                        341 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
room on this ship. I saw George Hollister1 that night tuck
himself away in an upper bunk way back in the dark
against the side of the boat. Hill made arrangements to
have us eat in the officers' mess twice a day, which is
enough. Then he arranged to  have us all sleep in  the
smoking-room. Since then we have been comfortable.
  If you never have travelled on a real transport, I may
tell you in passing that you are better off where you are.
First of all,  every one is packed in  as we were the first
night; the deck space is filled with cargo, and men occupy
the upper deck  in great numbers.  Rancid smells come
up  from below, for the sewerage system is not working.
The sanitary arrangements aft, where most of the  Indo-
Chinks are,  were put out of commission  the first night;
so nobody with a keen sense of smell can go near there.
Food is being cooked all  the time; and a stuffy breeze
comes  up from the kitchen, which is on  the main deck
amidships. The  calf  and the pig aboard are dirty, and
their companions, some horses and cows,  are not things
of beauty either.

                                           October 27
Yesterday we were  developed into mariners. The com-
mander of the ship got us  all to stand watch, as we were
in dangerous waters all day  and night.  We had  posts
during the day at the bow, on deck below the bridge,
amidships on the same deck, on the bridge, and at  the
stern. From 1.40 until 5.40 Fenton and I were on duty
up  at the bow, when  I looked so hard for periscopes or
mines that I  saw all sorts of things. Finally at four o'clock
we  saw land way off  in the distance. Due to our zigzag-
ging, it was on the port side one minute,  straight ahead
the next, and  on the  starboard side the  next. Then we
saw islands  across our bow — low-lying  objects hardly

  1 George Merrick Hollister, of Grand Rapids, Michigan; Harvard, '18;
served with Section Three from February, 1916, to May, 1917; he later
became a Second Lieutenant in the United States Infantry; killed in action
October, 1918.
342 
SECTION THREE
distinguishable from clouds. We were finally relieved by
some Frenchmen.
  At eight o'clock I went on watch at the stern till 11 p.m.,
when George  Hollister replaced  me, and he stayed on
till 2 a.m., when he was relieved. All this time, up to eight
this morning,  our  Section was on watch along with the
regular crew.  It was strange, to say the least, to see an
ambulancier pacing the bridge along with the captain.
  At night we passed many lights, on shore no doubt.
There  was a boat, however, which passed,  that  flashed
"phoney" signals, which we did n't answer.  The captain
was  excited and did not breathe easy for a long time.
During my watch  from eight to eleven a dead "Chink"
was heaved overboard in a box. That makes two.

                                           October 28
I went on watch  at two last night on the bridge with
George Hollister. We  were  relieved at five o'clock. We
followed  along a mountainous shore all night. Warships
signalled us at times, and a torpedo boat came up behind
us. It looked for all the world like a submarine, but no one
on the bridge got excited about it. The morning star came
up about 3.30. It looked like  a fusee eclair ante at the
front. I never saw a bigger or more beautiful star. It was
still  dark when we were relieved. George went to bed,
but I stayed up on the bridge to watch the dawn come.
Off to the right the sky brightened and turned a very
brilliant red. Low land was silhouetted against it. On our
left two  snow-tipped  mountain-peaks  glistened in the
light. The lower sides of the mountains were purplish and
brown. A few white houses showed themselves.
                               Charles Baird, Jr.1
  1 Of New York City; Harvard, '11; entered the Service in July, 1916, and
served in Sections Two and Three ; subsequently became a First Lieuten-
ant and later a Captain in  the United States Field Artillery. The above
are extracts from Mr. Baird's home letters. 
II
                     Salonica

En route to the Balkans, we  arrived in the harbor of
Salonica on the morning of October 28,  1916, and  dis-
embarked on the evening of the following day. The port
and town were the scene of great activity, and were very
picturesque with  the presence of  natives from  almost
every country under the sun, and the streets packed with
strange costumes. The town,  I noted, has its walls  still
standing,  with  a sort of  fortress  above it; a Turkish
quarter, which  looks very pretty from the sea, with its
heaps of little  wooden houses painted blue, rising  one
above the other; and plenty of minarets, very white in
the early sunshine, and very lovely to our ocean-weary
eyes.
  There were a few cases of spinal meningitis among the
native troops on  board our ship, and at first it was a
question of being quarantined with said fellow travellers.
So the Lieutenant in command of the troops and I imme-
diately began trying to arrange our cantonment in the
Camp des Orientaux, where the proposed internment  was
to take place. Fortunately, however,  at lunch-time the
decree was revoked, and we were ordered to join our serv-
ice at the Pare de Reserve, where we would be quartered.
  Arrived there, we found that no one had ever heard of
us, that there was no place to lodge us, and that it  was
impossible to feed us. So I let every one shift for himself
for dinner, and those of us who could n't  find room, slept
out in an open lot. Fortunately the weather continued
fine, and the next morning we  got three Marabout tents
which we pitched at once; just in time, in fact, for it
started to pour as the last one went up. In this matter of
weather, by the way, we had the most astounding good
luck. Even the sea was as smooth  as a pond during the
                         344 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
whole voyage. I don't know what we should have done on
board if it had been otherwise, for living between decks
was out of the question on account of the native troops.
                                    Lovering Hill x
  1 Of New York City; Harvard, '10; entered the Field Service in Novem-
ber, 1914, where he became Section Commander, and in 1917 a Captain
in the United States Field Artillery.
 
Ill
                 Into the Balkans

The first flicker of dawn was showing as we wound our
way down through the outlying parts of Salonica, a sin-
uous line of ambulances and auxiliary cars. On the water
front the convoy  halted for final adjustment. The  fore-
glow, coming across the harbor, filtered through the spars
of the shipping and gave promise of a clear day. A few
early porters and  rugged stevedores paused to gaze won-
deringly upon us.  The CO. passed down the line to see if
all were ready; the whistle sounded and we were off.
  Passing through the already livening streets we paral-
leled the quay,  turned toward the northwest and then,
as the  muezzins in the minarets were calling upon the
faithful to greet the  rising sun, entered  upon the great
caravan trail which runs back into the mountains, and
Allah knows where. Past trains of little mountain ponies,
laden with hides;  past lumbering,  solid-wheeled wagons,
drawn  by water buffaloes and piled high  with roughly
baled tobacco, tobacco from which are made some of the
choicest Turkish cigarettes in  the world;  past other wag-
ons with towering piles of coarse native matting;  past
the herdsman and his flock, his ballet skirt blowing in the
morning breeze; past the solemn Turk, mounted athwart
his  drooping burro, his veiled woman trudging behind.
The city lay behind us now; the passers-by became fewer,
until only an occasional  wayfarer and  his burro were
sighted. The road, pitted and  gutted, stretched away
through a barren, dreary country. The sun's early promise
had not been fulfilled and a gray,  slaty day emphasized
the dreariness of the landscape. To our right bleak moun-
tains rose to meet a slaty sky — nowhere appeared tree
or shrub, not even a fence broke the monotony  of the
landscape, never a house, not  even a road,  though occa-
                        346 
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.^W% 'Wl^^T^^^^t'^
^

THE CAMP OF SECTION THREE AT SAKCLEYO IN THE SPRING OF 1917 
I
/ 
SECTION  THREE
sionally a muddy track wandered aimlessly through the
waste. We rounded the mountains and crossed a sluggish
stream,  the Galiko. Once we saw a village far away, its
white minarets rising above the dull gray of the ensemble.
Then the desolation closed  down.  Farther on, over a
shaky wooden bridge, we crossed the Vardar, the Axius
of Virgil. Hereabouts the country was flat and swampy,
but suddenly it changed; scattered trees began to appear,
here and there rocks jutted out. The trail began to mount
and  presently as we  twisted our way through the first
settlement, the village of Yenidze, mountains came into
view to the northeast and then moved toward  the south
and  west. About eleven  we sighted some whitewashed
houses clinging to the side of a cliff, the overflow of the
town of Vodena through which we presently passed over
a winding road of mountainous steepness; up we went,
three hundred,  four hundred metres,  finally  stopping
where a fountain gushed from the roadside, a  kilometre
or so beyond the town.
  We were in the heart of the hills now. On three sides of
us the mountains rose to a height of six thousand feet or
more. Their tops were covered with snow, and from this
time on we were never to lose sight of it.
  Some biscuits, ham, and chocolate found a good home
and  there was time for a couple of pipes before the whistle
blew and we again cast off. And now our troubles began.
Up  to this time  our way could at least  lay claim to the
name "road," but now even an attorney, working on a
percentage basis, could establish no such identity  for
the straggling gully through which we struggled — some-
times a heap of  boulders, sometimes a mire, but always
it climbed. The  cars coughed and grunted and often we
were forced to halt while the motors cooled. In mid-after-
noon the rain, which had been threatening for some hours,
set in and the ground quickly assumed the consistency of
sticky paste, through which we sloughed our way. About
four we spoke the Lake of Ostrovo and shortly afterwards
passed through the straggling village of the same name.
                        347 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
Deep sand here made the going hard, but we soon left
the shores of the lake and again headed straight into the
mountains. So far as possible the trail held to the passes,
but even so, the ascent was very great. As night fell we
came to an especially steep stretch slanting  up between
snow-covered mountains. From a little distance it looked
as though some one, tiring of road-building, had leaned
the unfinished product up against a mountain-side. Time
and again we charged, but without avail; no engine built
could take that grade. Physics books tell us, "that which
causes or tends to cause a body to pass from a state of
rest to one of motion is known as Force." With twenty
men to a car, pulling, pushing and dragging, we assumed
the function of "force"  and "caused a body" — the cars
—to "pass from a state of rest to one of motion," hoist-
ing them by main strength over the crest.
  Night had shut  down for some hours when the last car
had topped the rise. A bone-chilling wind had swept down
from the snow, the rain  still fell. The lights were switched
on, and over  a trail, flanked  on one side by a towering
cliff and on the other by a black chasm of nothingness,
we kept on. Once we rounded a sharp curve,  there was a
sudden dip in the trail and  in the darkness we almost
shot off into the space below.
  It still lacked some two hours of midnight when ahead
we discerned a few flickering lights. The Lieutenant gave
the signal and we came  to a stop at the fringe of a miser-
able village. We had been sixteen hours at the wheel but
had covered no more than one hundred and fifty kilo-
metres. We were all cold and hungry, but the soup bat-
tery was mired somewhere miles in the rear. Our lanterns
showed us but a few stone hovels. Had we known more
of the Balkans, we should not even have thought of find-
ing a shop. We gave up thoughts of dinner, crawled within
our cars, and, wrapping our great coats about us, sought
to dream of "a cleaner, greener land."
  The tramping of many feet and the sobbing of a man
woke me next morning. I looked out to  see a column of
                       348 
SECTION THREE
Russian infantry passing. One big fellow was crying as
though his heart would  break. Banica or Banitza, the
village at which we had halted, proved to be a miserable
collection of huts, constructed of rounded  stones, with
which  the  surrounding  hills were covered. Like  most
Turkish villages, it clung to the side of a hill, sprawling
there with no attempt at system or a view to streets. The
buildings were of one story; a few had glass, but in by
far the most part straw was employed to block the win-
dows. The twisting paths which wandered about between
the houses were knee-deep in black mud. There were no
shops, not  even  a cafe.
   Other and higher hills rose above the one on which the
village was situated. These hills were barren and covered
with loose stones,  their tops were crested with rough
breastworks behind which were empty  cartridge cases,
torn clothing, ponchos, and scattered bodies in faded uni-
forms, for  here  the Bulgar and Serb had opposed each
other. To the north of the village  stood a few trees, and
here within a  barbed-wire corral a few armed Serbs
guarded several hundred Bulgar prisoners. The villagers
were as unattractive as their surroundings, the men dull,
dirty-looking specimens, the women cleaner, but far from
comely. The latter were dressed in skirts and blouses of
many  colors.  Their heads were  covered with  shawls,
the ends of which were wound about their necks. From
beneath these straggled their hair, invariably woven into
two  plaits into  which was interwoven hair from cow's
tails dyed  a  bright orange. Upon their feet  they wore
wooden,  heelless  sandals  which, when they  walked,
flapped about like shutters in a gale of  wind. The little
girls were miniature replicas of their mothers, save their
faces were brighter — some  almost  pretty. They wore
their many petticoats like their mothers, at  mid-leg
length, tiny head-shawls and striped wool stockings. The
endless occupation, both of the women and children, was
the carrying of water in  clay jars. They must have been
building a river somewhere and judging from the amount
                         349 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
of water they were transporting, it was to be no small-
sized stream either.
  Not all of the cars had come through to Banitza and
so we awaited their arrival. Several had broken axles and
the big  atelier car and the soup battery had mired in
crossing  the Ostrovo flats.  Meanwhile, perched on the
side of a hill with the snow above us and a falling tem-
perature, we, of the advance squad, were reminded that
winter was almost upon us. The days were gray, and as
there was nothing to do  while awaiting the stragglers,
save gaze across the valley which stretched southward
below us, the time dragged. The boom of  heavy guns
came to us from the northwest and occasionally, when
the wind was right, we could hear the crackle of infantry
fire.  Some couriers riding back  from the front brought
word that Monastir had fallen after fierce fighting and
the French were advancing northward.
   By evening of the third day all the cars had come up,
and, with the kitchen wagons once more in our midst, we
were again able to have a hot meal. Our spirits rose, and
that night, clustered round a small fire, we sang some
mighty  choruses. At nine on the morning of the 24th of
November — a  cold, drizzly morning — we wormed our
way down through the village and out upon the transport
road northeast toward the Serbian frontier. Though hun-
dreds of German, Bulgar, and Turkish prisoners were at
work upon the road, it was scarcely passable. Everywhere
we passed mired couriers and camions; dead horses and
abandoned wagons were  scattered  about. The way led
across a level valley floor. On the flat, muddy plains bor-
dering the road were camps of French, English, Italians,
and  Russians. Several  aviator groups  were squatted in
the miry desolation.
   As we advanced, the road accomplished something we
had  deemed impossible — it grew worse. The transport
of five armies struggled along, or rather through it, and
contributed everything from huge tractors to little spool-
wheeled, cow-drawn  Serbian carts. We passed  through
                        350 
SECTION THREE
one squalid, war-festered village where the road reached
the sublimity of awfulness and then about midday spoke
the village of Sakulevo. Several demolished  buildings,
pocked walls, and shelled houses showed the  place had
been recently under fire. Passing through, we crossed a
sluggish stream, from which the village takes its name,
and on a shell-scarred flat on the north bank halted and
pitched our tents.

          "Valleys Dreadly Desolate"
The road at this  point bends  to the  east before again
turning northward,  and enters the long valley  at the
farther end of which lies the city of Monastir. About a
mile northward from our camp was a stone which marked
the border between Macedonia and Serbia. High  ranges
of mountains stretched along the side of the lonesome
valley. No words of mine can describe the landscape as
do the words of Service:
           "The lonely sunsets flare forlorn
            Down valleys dreadly desolate,
            The lordly mountains soar in scorn
            As still as death, as stern as fate.

           "The lonely sunsets flame and die,
            The giant valleys gulp  the night,
            The monster mountains scrape the sky
            Where eager stars are diamond bright."

      "Where the Best is like the Worst"
We had reached Sakulevo on the afternoon of the 24th
of November. On the morning  of the 25th we  started to
work. On the other side of the river was a cluster of tents.
It was a  field dressing-station and, appropriate to its
name, was located in a muddy  field. Since Sakulevo was
at this time some thirty kilometres from the fighting, our
work consisted of  evacuations; that is, back of the line
work, the  most uninteresting  an  ambulancier is called
upon to do, since it wholly  lacks excitement. Here it was
made more trying because of the fearful roads over which
                        351 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
 our  route  lay. At this time the village of Eksisu, some
 forty kilometres southeast of Sakulevo was railhead, and
 to this point we evacuated our wounded. It was a matter
 of three and a half hours of the most trying sort of driv-
 ing.  Perhaps a better idea of our work at Sakulevo may
 be had if we go together on a "run." It's seven-thirty in
 the morning, a cold raw morning with ice on the pools
 and  a skim of ice on the inside of the tent. The sun has
 not  long appeared  over the snow-clad  mountains  and
 there is little warmth in its rays. We have just had break-
 fast — Heaven save the name! some black coffee  and
 army bread — so it's time to be off. We crank-up — a
 none too easy performance, since the motors are as stiff
 with cold as we are — and then toss and bump our way
 across the little bridge disregarding a sign which, in five
 languages,  bids us  "go slowly." A couple  of hundred
 metres farther on in a field  at the  left of the road is a
 group of tents, before which whips a sheet of canvas dis-
 playing a red  cross. It is the field dressing-station. We
 turn the car, put on all power and plough through a mire,
 and then out upon more solid ground, stopping in front
 of the tents.
  The tent flap opens and two brancardiers appear, bear-
 ing between them  a  stretcher  upon which  lies a limp
 figure covered with  a dirty blanket. A gray-green  sleeve
 dangles from the stretcher and shows your first passenger
 is a German. He is slid into place and by this time your
 second passenger is  ready. He is a giant Senegalese with
 a punctured lung. Your third man is a sous-officier whose
 right leg has just been amputated. He has been given a
 shot of morphine and his eyes are glazed in stupor. The
 third stretcher is shot home, the tail-board put up, and
 the rear curtain clamped down. Over these roads we can
 take no more, so we are ready for the start.
  Through the slough and then out upon the road, which
is little more, we go. Through war's traffic we pick our
way, beside shell-laden camions,  pack-trains, carts, past
stolid lines  of  Russians, dodging  huge  English lorries
                        352 
SECTION THREE
whose crews of Tommies sing out a friendly "Are we
down-hearted?"  Between  rows of Bulgar  and  Boche
prisoners your way is made, the hooter sounding out its
demand for the rights of a loaded ambulance. Along the
roadside, out there in the fields, sprinkled everywhere,
we see the little wooden crosses, war's aftermath. Every-
where war's material wastage  is  apparent.  Wrecked
wagons and motors, dead mules, hopelessly mired carts,
military  equipment, smashed helmets, dented douilles.
Your way  is lined with  these. The road from there on
becomes freer,  but is still too rough to permit much
quickening of speed. As we turn a bend, a frenzied Italian
comes charging across the fields. He seems greatly excited
about something and unwinds reels of vowels, not one
word of which we understand. We try him in English and
French, not one word of which he understands, so finally
we give it up and go on, leaving him to his "que dises."
   Through two passes, in which the white, low-hanging
clouds close down, through several deserted villages over
a road which, save in the Balkans,  would be considered
impassable, we  carry our load. It is impossible to prevent
lurching, and the black within groans and cries aloud in
his pain. The Boche, too, when there is an exceptionally
bad  bit, moans a little, but the sous-officier makes not a
sound throughout the voyage. At  one point  the road
passes near the railroad,  and, dangling over a ravine, we
can see the remains of a  fine iron bridge dynamited dur-
ing the great retreat. At  last, rounding the jutting point
of a hill, we see far below us the blue  waters and barren
shores of Lake Petersko. Squatted  beside the lake  is a
little village, Sorovicevo. Railhead and our destination,
the station of Eksisu, lies a mile or so to the west.  Down
the hill we brake our way, then over a kilometre of wave-
like road into a slough, where for a time it seems we are
destined to stick, and at last the tossed and moaning load
is  brought  to a stop at the hopital  d'evacuation,  a large
cluster of tents. We assist  in removing the wounded —
the Senegalese  is gray now, with the shadow of death
                        353 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
upon him, and his breath gushes with great sobs through
his torn lung. The Frenchman and Boche seem to have
come through all right.
   It is now eleven-thirty o'clock, and we  are probably
becoming conscious that we could use a little food, but
it will be at least two hours before we can reach camp, so
we get out a spark-plug wrench and  break up several
army biscuits to munch on the way home. En route we
are nailed by three Tommies who have been left behind
and are seeking to join their detachment. They desire a
lift, so we take them aboard and are repaid by hearing
their whimsical comments on the "filthy country." It is
nearly two o'clock — a blowout has delayed us — when
we reach camp and the motor has barely stopped churn-
ing before we are in  the mess-tent clamoring for our
"dum-dums" — beans — and  singe, tinned  beef. You
will find your appetite has not suffered  because of the
"run."

                Tenting in Serbia
The days were rapidly growing colder. Our tents were
sheathed with ice and the snow foot crept far down the
mountains each night. We got our sheepskin coats and
inserted an extra blanket in our sleeping-bags. Each night
we drained our radiators to prevent damage from freezing.
The few sweets we had brought with us had now given
out. In the French army, save for a little sugar — very lit-
tle— and occasionally — very occasionally — and a small
amount of apple preserve, no sweets are issued. It was
impossible to purchase any, so presently there set in that
craving for sugar which was to stay with us through the
long winter. The arrival of Thanksgiving, with its mem-
ories of  the laden tables at home, did  not help matters.
Dinner consisted of lentils — my own particular aversion
— boiled beef, bread, red wine, and black coffee. However,
the day was made happy by the arrival of our first mail
and we feasted on letters.
  It's wonderful what a cheering effect the arrival of the
                        354 
Povrr RouiIAipJ
'HAVlM  OfS     \ '

                  KLADfROP


                Florida




   DISTANCES   ON MAIN ROAD
MOWASTia  to  CAMP    II KILOMETRES
MONASTIR  To  FloRINA 32.    B"
FLORIDA   TO  CAMP   ,2.9    bo
  E°            Do (MILLED)  Z.W  K
5AKULEV0
  (.Hi v. "Ml,, tenter,)
                  To
               SALON/KA
   lOPt   of    rl<v P
T«om The  Diary  (\£LOM(,in(,


M* RICHARD   VARNUM
           BlSTRlKA.  Sipna.iS]
TYPE OF  SKETCH MAP USED  BY DRIVERS 
 
SECTION THREE
post had on us. Throughout the winter it was about our
only comfort. In France it had been welcome, but down
in the Orient we seemed so  cut off from the world that
letters were a luxury, the link with  the outside. When
they came, it did n't so much matter that a man was cold
or hungry and caked with mud, that the quarters leaked
and the snow drifted in on his blankets. The probability
of its arrival was an unfailing source  of pleasurable con-
jecture; its arrival the signal for whoops and yowls; its
failure, the occasion for gloom and pessimism.
  Some  fifteen kilometres  to  the north  and  west of
Sakulevo was the  large town  of Fiorina, the northern-
most town of Macedonia. Here was located a large field
hospital. At the hospital, for a time, we maintained a poste
of two cars on five-day shifts.

                    At Florina
We found  Fiorina one of the most interesting towns in
the Balkans. Long under the  rule of the Turk, it possessed
a distinctly Oriental aspect which gave it charm. It nestled
at the foot of some high hills  which  had been the scene
of heavy fighting in the dispute for  its possession. The
town itself had suffered little,  if any, in the fighting. Its
long main street followed a valley, turning and twisting.
Booths and bazaars lined the thoroughfare and in places
vines had been trained to cover it. There were innumer-
able tiny Turkish cafes, yogart shops, little shops where
beaten copperware was  hammered  out,  other  booths
where old men worked on wooden pack-saddles for burros.
There were artisans in silver and vendors of goat's-wool
rugs.  The streets were always alive  with "the passing
show," for  the normal  population of fifteen  thousand
souls had been greatly augmented by the influx of refugees
from Monastir. There was an air of unreality about the
place,  an indefinable theatricalism which  gave one the
sense of being part of a play, a character, and of expecting,
on rounding a corner, to see an audience and then to hear
the playing of the orchestra.
                        355 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
   It was while on duty at the hospital at Fiorina that I
made the first run into Monastir. My journal for Decem-
ber 2 reads:
   "At one o'clock this afternoon received orders to pro-
ceed to Monastir en raison de service. My passengers were
two corporals. It has been a cold, overcast day, the clouds
hanging low  over the  snow-capped mountains. A cold,
penetrating wind hit us in the face as we drew away from
the hospital.
   "Where  the Fiorina road joins the main caravan road
to Monastir,  we  passed  from Macedonia  into Serbia.
Here we turned sharply toward the north. The flat fields
on either side were cut up with trenches, well made, deep
ones, from  which the enemy was driven less than a fort-
night before, and shallow rifle pits which the French and
Serbs had used in the advance. Even now, so  soon after
their evacuation, they were half filled with water. Every-
where there was evidence of big gun-fire and in one place
where we  crossed a bridge the ground for yards about
was an uninterrupted series of craters. For the first time
in the war I  saw piles of enemy  shells and shell  cases
showing that his retreat had  been unpremeditated and
hasty. In one place stood  a dismantled field piece.

              Negocani —  Monastir
"About a  quarter of an hour after leaving Fiorina, we
reached the village of Negocani. There had been heavy
fighting here and many of the houses had been reduced
to piles of 'dobe bricks. Two miles away on the road, we
could discern  the remains  of another village,  Kenali,
where the enemy made his last stand before falling back
upon Monastir the other day.  The  sound of the guns had
all the while  been growing louder, and not far  beyond
Negocani I caught  my first glimpse of the minarets of
Monastir.  It had been two months since I was under fire
and I had some curiosity as to how it would  affect me.
Before reaching the environs  of the city, it became ap-
parent that this curiosity would not long remain unsatis-
                        356 
SECTION THREE
fied, for  ahead we could see the smoke  and dust from
bursting  shells. Approaching the city, the way becomes a
regular road, quite the best I have yet seen in the Balkans.
I was speculating on this marvel wrhen, perhaps five hun-
dred yards ahead, a columnar mass of earth spouted into
the air. The whirring of speeding eclat had scarcely ceased
when another came in slightly nearer. The road was under
fire and that same old prickly feeling shot up my spine,
the same 'gone' sensation moved in and took possession
of my insides. Suddenly the familiar sound pervaded the
air. There was the crash as though of colliding trains and
not forty metres away the earth by the roadside vomited
into the air. In another second the debris and eclat rained
all  about us, showering the car. The shell  was a good-
sized one — at least a ' 150,' and we owed our lives to the
fact that, striking in soft ground, the eclat did not radi-
ate. Meanwhile, I had not waited for the freedom of the
city to be presented. The machine was doing all that was
in her, and in a few seconds more we shot by the outlying
buildings. The fire zone seemed to  be restricted to the
entering  road and the extreme fringe of the  city, and
when we reached the main street, though we could hear
the shells passing over, none struck near. Within the city
our batteries,  planted all about, were in  action and the
whirring of our own shells was continuously sounding
overhead.
   "We parked in a filth-strewn little square  lined with
queer exotic buildings. While I waited for the corporals
to perform their mission, I  talked with  an Algerian
zouave who lounged in  the doorway. He pointed out
where a shell had struck this morning, killing three men,
two civilians and a soldier. He further informed me that
the streets of the city were in full view of the enemy, who
occupied the hills just beyond  its outskirts. This revela-
tion was  most disconcerting to me, for I had no desire to
work up  a 'firing acquaintance.' A number of officers of
high rank passed — among them a three-star general. A
colonel of infantry stopped, shook hands with me, and
                         357 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
 spoke appreciatively of the work of the Corps in France,
 saying he was glad to welcome a car in the Orient.
   "By  three o'clock we were ready. My passenger list
 was augmented by a lieutenant, medecin, who wished to
 reach Fiorina. He cautioned  me with much earnestness
 to allez vite when  we should reach this shelled zone, a
 caution wholly unnecessary, as I had every intention of
 going as fast as  Providence and  gasoline would let me.
 The firing now — praise to Allah — had slackened and
 only an occasional shell was coming in. So, making sure
 the engine was functioning properly, I tuned up,  and a
 second later we were going down the road as though ' all
 hell and a policeman' were after us.
   "We  reached Fiorina without mishaps. To-night there
 is a full  moon. Don and I strolled down into the town. It
 was singularly beautiful, the white minarets standing out
 against  the sombre mountains, the silvery light flooding
 the deserted streets. We strayed into one of the tiny little
 cafes. It was a cosy place. Divans covered with rugs and
 sheepskins lined the  walls. A few befezzed old men sat
 cross-legged on these — sat there silently smoking giant
 hookahs and sipping their syrupy coffee. We, too, ordered
 coffee, and then sat in the silence helping in the thinking.
 After a  while the  door opened and a short, hairy man
 entered. He was clad in long white wool drawers, around
 which below the knee were wound  black thongs. On his
 feet were queer-shaped shoes which turned sharply up at
 the end and were adorned with black pompoms. He wrore
 a short jacket embroidered with tape, and thrown back
 from his shoulders was a rough wool  cape. Around his
 waist was wound  a  broad sash, into which was thrust
 a revolver and a long-bladed  dirk.  About  his neck and
 across his breast were hung many silver chains, which
jingled when he moved.  His head was surmounted by a
white brimless hat. He talked in an unknown tongue to
the patron, and then, bowing low to us,  was gone amid a
clinking of metal. This strange-looking individual was —
so we learned from the cafe's  proprietor — an Albanian,
                        358 
SECTION THREE
a man learned in the ways of the mountains, a scout in
the employ of the French.
  "We sipped another coffee, smoked a cigarette, and
then, bowing to the old men, went out into the moonlit
street, leaving them to their meditations. As I write this
from the tent, the sky is darkening, a chill wind sweeps
down from the snow and gutters the candle. I  am glad
that our blankets are many."

  As the days went by, our camp-site, where we were
the first comers, began to assume the aspect of a boom
mining town. Several camion sections appeared. Numer-
ous ravitaillement groups moved in. Tents and nondescript
structures of earth  and ammunition boxes sprang up.
Across the river ten thousand Russians were encamped,
and all night their singing came to us beautifully across
the water. All day and all night, war's traffic ground and
creaked by us. The lines had shaken down; the two forces
were  now entrenched, facing each other  just beyond
Monastir, and the transport was accumulating munitions
for an offensive. In the first camp opposite struggled long
lines of Serbian carts — carts such as Adam used to bring
the hay in. The sad-faced burros plodded by, loaded with
everything from bread  to  bodies. Soldiers — French,
Italian, Serb, and Russian—slogged by. But this activity
was confined to the narrow zone of the roads. Beyond,
the grim, desolate country preserved its lonesomeness
and impressed upon the soul of man the bleakness and
harshness of a land  forlorn. For the most part the days
were gray and sombre, with low-hanging clouds which
frequently gave out rain and sleet  and caused the river
to rise so that more than once we were in danger of being
flooded out.  But occasionally there would be  a  clear
morning, when the clouds were driven back and the rising
sun would light the mountains, turning the snow to rose
and orange.  We were growing very tired of the evacua-
tion work, of the long, weary runs.  There was no excite-
ment to tinge the monotony.  We  were becoming "fed
                        359 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
up." The Squad, therefore, hailed with joy the news that
the Section was to move up to Monastir and there take
up the front-line work.
  Though the exact date of our  departure was not an-
nounced, we knew it would be soon and we commenced
at once to make ready. Helmets once more became items
of interest and motors were tested with an interest born
of empirical knowledge that the fire zone was no place to
make repairs. Everybody brightened up; interest and
optimism pervaded the camp. And then the word came
that we should leave on the 17th of December.


                    Monastir
Men stumbled about in the darkness falling over tent
pegs or pulling at icy ropes. Now and then a  motor in
response to frantic cranking, coughed, sputtered and then
"died." Down near the cook-tent  some one was swearing
earnestly and fervently at the mud. It was three o'clock
in the morning, and the only light was that given off by
the stars. The Squad was breaking camp, and we were to
be in Monastir, twenty-five kilometres distant, before
daybreak. Somehow, in spite of the darkness,  the tents
were struck and packed, and the cars rolled out on the
bumpy roads.
  With the assistance of our lights we were able to hold
a good pace until we reached the dip in the road which
had been designated as the point where the convoy should
halt. Here we extinguished all our lights and made sure
that everything was right. Ahead we could see flashes,
but whether  from our own guns or bursting  shells we
could not determine. The sound of firing came plainly to
our ears. The  cars now got away at fifteen seconds'  inter-
vals. A faint, gray light was showing in the east, just per-
mitting a dim vision of the car ahead. At the entrance to
the city, in a particularly exposed spot,  there was some
confusion while the leading machine circled about in an
endeavor to pick the right street; then we were  off again,
                        360 
SECTION THREE
heading for the northeast quarter of the city. Crossing a
small, wall-confined stream by a fragile wooden bridge,
we wound and twisted through a  maze of crooked streets,
and finally, just as the first glow lightened the minarets,
came to a halt in a narrow street. Where my car stopped
was a shattered house and the street was carpeted with
debris, the freshness of which testified to the fact that the
shells causing the damage must  have come in not long
before. Even as I clambered  out of the machine, two
shells crashed in somewhere over in  another street.
   Our  cantonment  consisted of  two five-roomed, two-
storied Turkish houses which stood within a small walled
compound. The top floors, or attics, of these houses were
free from partitions and gave just sufficient space for our
beds, ranged around the walls. The place was clean and
dry,  and though, of course, there was no heat and no
glass in the windows, it was infinitely better than the
tents. The rooms below were used for the mess, the galley,
and for the French staff, and one room which had win-
dows and a stove was set aside  for a lounge. The CO.
occupied a small stone building which formed part of the
compound  wall, a sort  of porter's  lodge. Beneath the
houses were semi-cellars, and in one of these were stored
the spare gas and oil. The cars were at first parked along
a  narrow, blind street which extended a short distance
directly in  front of quarters. As it was ascertained, how-
ever, that here they were in plain  view of the enemy, they
were moved back on another street and sheltered from
sight by intervening buildings. The atelier was established
in a half-demolished shed about two hundred yards up the
street from the compound.

                 A Bizarre Poste
Our  quarters were situated about midway between two
mosques. In front of one of these mosques which faced on
a tiny square hung a tattered Red Cross flag, betokening
a field dressing-station.  Here  we got our wounded. The
lines at this time were just beyond  the outskirts of the
                        361 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
city, and the wounded were brought directly from  the
trenches to this mosque, from whence it was our work to
carry them back to the field hospitals out of range of the
guns. I doubt if there ever was a more bizarre poste than
this of the  mosque.  The trappings and  gear of Moham-
medanism remained intact. The muezzin's pulpit draped
with its chain  of wooden beads looked  down on  the
wounded men lying on the straw-carpeted floor. On  the
walls, strange Turkish characters proclaimed the truths
of the  Koran. The  little railed enclosure, wherein  the
faithful were wont to remove their sandals before tread-
ing the  sacred ground, now served as a bureau. All was
the same, save that now the walls echoed,  not the muez-
zin's nasal  chant, but the groans of wounded men who
called not on Allah,  but on God.
  At first we found the twisted streets very confusing.
They rarely held their direction for more than a hundred
yards and their narrowness prevented any "observation
for position." There seemed no names or  identifications
either for streets or quarters, and did one inquire the way
of some befezzed old Turk, the reply would be "Kim bilir
Allah" — Who  knows? God. But gradually we grew to
know these ways until on the darkest of nights we could
make our way through the mazy blackness.
  The city sprawled about on a more or less level plain
at one end  of the long valley which extended southward
to the Macedonian frontier. Some of its  houses straggled
up the  hills which  rose immediately back of  the city
proper. Beyond  these hills rose the mountains from which
at a  distance of two kilometres the enemy hurled down
his hate. The normal population of Monastir was perhaps
fifty  thousand souls, a population of that bastard com-
plexity found only in the Balkans. When we reached  the
city,  a month after its capture and occupation by  the
French, something like  forty thousand of this civilian
population yet remained, the others having fled to Fiorina
or gone even farther south. Conditions  were still unset-
tled.  Daily, spies were led out to be shot, and we were
                        362 
A FEW MOMENTS AFTER A  SHELL HAD KILLED THE LITTLE GIRL
                          IN MONASTIR
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SECTION THREE
warned not to wander unarmed in the remote sections.
Snipers, from the protection of covered houses, shot at
passing soldiers and at night it was unsalubrious to go
about. Lines were drawn about the town and none  but
military transport permitted to pass. Famine prices pre-
vailed. In the bazaars, captured dogs were butchered and
offered for sale. A few stores remained open. Above their
doors were signs in the queer, jumpy characters of  the
Serbian alphabet, signs which it  would take a piccolo
artist to decipher. Within, matches were sold for half a
drachmi (10 cents) a  box, eggs, 7 drachmi a dozen, and
sugar at 6 drachmi a kilo. All moneys, save Bulgar, were
accepted; the drachmi, the piastre, the franc, the lepta, the
para, but the exchange was as complicated as a machine
gun, and no man not of the Tribe  of Shy lock could hope
to solve its mysteries.

       The Guns that command Monastir
Though most of the  houses were closed and shuttered
as protection against shell splinters, life seemed to go on
much as usual. There was no traffic in the streets, save
at night when the army transports  came through, or when
our machines went by with their loads, but the populace
passed and repassed,  bartered and ordered its life with
the phlegmatic fatalism of the Easterner. The  enemy
from  his point of vantage saw every move in the city.
His guns commanded its every corner. His surveys gave
him the range to an inch. Daily he raked it with shrapnel
and pounded it with high-explosive. No man in Monastir,
seeing the morning's sun,  but knew that, ere it set, his
own might sink. At any time of  the  day or  night  the
screeching  death might come, did come. Old men,  old
women, little children, were blown to bits, houses were
demolished, and yet,  because it was decreed  by Allah,
it was inexorable. The civil population went its way. Of
course, when shells came  in there was terror, panic, a
wailing and gnashing of teeth, for not even the fatalism
of Mohammed could  be proof against such sights. And
                        363 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
horrible sights these were. It was nothing to go through
the streets after a bombardment and see mangled  and
torn bodies; a man with his head blown off; a little girl
dead, her face staring upward, her body pierced by a
dozen wounds; a group in grotesque attitudes, with, per-
haps, an arm or a leg torn off and thrown fifty feet away.
These in Monastir were daily sights.
  One afternoon I remember as typical. It was within a
few days of Christmas, though there was little of Yuletide
in the atmosphere. At home,  the cars were bearing the
signs, "Do Your Christmas Shopping Early," but here
in Monastir, where, as "Doc" says, "a chap was liable
to start out full of peace and good will and come back
full of shrapnel and shell splinters," there was little in-
ducement to do Christmas shopping. Nevertheless,  we
started on one of those prowling strolls in which we both
delighted. We rambled through the tangled streets, poked
into various odd little shops in  quest  of the curious,
dropped into a hot milk booth where we talked with some ■
English-speaking Montenegrins, and then finally crossed
one of the rickety wooden bridges which span the city's
bisecting stream. By easy stages, stopping often to probe
for curios, we  reached  the main street of the city. Here
at a queer little bakery, where the proprietor  shoved his
products into  a yawning stove-oven with a  twelve-foot
wooden shovel, we got, for an outrageous price, some sad
little cakes. As we munched these, we stood on a corner
and wratched the scene about us. It was a fine day, the
first sunny one we had experienced in a long time. Many
people were in the streets, a crowd such as only war and
the Orient could produce: a sprinkling of soldiers, mostly
French, although occasionally a Russian or an Italian was
noticed; a meditative old Turk, stolid Serbian women,
little children — a lively, varied picture. Our cakes con-
sumed,  "Doc" and I crossed the street and, a short way
along a  transverse street, stopped to watch the bread line.
There were possibly three hundred people, mostly women,
gathered here waiting  for the distribution of the farina
                         364 
SECTION THREE
issued by the military to the civil population. For a while
we watched them, and then, as the street ahead looked
as if it might yield something interesting in booths, we
continued along it. In  another fifty yards, however, its
character changed; it became residential, and so we turned
to retrace our steps. Fortunate for us it was that we made
the decision. We had gone back perhaps a dekametre,
when we heard the screech. We sprang to the left-hand
wall and flattened ourselves against it as the crash came.
It was a " 155" H.E.  Just beyond, at the point toward
which we had been making our way, the whole street rose
into the air. We sped  around the corner to the main
street.  It was a mass of screaming, terror-stricken people.
In quick succession three more shells came in, one knock-
ing "Doc" off  his feet with its concussion. The wall by
which we had stood and an iron shutter close by were rent
and torn with eclats. One of these shells had struck near
the  bread  line. How  many were killed I never knew.
"Doc" for the moment had disappeared, and I was
greatly worried until I saw him emerge from an  archway.
There  was now a lull in the  shelling. All our desire for
wandering about the  city had ceased. We started back
toward quarters. Before we  were  halfway  there, more
shells came in, scattered about the city, though the region
about the main street seemed  to be  suffering most. Cross-
ing the stream, we saw the body of a man hanging half
over the wall and near by, the shattered paving where the
shell had struck.
   In such an atmosphere we lived.  Each day brought
its messages of death. On December 19, I saw a spy taken
out to be shot. On the 20th, a  house next our quarters was
hit. Two days later, when evacuating under shrapnel fire,
I saw two  men killed.  Constantly we had to change our
route through  the city because of buildings blown into
the street.
                        Robert  Whitney Imbrie1
  » From Behind the Wheel of a War Ambulance. Courtesy of Robert M.
McBride & Company of New York. 
IV
                 Albanian Postes
Soon after our arrival at Monastir, the Albanian work
was also got under way and two cars were sent over there
— one to Koritza, the other to Sulim, on the west shore
of Lake Presba. They went over on December 30, crossing
the pass with great difficulty. In the middle of January I
got back from there with Fenton from a two-day rescue
trip,  one of the cars having a broken wheel. The col is so
bad that we got over it in the supply car stripped of its
body for the trip. If dry, the road is just possible; other-
wise  you are cut off. Hence the cars stayed over there.
Supplies for the men  had to be sent by ox or mule, a two
days' journey; oil and gas going also by mule. It was very
interesting over  there,  where nothing moved out of the
villages without a military escort,  and the fellowrs  were
all armed to the teeth.
  Officers at Koritza did n't dare ride out of town except
on the road toward Fiorina and then only for  the  first
four  or five kilometres, which were patrolled. No soldier
went out in the street without a gun. They all said they
were living, too, on a political volcano, and in fact, in the
midst of it all, along in  December, a Republic of Albania
was  founded!  But to us  it seemed  all very quiet,  with
excellent cake-shops  open.  We  slept in a hotel with an
English-speaking proprietor where there were no fleas,
and  were shaved in the latest "scream" in American
barber chairs, the barber having been ten  years in New
Haven. He installed this splendor on the main corner and,
getting only three clients a day, declared the Albanians
to be "a lot of cheap guys."
                                    Lovering Hill
366 
SECTION THREE
        The First Auto Trip into Albania
This is an account of the trip of  the first auto into
Albania.
  At Fiorina, we loaded up with food, gas, and oil, enough
for two days' continual travelling and started out with
an infirmier to help take care of the blesses on the way
back. We got over the Pisoderi grade this time with-
out pushing, for I knew the grade better. From there on
it was the most interesting trip I ever have made. For
twenty kilometres  we went along a valley and had to
ford the river ten or eleven times. The people may have
seen autos before, but they had n't seen them enough to
satisfy their curiosity; so they would drop everything as
they worked in near-by fields  and rush to the road to
watch  us  pass. When we got  about twenty kilometres
from the second poste, both man and beast were afraid
of the  machines. They would see us coming, and by the
time we got to them they were  well across a ditch, where
I suppose they imagined they  were safe. Even the old,
sleepy oxen showed a lot of "pep" when we came along,
and backed and twisted around so in their yokes that the
drivers had a hard time untangling them.
  At one  village we were stopped by a doctor who said
that a blesse was en route in a wagon that had been sent
for him the night before. So we went on to meet him, but
found  that the wagon did not have the wounded man
after all. We decided, therefore, to go on as long as the
Ford would run, and soon crossed the line into Albania,
passing through several towns  that had been pretty well
shot up by both the Bulgars and the Allies as the former
retreated  two months before.
  The roads were almost impassable, as the old  bran-
cardier had told us would be the case, and nothing but a
Ford could have got over them. At length we arrived at
Koritza,  our destination, and  waited for the doctor to
make  inquiries.  The  surprise  was on us when several
Albanians speaking English crowded around the ma-
                         367 
THE AMERICAN FIELD  SERVICE
chines. They had been in Worcester, Massachusetts, and
had accumulated a roll of bills large enough to retire on
over here. You find a lot like that. Finally we found the
poste de secours. Imagine our further  surprise when the
blesse greeted us in perfect English, saying, "I am  glad
you have come." When he heard we were Americans, he
added: "So am I  — an American volunteer, born and
raised in New York City."
  Eleven days before our arrival this poor devil had  been
shot four times, and after lying out in front of the trenches
all day, he was picked up by brancardiers  and brought
down from the mountains on a mule. The lines were only
fifteen kilometres away, but it took eleven  hours to ac-
complish this. We carried him twenty-five kilometres that
afternoon, and stopped all night in a little town.
  We left Albania the following morning and crept back
at a snail's pace — about ninety out of the hundred  kilo-
metres in low. On the way we picked up other Hesse's, less
grave cases, and would take turns going ahead, with the
grave case in the second machine. If the front car got an
awful jolt, the second one would stop, while we took our
American blesse out and ran the machine over the ditch
or bump. Then we would put him back again, and go on.
  We got to the second poste about noon,  and had our
Thanksgiving  dinner of the supplies we  had brought
along. Probably it was the lightest turkey  dinner either
of us ever had, for it consisted of singe, or  canned beef,
biscuits,  cooking-chocolate, and some wine. But it went
down with much satisfaction.
  We arrived at the Fiorina Hospital about five o'clock,
and there received many  congratulations from the Me-
decin Chef  and several  doctors, who thought we had
done something wonderful, for it took a wagon train four
days to make  one  way of this trip.
                               Donald C. Armour1

  1 Of Evanston,  Illinois; Yale, '17; entered the Field  Service in April,
1916, and served in Sections Three and Eight; subsequently a Second Lieu-
tenant, U.S. Field Artillery.
                         368 
SECTION THREE
              Albanian Adventures
                                      January i, 1917
It is now New Year's Day and I am more than a hundred
kilometres from  where I was when I  first started this
letter — away over two mountain ranges. I don't know
when I shall get back to the Section, as I am now attached
to a regiment of infantry. I  have arranged to have oil,
gas, and carbide sent to me  by pack-mules, and I shall
stay here probably until my  car gives out. Then I shall
have to go back on horseback — a four or five days' trip.
  Talk about Richard Harding Davis or Anthony Hope
adventure stories! If I were a writer I wTould beat any of
theirs. For instance,  I am now armed with a carbine,  a
revolver, and one hundred and twrenty rounds of ammuni-
tion, to protect myself from brigands along the road. Can
you imagine anything more  dime-novelly? The Colonel
of the regiment was quite upset when he found that I was
not armed and immediately gave orders to arm me to the
teeth.
   Imbrie and Winant have gone off to find their Colonel
and I stay here for another day or two before we all go to
hunt up the regiment — over another mountain range.
I understand it is an almost impossible route, over which
no autos have ever gone  before. In the meanwhile I am
comfortably billeted here at the house of a man who lived
for years in St. Louis and speaks  English.

                                             Later
I am over another mountain  range and  "busted down."
I am living in a little mountain village with the Colonel,
who has just become a general, and his staff. Until I get
some spare parts, which will probably be a week at least,
I shall have to stay here, for I am about a hundred miles
from anywhere.
  For the first day the General  did n't have  any food
with him, so I found a chicken and some beans and cooked
them, thus managing to  provide a pretty good dinner.
                        369 
THE AMERICAN FIELD  SERVICE
The next day I walked over to my car and extricated the
canned goods which I had in it, and we ate with relish.
At last a limited amount of food arrived and we are fixed.
The whole situation is really most amusing.
  I am at the farthermost part of the lines, way up  in
the mountains between two lakes. The inhabitants of the
country are wilder than the ancient  American  Indians
and live in about the same way, although they have mud
houses instead of tents. They speak a mixture of Greek,
Albanian, and Serbian, which  even the interpreter can't
understand. The country is full of wolves which come
down to the edge of town at night looking for stray dogs
or donkeys.  I saw  two yesterday, but was too far away
to get a shot.
                           J. Marquand Walker x

            On the Serbian Frontier
                               Negocani, January 3, 1917
For over two weeks we have been up at the very front,
but have now been ordered  back a few kilometres to a
village right on the frontier. We were very  loath to go,
but now that we are settled here, I think every one realizes
that staying up there was an unnecessary risk to incur,
for the daily, even hourly, bombardments from the enemy
positions on the hills looking straight down into town had
been getting more and more frequent and the inhabitants
were either leaving or lying low in their cellars. Finally,
a shell landed in a little courtyard, perhaps seventy yards
away from us, and more or less damaged six of our cars.
I had thirteen pieces in mine, damage done to two tires,
a spoke and a radius rod, while a large hole was made  in
the crank case which necessitated taking down the entire
motor. Roddy Montgomery, who was standing between
two machines, perhaps five yards off, was knocked over

  1 Of New York City; Harvard, 'n; entered the Service in  September,
1915, and later became a Section leader; received a commission in U.S. Ar-
tillery and was promoted to Captain.  The above are extracts from home
letters and letters addressed to the Paris Headquarters of the Field Service.
370 

$S" "i««P^"
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THE HILLSIDE ENCAMPMENT AT BISTKIKA, MAY, 1917 
 
SECTION THREE
and his car battered up; but  he escaped unhurt.  The
worst feature was that a little girl of seven, who used to
play around and talk to us while we  were oiling and
greasing, was literally blown to pieces and fragments of
her burned flesh were spattered  all over.  Half of her head
landed on the top of my car and had to be scraped off
with essence. It  was pretty sickening. After this,  the
Divisionnaire decided it was no use having the Section
"shot up" little by little; so we moved our quarters. The
work is still the same, however, as the  cars go up from
here at 6 a.m., and evacuate back to Fiorina, seventy
kilometres in all, while some of us are even busier than
before.
  We are installed in a large mud farmhouse with a huge
yard, a well, and half-dozen outbuildings, used as kitchen,
dining-room, and bureau. This yard, when we came here,
was two feet deep in straw, rubbish, and filth of all sorts,
and it took two days of shovelling, burning, disinfecting,
and whitewashing, to make  it habitable; but we are now
wrell installed. The village is deserted save for troops, so
any one wanting  firewood calmly attacks a house with a
pick-axe, smashes the mud walls, and walks off with the
beams, rafters, or anything else  he fancies. It is very con-
venient, and avoids  paperasses.  All around  us are  the
trenches and boyaux of  the famous  Kenali lines, from
which the Bulgars were driven just before the capture of
Monastir last month. Some of them are marvellously con-
structed, and collectors of ironware are revelling in souve-
nirs of all sorts — shells, fuses,  grenades, bayonets,  etc.,
most of which, however,  I think will be  found too heavy
to lug around and will be discarded long before our return.

                  A New Republic
Just before going up from our first camp, I had a most
interesting three days'  trip into Albania,  driving  the
Medecin Chef of the Q.G. and the Medecin Chef of Fiorina
Hospital over to  Koritza to see the Colonel in command
of the troops in that region. Two cars  started with us;
                         371 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
but after all hands had pushed at them valiantly for hours,
they were obliged to  turn back on the col of Pisoderi,
thirteen kilometres straight uphill from Fiorina to the
summit, 1650 metres high, whence you get a magnificent
view over the entire valley of the Cerna. I had no partic-
ular trouble in Hill's  little touring car, and we reached
our destination late that night, after sixteen hours' steady
driving over some of the worst roads possible to imagine.
At one time we followed the bed of a river, going through
it eleven times,  and once just  escaping trouble as the
water drowned the carburetor twice. At Koritza we were
royally welcomed,  and, as my passengers treated me as a
friend  instead  of a chauffeur, I  was the Colonel's guest,
dined and lunched with him and his Etat-Major, and was
entertained by the younger officers.
  The political situation is extremely  interesting  here.
At the beginning of the war the  Greeks  overran this part
of Albania, but made themselves most unpopular through
unjust taxation. Last summer the Venizelos  crowd ex-
pelled  the royalist officials, but proved no better. As the
Powers in 1912 pronounced Albania independent, but as
the country has had no government since the Prince of
Wied was "fired," some  prominent citizens of Koritza,
mostly retired comitajes, asked  Colonel Ducoing's per-
mission to proclaim a republic.  He assented, the Greeks
were driven out, and a new council was elected,  or self-
appointed, just before we arrived. The flag of the new
republic, dark red with a strange-looking, black-winged
creature on it, and having a tricolor ribbon around the
staff, had just  been hoisted on the  town hall. The whole
thing is more  or less comic-opera stuff, but the inhabit-
ants take themselves  very seriously. Since then  several
other towns have joined the movement.  Every one is
armed and no  one dares go more than  a few kilometres
from town, as the country swarms with comitajes and
the Austrian posts are only a short distance  away, ten
or twelve kilometres, on a mountain range.
  Our  arrival  caused  immense excitement, as ours was
                        372 
SECTION THREE
the second motor car ever seen in those parts, the first
being Colonel Ducoing's, in which he arrived, but has not
used since. Just lately two of our  cars have climbed the
pass and are now7 wrorking over in Albania, one at Koritza,
the other farther north  near Lake Presba. Hill,  with a
mechanic, has just returned from a flying trip over there
in order to repair an axle, and says the Lord only knows
how they can ever get back, as the roads are getting worse
every day. In a word, it is all very interesting here and I
think we are being extremely useful.
                                     John Munroe 1


  1 Of New York City; Harvard, '13; joined the Field Service on May 6,
1916, serving with Section Three; was Sous-Chef in Macedonia until May,
1917; entered the School at Fontainebleau and became a Second Lieutenant
of Artillery in the French Army.
 
V
                     Monastir

The work at Monastir, where we were finally stationed,
went on all right. In  this country you very rarely get
up to postes de secours. We evacuated from a town two
or three kilometres back, along a flat and on the whole
a very good road, twenty-eight  kilometres to a village
where there was a relay, and where another section took
the wounded farther to the rear. The work was very in-
teresting, for it was done mostly over the territory con-
quered the previous November.
  At Monastir we were quartered very comfortably in
two good houses.  But the resources of the town were
somewhat limited  and food prices very high; two chick-
ens, for instance, costing 25 francs, and two eggs, 2 francs
20. Then, too, rifle bullets flew about certain of the out-
lying quarters, "210V wandered in occasionally, and a
good deal of other Boche  attention of less distressing
variety was often our lot. We had to sneak in at night, in
convoy, for the exit of the town was often pounded, and
it was, perhaps, the best gauntlet-running ever seen — on
a perfectly straight, open road with an excellent surface,
and in the  daytime absolutely free of traffic. So, on the
whole, we were pretty well off at Monastir. But finally,
in January,  1917, we  were  ordered to  fall back, as the
place got too lively for the cantonment of the Section,
and we established ourselves fourteen kilometres in the
rear, at Negocani, a  mud village, the houses being of
bricks, made of that material strengthened with manure
and straw — the origin of reinforced concrete, probably.
  The customs at Negocani were very curious. Take this
one, for instance!  If you were in need of firewood, you
would  look  about until you found a house  unoccupied
by soldiers,  which you then proceeded to demolish — a
very easy task, as it is made of mud — in order to get
                        374 
SECTION THREE
the beams; the floors and doors, in most cases, having all
disappeared  long before our coming. The absence from
the village of all civilians rendered the proceeding all the
easier.  The day before we entered upon our  first wood
hunt, we found two houses which were still in fairly good
condition, set  our  seal on them, and arranged matters
with the commandant d'armes. But  the next morning,
when we arrived on the spot at eight o'clock, we found
that all the doors  and floors of  one of them had been
carried off by  a flock of Italians who had reached town
during the previous evening.
  We were well off in our house, which was big enough
for the men to sleep in. It had, on the first floor upstairs,
two rooms which were separated by  a hallway. I had a
room on the ground floor, which was literally right on the
ground. The French contingent of our party  occupied the
other ground-floor room, while  the downstairs hall, which
was provided with a fireplace, served at night as a sitting-
room. An outhouse, with smoky rafters, to which, in a
few minutes, with  the aid of a pick, we added windows,
completed our quarters.
  This place was not as interesting as Monastir, but much
safer, for at the latter town we were very much cooped
up, having to  stay within the  city limits all the time, as
everything outside of the walls was in plain sight of the
enemy and some of the outlets were within rifle range.
Moreover, there were quite frequent shellings of Monastir
so that staying indoors was much to  be encouraged.  For
instance, one  shell landed in  a little court where some
of our cars were parked, got four of them and a poor child
who was blown to atoms and  parts of whose  body were
found in and on half a dozen  cars. On this  occasion my
car, unfortunately, was about the heaviest sufferer — one
front wheel, radiator, and water-inlet connection being
shot through and through, while the headlight and quite
a lot of wiring were cut up. But worst of all, the wind-
shield  and top were ruined  and a horrible  piece of the
little child wound round and round the steering-wheel.
                        375 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
  This affair was nothing but a coup court; but still the
Germans were shelling objectives that were close enough
for pieces of shell to fall about us very freely, and, though
we knew we were backing out, it was not till we got to
Negocani that we  felt  how  glad we were  to be out of
Monastir, especially as later the entrance to this last town
got shelled daily and on this account we had to change
the hours of evacuation.
                                  Lovering Hill.

            A Gas Attack on Monastir
                                   Monastir, January 5
We have just had  a gas attack here.
  We sat there  in my car after our lucky and narrow
squeak with exploding shells, conversing with each other
and with passing poilus. Everything was quiet, and we
started to fix ourselves for the night. The straw inside the
old Turkish mosque, as we learned  from previous experi-
ence, was entirely too full of life for comfortable slumber;
so we fixed a couple of stretchers out in the front worship-
ping hall, where air was better, too.
  The shelling had recommenced by the time we tried to
sleep. Suddenly the  obus  began to come  in faster and
faster, their whistles blending one into another until  it
was all one solid roar and whiz. The explosions sounded
like shrapnel, and  it was not until a shell broke our win-
dow that we learned it was  gas. Our masks  were out in
the cars, and as we ran out to get them we almost suffo-
cated, although we tried to hold our breath.  Back in the
mosque it  was better,  as  the air was nearly untainted,
the  windows being air-tight.  Fortunately  the  dozen
malades  and stretcher-bearers in  the  mosque were all
provided with masks, so in less uncomfortable state of
mind, we sat down to wait. There was nothing else to do,
of course.  All this time the shells were coming in at a
fearful rate, all of them landing right in our  quarter.
Now and then a man would stumble in from the street,
choking  from the gas and calling for a mask. Pretty soon
                         376 
               MONASTIR IN WINTER
VIEW FROM AN UPPER WINDOW OF THE  CANTONMENT 
 
SECTION THREE
the doctor appeared in his stocking feet, and he took care
as best he could of the asphyxiated.
  In the meanwhile things were steadily becoming worse
and worse. The streets were a cloud of gas, and inside the
mosque it was getting more and more difficult to breathe,
when suddenly, as I was standing by the door talking
with Petitjean, there came a deafening explosion, which
blew down the door and a solid wave of gas caught us
in the face. For a moment there was complete confu-
sion, men running every which way and some lying down
gasping, coughing, and calling for masks. Howt they lost
them is incomprehensible, for  almost every  one had a
mask on when the shell came. The doctor, who was stand-
ing beside me,  had his mask off for the moment and got it
tangled up in  trying to put it on again; but fortunately
he was saved  by  the sergeant-major, who clapped it on
the doctor's face. But he was sick for several hours after-
wards. At the same time we picked up some masks and
put them on the choking men who were lying about. Then
the room  was plunged in darkness. At this moment, I
heard Petitjean calling for another infirmier to bandage
him  up. The doctor was out of  commission, the infirmier
unfindable, and I came to the rescue, finding Petitjean
in the little room in back. His hand wras bleeding badly;
but  I did my best to fix him up; rather a difficult job,
however, because, with the gas-mask on, I could hardly
see what I was doing. But I did the best I could under the
circumstances. First I poured some alcohol over the hand,
and  found that the wound was not so serious as I at first
thought. But it was painful and bleeding enough. Then,
to make sure, I used  peroxide  which  I sponged off with
cotton and put on some iodine, bandaging the hand up
as tightly as I  could in order to stop the flow of blood —
an effective dressing, even if it was not very scientific.
   But before  I had finished with Petitjean,  I  was told
that another man had been completely knocked out by
the gas, and that the only way to save him was to rush
him  over to the hospital in hope of finding some oxygen.
                        377 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
This I immediately decided to do. There was still  a lot
of gas on the street; but I had to take my mask off to
drive. I finally got the asphyxie over to the hospital; but
no doctor was  to  be found, there was  no  oxygen, and
everything seemed hopeless. So, as a last resort, I  tried
artificial breathing; but the poor fellow died while I was
working on him, and I  had to take his body back to the
mosque, where, in the  meanwhile, a gas shell had  come
in through the outer door and exploded in the anteroom,
not ten feet from where John and I made our beds earlier
in the evening; and when we collected our bedclothes
next morning, they were covered with debris and  satu-
rated with gas. At this point a slight breeze sprang up,
which made breathing possible again; the doctor came to,
and though awfully sick, stuck to his job, thereby sav-
ing the lives  of several men, while I spent most of the
time making  coffee over an alcohol lamp, coffee being a
great relief to men who have been gassed. All this hap-
pened with bewildering rapidity  in less time  than one
takes to write about it.
   John was great. While I was fixing up Petitjean, he got
his lantern and quieted the men, who were mostly intoxi-
cated by the gas, and did not know what they were doing.
His chief work  was to  make them keep  their  gas-masks
on, which saved more than one of them. Altogether the
shelling lasted  about  three hours, during which  time
thousands of these gas obus came in, with the result that
two hundred civilians were killed and many left dying.
Few soldiers lost their lives, thanks to the gas-masks.
   John and I did not begin to feel the effects  of the gas
until  the next day, and then were uncomfortably  sick.
It takes a long while to get the gas out of one's system,
and the continual smell and taste of the stuff is sickening
for days. My clothes and blankets still smell of it, though
they have been out in  the breeze for forty-eight hours.
After this I will take high-explosive shells with all  their
eclats in preference to gas.
                            J. Marquand Walker
                        378 
SECTION THREE
              Our Sector Extended
Toward the end of January we took over another seg-
ment of the line, a section southeast of Monastir, collect-
ing our blesses from a village called Skocivir, situated on
the banks of  the  Cerna,  some twenty-five  kilometres
from Negocani. Skocivir was the  highest point reached
by  wheeled  transport, though some fifteen  kilometres
back from the line. From  here munitions and ravitaille-
ment were carried into the mountains on muleback, the
wounded coming out  by the same torturing transport.
A few kilometres  before  reaching Skocivir  we passed
through the town of Brod, the first Serbian town retaken
by the Allies after the great retreat of 1915, the point at
which  the Serbs first reentered their country. Here the
Cerna  was crossed by two  bridges.  Through the pass
beyond poured French, Serbs, and Italians to reach their
allotted segment of line. The congestion and babble at
this point was terrific.
  We saw much of the Italians. Long lines of their troops
were constantly marching forward,  little men  with ill-
formed packs. As soldiers  they did not impress us, but
they had  a splendid  motor  transport — big, powerful
cars well adapted to the Balkan mud and handled by the
most reckless  and skilful  drivers in  the Allied armies.
The men were a vivacious lot and  often sang as they
marched.

              "An Army  of Old Men"
In marked contrast were the Serbs, "the poor relations of
the Allies."  For the most part they were middle-aged
men, clad in nondescript uniforms and with varied equip-
ment. They slogged by silently — almost mournfully. I
never saw one laugh, and  they smiled but rarely. They
were unobtrusive,  almost unnoticed; yet when a car
was mired, they were always the first  to help, and withal
they were invested with a quiet  dignity which seemed
to set  them apart. I  never talked with a soldier of any
                        379 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
army who had seen them in action but who praised their
prowess.
  The  going, or  rather ploughing,  beyond  Brod  was
particularly atrocious,  and it frequently took from two
and a half to three hours to cover the fifteen kilometres.
At one  point the way was divided by two lonely graves
which lay squarely in the middle of the road, the traffic
of war passing and repassing on either side. Brod service
was particularly uninteresting, as the point at which we
collected our blesses was too far back of the line to offer
the excitement afforded by being under fire, save when
there was an air raid. Then, too, the roads were so con-
gested and in such  terrible condition that the driving was
of the most trying sort, and it frequently meant all day
evacuation without one hot meal. Our work at this time
was particularly heavy; we were serving three divisions,
the one back of Monastir, the  Brod division, and the
division in Albania. In short, we were covering the work
of three motor Sections.
  During all these days the enemy continued to rain his
fire upon Monastir. Gradually, but none the less surely,
the city was withering  away. Here a house, there a shop
or bazaar, became  a mass of debris. Huge holes gaped in
the streets; tangled wire swung mournfully in the wind;
once I saw a minaret fairly struck, totter a second,  and
then pitch into the street, transferred in a twinkling from
a graceful spire into a heap of brick and mortar, overhung
by a shroud of dust. Though perhaps half of the city's
forty thousand inhabitants had fled as best they might,
as many more remained. Generally they stayed indoors,
though the flimsy walls offered little protection and there
were no cellars. When they emerged, it was to slink along
in the shadows of the walls. Scuttling, rather than walk-
ing, they made their way, every sense tensed in anticipa-
tion of the coming of "the death that screams." If Verdun
had seemed the City of the Dead, Monastir wTas the Place
of Souls Condemned to Wander in the Twilight of Purga-
tory. The fate of the population civile was a pitiable one.
                        380 
SECTION THREE
In a world of war, they had no  status.  Food, save the
farina issued by the military, was unobtainable, and fuel
equally wanting. Scores were killed. As for the wounded,
their  situation was  terrible. Drugs were too precious,
bandages too valuable, and surgeons' time too well occu-
pied for their treatment. Their  case would have  been
without hope had it  not been for  a neutral, non-military
organization of the Dutch which maintained in Monastir
a small hospital for the treatment of civilians. This hos-
pital, established in  a school, did splendid work, and its
staff are entitled to high praise and credit.
  For this hospital, one morning,  I got the strangest
load my ambulance ever carried — four little girls. As
I lifted their stretchers into the car,  their weights seemed
as nothing. Three were couches; the fourth, a bright little
thing, wounded in the head by H.E. eclat, sat by my side
on the driving seat and chatted with me in quaint French
all the way to the hospital.
  Meanwhile the days  grew perceptibly longer and the
sun, when it appeared, had a feeble warmth. A new Sec-
tion coming out from France relieved our cars in Albania,
and Giles and the others coming back from Koritza re-
ported that  the city  was under frequent plane bombard-
ment and the population demoralized.
  For some time the talk of an attack on Hill 248 and
the line back of Monastir had been growing. There seemed
little  doubt now that such  an attack would shortly be
launched with the object of driving the enemy back and
freeing the city from artillery  fire. Daily our fire grew
more  intense. The roads were congested with upcoming
troops and new batteries going into  position. Word came
in that the Section was  to hold itself in readiness to shift
quarters to Monastir. Then, at last, one night came the
order to  report for action in the city.
                         Robert Whitney Imbrie 1

  1 From Behind the Wheel of a War Ambulance. Courtesy of Robert M.
McBride & Company of New York. 
VI
           The Section goes to Greece

Section Three was relieved from the Monastir sector
May 26, 1917, and moved to Fiorina about twenty kilo-
metres back. Here orders were received attaching  the
Section to the  French Provisional Division which was
moving into Greece to settle once and for all the ever-
present Greek threat at the Allied lines of communica-
tion in Macedonia.
  We started to join the Division on May 31, going that
day as far as the English hospital for Serbs at Vertekop,
via  the main road from Monastir to Salonica. The first
village passed through  was the hillside town of Banica;
thence up  over a pass by the battle-field of Gornitchevo,
where the  Serbians and Bulgars fought in October,  1916;
on to Ostrovo (at the northern end of the lake of the same
name) and Vodena. From there on to Vertekop it was easy
rolling, mostly downhill.
  On  June 1 we rolled to Topsin, passing through  the
ancient town of Yenidze Vardar. At Topsin we went into
a cantonment near the training-camp of the recruits  for
the new army  of  Venizelos.  Our camp was the  most
inhospitable-appearing  affair,  situated as it was in  the
midst of a broad,  barren,  sandy stretch of homeless land
which offered neither shelter from the June sun nor any-
thing  else. Here the rumor got out through the usual
medium that we would remain several weeks and then
be  attached to the new  Greek Army. But  the rumor
proved baseless when Lieutenant Derode returned from
Salonica (which was only about seventeen miles away)
with orders to  move  "on  to Athens" early the next
morning.
  The next day we rolled by noon to a town called Gida,
and after a long halt on the hot, dusty road outside  the
town, we headed for Katerini. Arriving there in the early
                        382 
SECTION THREE
evening, after having skirted the seacoast for many kilo-
metres, we drew up in the yard of  an old monastery.
Here we were billeted for over a week, during  which
period and  much to the regret of  all, Charley Fiske1
and R. B. Montgomery, their time having  long since
expired, returned to France. Their places were taken by
John d'Este (who later became Chief of Section after
the Section returned to Monastir) and James Keogh.
  There were French troops in reserve at Katerini, the
temporary front line being out in the direction of Elasson,
which was southeasterly beyond the wooded hills back
of Mount Olympus.
  Our stay here was well taken up with washing voitures,
changing wooden bodies for lighter canvas  ones,  and
making other preparations for a campaign around the
interior of Greece. Frequent trips were made to the sea
at Scala Katerini, distant about seven  kilometres. Here
the swimming was excellent, and the  sea-food dinners
were  "elegant."
  The country between Katerini and Larissa, which is
the chief city of Thessaly,  was reputed to be filled with
roving royalist comitajes who were the heroes of many a
rumored skirmish with French outposts. So  the  ambu-
lanciers were  armed — hardly to the teeth — with au-
tomatic  .32 calibre pistols. To be  sure that  every  one
got acquainted with this weapon of emergency, we  had
target practice out in the field back of the monastery.
After twenty-five of us had fired one round per person,
one hole (maybe two) appeared on the target. Whatever
the number of hits, it was assured that every one knew
his  weapon and an  attack on an  ambulance section
convoy (complete, with one White truck and a trailer-
kitchen which served as a kennel for "Salonique,"  the
cook's dog) was  not to be feared  (by the  comitajes).

  1 Charles Henry Fiske, 3d, of Boston, Massachusetts;  Harvard, '19;
served in Section Three of the Field Service from August, 1916, to June,
1917; became a Second Lieutenant in the United States Infantry and died
of wounds received in action August 24, 1918.
                         383 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
As a further assurance against a surprise attack,  each
person was  given seven  rounds of  ammunition, which
was to be strictly accounted for and returned to Hill on
making the next etape.
  On or about June 12, 1917, we moved on to Larissa,
passing up the heavily wooded slopes back  of Mount
Olympus,  following  the valley of the Mavroneri River.
Near the  crest  of the divide, the village of Petra was
passed, and from there on it was nice rolling down to the
town of Elasson.
  After making Elasson,  we  caught up with the  main
body of the Division which was strung all along the road,
winding up the Maluna Pass — the entrance to Thessaly.
We passed the little  Indo-Chinamen who were struggling
up the steep mountain with their huge packs and little
peaked sun hats; Senegalese, spahis, Chasseurs d 'afrique,
French Artillery, and  lots of French infantry. The Eng-
lish troops involved in the affair went by sea, so we did
not come in contact with them. Russia also contributed
troops, but they came after things were settled.
  Passing down  the Thessalian slope from  the Maluna
Pass, the holiday-bedecked town of Tirnavos was reached
during a heavy rain.  Allied  flags were flying, though
drenched; and bunting of all  colors showed signs of not
being  weather-proof. Hastily prepared  pictures of Gen-
eral Sarrail, President Wilson, General Joffre, and others
of note were hung from wires stretched across the streets
and in  the windows. The  pictures looked as though sev-
eral days before they had been likenesses of other persons
and had been touched up in a hurry to show how loyal
Thessalians were to  the Allied cause. These same unique
bits of  portraiture appeared later at Larissa and Volo.
  From Tirnavos it was  a short run across the wheat-
fields which  stretched for many kilometres  each side of
the road to Larissa.  We reached this town around five or
six o'clock in the evening. There were crowds of citizens
in the streets and all were looking in wonderment at the
composite make-up  of the incoming troops. The spahis
                        384 
SECTION THREE
had not long since rounded up the treacherous evzones
(Greek infantry) who, after a formal surrender, offered
resistance to the advancing French troops and then fled
out across the wheatfields. The Spahis charged across
the country and after a brief skirmish brought in a goodly
number of prisoners, not, however, without losing twelve
killed, officers and men.
  We occupied the recently evacuated Greek barracks,
and they were all too recently vacated, which we found
much to our discomfort. Our barrack was near the one in
which the captured Greeks were imprisoned.
  Every now and then the Chinese guards would walk
out a group of prisoners, who, upon being addressed by
the French commander through an  interpreter, wrould
give three cheers for Venizelos and the Allies, and at the
same time sign up in Venizelos's Army. Thereupon they
would be  marched to the station  by the ever-vigil ant
Chinamen and shipped to Salonica and I hope to Topsin.
Thus we saw loyal royal Greek troops transformed by a
few well-chosen remarks into  loyal Allied soldiers.
  After the Greek King had acceded to the Allies' de-
mands, on or about June 13,  it became a certainty that
there would be no active campaign in Greece, so it was
a question of time, as to how long it was necessary to keep
troops on the ground after the abdication. Several cars
rolled each day, carrying only a few sick soldiers, and it
is doubtful if we carried more than fifty during the ex-
pedition. Before we quitted Larissa, leaves were granted
to Volo, which  had been a base of supply for German
submarines, where the most remarkable feature was the
abundance of outdoor moving-picture shows. These shows
were given on the quai from dark till dawn. Some of the
Section made excursions to the Vale of Tempe which is
not far from Larissa.
  By the end of June most of the troops had evacuated
Thessaly and we started back to Macedonia July 1. On
this return hike we went over the Sarantoporen Pass  to
Kozano; thence, after a night on a barren hillside where
                        385 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
the tinkle  of  goat-bells assumed the sonority of fire
alarms, we  proceeded  through Eksisu  and Sakulevo to
our new  sector beyond Brod (which is east across the
valley from Monastir). The Section now became attached
to the Serbian Army  and  had for cantonment a clump
of tents on the  hill above Skocivir looking down the
valley across the Cerna.
                             Charles Baird, Jr.1


         1 Reminiscences based on an unpublished diary.
 
VII
      The Bombardment of Monastir, 1917
                               Monastir, August 17, 1917
Along in the afternoon the intermittent  bombardment
of Monastir, which had been going on all the morning,
suddenly increased in volume, until at four o'clock the
noise of the bursting shells became a continual rumble,
and  tongues of flame mingled with the smoke and dust
clouds which continuously shot up over the house-tops
of the city.
  The greater part of the Section was grouped on a hill-
side near camp, whence we could watch the bombardment.
Two of our cars were  on duty in the city, but we had
no news  of them. Immediately after dinner, Tracy and
I, having been assigned to twenty-four hours' duty in
Monastir, left camp. The bombardment  seemed to in-
crease in violence as we approached the unfortunate city,
and  fire was sweeping the eastern quarter. As we drove
up the Grande Rue, which practically cuts the  city in
half, we could see that the eastern part of the town had
suffered most.
   In the Grande Rue  the confusion was  indescribable.
Women with babies in their arms and with little chil-
dren clinging to their skirts, and  men carrying grotesque
burdens  of household possessions hastily  salvaged, ran
hither and thither in an agony of terror. Others cowered
in their doorways, fearful of the open, while several knelt
directly in our path, beseeching us to take them to a
place of safety. Men even jumped upon the steps of the
ambulances from which we forcibly dislodged them.
  Arriving at the hospital we found it undamaged, being
well  to the north of the city, and nearer the Bulgar and
Boche positions. There we relieved Sinclair and Russell,
who  then left for Fiorina with wounded, and being the
last to leave, were forced to quit the town  by a circuitous
                        387 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
route through the western section, as shells were again
falling in the Grande Rue.
  Tracy and I were at once despatched to the offices of
the hospital, which were located a little to the east of the
Grande Rue. We found the building intact, though sur-
rounded by flames. Tracy took the books and records in
his car, while I went to the other end of the city to the
English hospital for civilian Serbs,  accompanied by an
old Serbian woman, who  had had her leg  blown off. I
found the Grande Rue still passable,  though some of the
buildings lining it were in flames. Shells were now falling
to the west of the street.
  Having  delivered  my wounded,  I  returned  to  the
G.B.D. Hospital,  where Tracy was preparing to make
another trip to the offices. He left a little later, brought
back the last of the salvage from that building,  and re-
ported that the fire was gaining headway in the  Grande
Rue, which he thought was impassable because of fallen
debris. This was not  the  case,  however,  as  Grenville
Keogh, who had been sent for to help handle the emer-
gency calls, came through it soon afterward, though his
celluloid goggles were ignited by a burning fragment of
wood, and one of his eyebrows went with them  as they
fizzled up  in smoke.
  As no more calls came, we remained at the hospital,
and at  eight o'clock  the firing dropped to  an intermit-
tent cannonade.  This continued until midnight, when we
found that east  of the Grande Rue, the city was prac-
tically destroyed. Incendiary bombs as well as high-ex-
plosive  had been used, and fire and shell had  done their
work  thoroughly. The French military  authorities esti-
mated that two thousand shells had fallen between four
and eight o'clock that evening.
                                Charles Amsden l


  1 Of Farmington, New Mexico; Harvard, '19; served with Section Three
from April to October, 1917; subsequently a Lieutenant in the U.S. Air
Service. 
 
 
VIII
   Last Days of Section Three in the Orient

On September 2 it was reported that the Italians, oper-
ating just  across the valley on  our right, had taken
Hill  1050 and  that  the  Senegalese were attacking on
the plain at  the foot of  Rostanni. About noon we were
warned of a coming counter-attack and told to be ready
to evacuate from two new postes. Accordingly, that  eve-
ning, the two staff cars, each with four ambulance driv-
ers, made a tour of the postes, so that at least some of the
boys might be familiar with all the roads.
  At seven the following evening the repair car and ten
ambulances started  for the G.B.D. in Monastir, Lieu-
tenant Derode and I  immediately following with the  staff
car.  On arriving, we  designated four men for the Ravine
d'ltalienne, a poste  of the 76th Division;  four for the
Roumanian poste of  the 30th Division, and leaving two
at the G.B.D. to see to the unloading of the cars there,
and  the evacuation back to Holeven and Fiorina if neces-
sary.
  At eight o'clock it was sufficiently dark  to start,  and
the cars left for the postes. At the Ravine d'ltalienne, we
parked the cars in the lee of a stone bridge  and were
joined by three brancardiers.
  Brush fires, started by exploding shells, blazed on the
mountains  on either  side, and farther up the valley the
fields were afire just behind the Bulgar front lines. All
the French artillery, from the  little mountain  batteries
up in the hills to the big "210's" in the outskirts of Mon-
astir were  pounding  away, and the Bulgars were reply-
ing, though to a less extent, and apparently directing their
fire down into the town. The heavens seemed a writhing,
shrieking waste of sound, but all of a sudden, about  nine
o'clock, the firing ceased, emphasizing the deep stillness
of the night,  broken  only by occasional rifle-fire and the
                        389 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
sharp rat-ta-tat-tat of the mitrailleuses out ahead. Then
the moon came up over  the mountains, bathing every-
thing in a soft white light, and for the moment making
us and our cars seem frightfully conspicuous.
  In a few moments Lieutenant Derode appeared for a
final inspection and to warn the boys under no circum-
stances to bring in cadavres. About quarter of ten  the
cars began to roll  steadily, and as they returned, after
evacuating their loads at the G.B.D., were directed, ac-
cording to  the last reports of  the number of blesses, to
one poste or another. Along toward 2.30 a.m. things com-
menced to slacken, and all cars but three, one at each
poste, and one at the road junction, ready to move  up,
were sent in. All  three  came in before  daybreak.  At
the G.B.D. the Medecin Divisionnaire instructed us that
the hospital must  be  evacuated before evening, so we
telephoned to the  cantonnement at Bistrica and got all
remaining cars rolling. By noon our work was pretty well
cleaned up.
  This was the  last real activity of Section Three. From
then on we kept our usual programme; two cars at  the
G.B.D. in Monastir to answer calls from the postes, and
each morning the required number of cars to evacuate
back to  Holeven,  Velusini, or Fiorina and occasional
calls from a radius  of thirty kilometres. On September 6
and 28 we received two new batches of men as replace-
ments, a number of the old members returning to France.
We kept busy building mud and stone houses for winter
quarters,  improving our road out as far as the main road,
and giving all the  ambulances a thorough overhauling.
On  October 8 we  got news from the Pare d'Autos at
Salonica  that we were to be recalled,  and on the 9th
came fifteen French drivers, whom we were to break in
on our Fords and work. As soon as they took over  the
service we prepared to leave.
  At noon  on the  16th,  Lieutenant Derode called  the
whole Section together, and in a few words of heartfelt
thanks, and regret at parting, bade us good-bye;  and
                        390 
SECTION THREE
read  the following order from the General Commanding
the 76th Division, to which the Section had been attached:

  Au moment ou les conducteurs americains de la Section Sani-
taire A.U. 3 vont quitter l'Orient pour aller continuer leurs ser-
vices sur le sol frangais, le General Commandant l'Arm6e Fran-
caise d'Orient adresse ses felicitations au Chef et aux hommes
composant le personnel de cette Section, pour l'intrepidite,
l'entrain et le devouement dont chacun d'eux a donne  le plus
beau t6moignage au cours des operations de guerre qui se sont
succede depuis Decembre  1916 dans le secteur de Monastir.
  Grace aux qualites d'endurance, de bravoure et de sang-froid
dont ce personnel a fait preuve dans maintes circonstances, de
nombreux  soldats frangais, souvent grievement blesses, ont
pu recevoir rapidement les soins necessaires qui leur ont sauve
la vie.
  En s'eloignant de la Macedoine, ou les volontaires americains
ont fait apprecier  leur concours si precieux, ces vaillant aux-
iliaires emportent  avec eux les regrets unanimes, la gratitude
de tous nos blesses et la reconnaissance de l'Armee  Francaise
d'Orient.
                                 Signe: Regnault
                                      John N. d'Este1


  1 Of Salem, Massachusetts;  Harvard, '10; joined the Field Service in
September, 1916; served in Section Eight and as Chef of Section Three
until November, 1917; subsequently a Second Lieutenant in U.S. Artillery. 
IN MEMORIAM
Arthur Bluethenthal
Coleman Tileston Clark
William Key Bond Emerson, Junior
Charles Henry Fiske, 3D.
Richard Nelville Hall
Waller Lisle Harrison, Junior
George Merrick Hollister
Jerry Thomas Illich
Douglas MacMonagle
Henry Brewster  Palmer
Edward Carter Sortwell
Henry Montgomery Suckley
Edward Ilsley Tinkham 
    Section Four

 THE STORY TOLD BY
  I. George Rockwell, Jr.
 II. Richard C. Ware
III. William de Ford Bigelow
IV. Leon H. Buckler
 V. Charles H. Hunkins
VI. Hugh J. Kelleher 
SUMMARY
Section Four left Paris for Lorraine in November, 1915, and
after a few weeks, at Vaucouleurs, spent the  ensuing winter
and spring in the Toul-Flirey sector. In June, 1916, it moved
to Ippecourt for the great battle of Verdun, where it had the
distinction of being the  first of the Field Service sections to
serve the famous postes at Marre and Esnes. For nearly a year
the Section remained in the region of Ippecourt and Rarecourt
in the Verdun sector. In May, 1917, it moved on to Cham-
pagne, where it remained for two months;  then it went back
again to Verdun, this time to the Bras-Vacherauville sector.
It was at this point that  the Section enlisted with the United
States Army in the autumn  of 1917, as Section Six-Twenty-
Seven. 
                  Section  Four

       Broke to every known mischance, lifted over all
       By the light sane joy of life, the buckler of the Gaul,
       Furious in luxury, merciless in toil,
       Terrible with strength that draws from her tireless soil,
       Strictest judge of her own worth, gentlest of man's mind,
       First to follow truth and last to leave old truths behind —
       France beloved of every soul that loves its fellow-kind!
                                       Rudyard Kipling

                           I

             Section Four's Beginning

The night before we were to leave Paris early in Novem-
ber, 1915, we had a dinner with the officers of the Field
Service. There were not many speeches, but we were re-
minded that we were in charge of one of the best-equipped
Sections which had as yet taken the field, and that we
were going to the front in an  auxiliary capacity to take
the place of Frenchmen  needed for  the sterner work of
the trenches. We might be sent immediately to the front
or kept for a while in the rear; but in any event there were
sick and wounded to be carried and our job was to help
by obeying orders.
   Early the next morning we ran through the Bois-de-
Boulogne and over an historic route  to Versailles, where,
at the Headquarters  of  the Army Automobile Service,
our cars were  numbered with a military serial and the
driver of each was given a livret matricule, which is an
open sesame for gasoline and tires at  every motor park in
France. Those details were completed about ten o'clock,
and we felt at last as if we were French soldiers driving
French automobiles on the way to our place at the French
front.
395 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
  About thirty kilometres outside of Paris the staff car
and the camionnette with the cook on board dashed by us,
and upon our arrival at a quaint little village we found a
cafe requisitioned for our use and its stock of meat, bread,
and red wine in profusion at our disposal. In the evening
we  reached the town of Esternay and there again all was
prepared for our reception. Rooms were requisitioned and
the good people took us in with open arms and the warm-
est  of hospitality. But one or two of us had to spread our
blankets over the stretchers in the back of our cars, be-
cause there were not enough rooms and beds for all.
  The next morning was much colder; there was some
snow and later a heavy fog. Our convoy got under way
shortly after breakfast, and ran in record-breaking time,
for  we wanted to finish our trip that evening. We stopped
for  lunch and for an inspection  which consumed two
hours, and  starting about ten o'clock on the last stretch
of our journey, drove all the afternoon through sleet, cold,
and snow.

                    In Lorraine
At  seven o'clock that night we reached Vaucouleurs, had
our supper, secured  sleeping accommodations,  and re-
tired. Our running orders had been completed; we had
reached our destination in perfect  form. Several days
passed. We were inspected by generals and other officers,
all of whom seemed pleased with the completeness of our
Section; yet improvements, they said, were still possible
and should  be made while we  were at the park. We were
told that we were to  take care of a service of evacuation
of the sick in that district and at the same time try out a
"heating system" for our cars.
  We were  at Vaucouleurs in all six weeks, including
Thanksgiving,  Christmas,  and New Year's Day.  Our
work  consisted of evacuating malades,  and at first it
offered the  opportunity of teaching the green ones  how
to care for  their cars. But we were all soon put on our
mettle.
396 
SECTION FOUR
  The outlying country was full of lowlands and streams
which in many places during the hard rains covered the
roads to such a depth that the usual type of French car
could not operate. Our  car suspension was high, and we
were thus able to perform a service the others could not.
We established, too, a  standard for prompt service
and during the weeks we were at Vaucouleurs we never
delayed a call on account of "high water." In fact, we
left this district for other labor  with  a record of never
having missed a call, and the promptness of service, day
or night, was often a matter of comment by the French
officials connected with this work. During this flooded
period certain postes accustomed  to telephone for an am-
bulance would ask for an American ambulance "boat,"
and the story was soon  about that we had water lines
painted on the cars as  gauges for depths through which
we could pass. On one occasion I was in the middle of a
swirling rapid with the nearest " land " one hundred yards
away. But I had to get through,  because I had on board
a pneumonia patient with a high fever, so I opened the
throttle and charged. When I got to the other side I was
hitting on  only two cylinders,  but as mine was the only
car that day to get through at all, I  boasted long after-
wards of my ambulance's "fording" ability.

                In the Toul Sector
We were always looking forward to being moved  and
attached to some division within the First Army, and, as
promised, the order came. Our service in this district was
completed, and on the morning  of January 5,  1916, our
convoy moved  up to  Lay-Saint-Remy. Our work here
included postes de secours that were intermittently under
fire, and several of the places could  be reached only at
night, being in daylight within plain view of the German
gunners.
   Here again we remained only a short time. Without
 any warning we received an order one evening to proceed
the next day to Toul. This meant 7 a.m., and so all night
                         397 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
we were busy filling our gasoline tanks, cleaning spark-
plugs, and getting a dismantled car in shape to "roll."
  The trip to Toul was without incident, and when we
drew up at the caserne, which proved to be our quarters
for several months, we reported as ready for immediate
work. Five cars were regularly stationed at Grosrouvres,
a secondary poste de secours about ten kilometres from
the lines, and two cars farther forward at the Carriere de
Flirey, a first-line poste de secours. The rest of the ambu-
lances formed a reserve at our base to relieve daily those
cars and take care of such emergency calls as might come
in, day or night. Then, as soon as we proved our worth,
we were given other similar points on the lines, and grad-
ually  took over the work of the French Section working
with the next Army division.
  Seicheprey  and the Bois de  Jury were two  of our
postes the first being but four hundred yards from the
Boche trenches. All winter  we kept up this and evacua-
tion work from the hospital at Menil-la-Tour and the
hospital at Toul. In the middle of February we had two
cars at Jouy,  and there we served the postes of Xivray,
Bouconville,  Barriere  d'Apremont,  Rambucourt,  and
Beaumont, while at the same time we took over the evac-
uation work at Aulnois, Void, and Pagny, which gave us
all the ambulance work between Apremont and Limey,
a front of twenty kilometres, and the work of two divi-
sions. The Section had its hands full, until June, when we
had a few days repos at Bayon. But by the 15th, we again
began work, this time in the great battle of Verdun.
                           George Rockwell, Jr.1
  1 Of Waterbury, Connecticut; joined the Service in February, 1915, serv-
ing with Section One and, as Sous-Chef, with Section Four until August,
1916. Later obtained a commission in U.S. Aviation. 
        THE "CAT" OF "SECTION QUATRE"
Side-door of one of the cars, with the memorial plaque which
           each ambulance in the Service bore 
 
II
                Calls at Nightfall

At  Toul, we handled practically  the  entire first-line
Ambulance Service of two divisions, embracing the front
covered by the ioist Division from Girauvoisin toXivray,
and that from Xivray to Noviant, the province of the
64th. In addition, we took care of the greater part of the
evacuation work between the various  ambulances and
hospitals back of the lines.
  Of  the two sectors, that of the ioist Division was the
least  interesting and most confining; calls were not very
frequent — seldom as many as two a night — and usually
nothing to do all day, yet the men  had to stay always
within reach, and any walking  other than through the
little  village  of Jouy was out of the question. Quarters
were  in an old wine-cellar — a long, stone-arched room
dug half into the hillside, with a single attic-story over
it — lighted  dimly by a tiny window at either end, and
very inadequately heated by a small, wood-burning stove.
Along both sides were ranged wooden  frames,  knocked
together and filled with straw, the bunks of the unusually
noisy group  of brancardiers,  or  stretcher-bearers, with
whom we were quartered. . . .
  After supper the fire  is filled up,  the brancardiers
gather in chattering groups or slip into  their bunks; the
overloaded  flue is unequal to  the volume of smoke,
which gathers in  a blue  cloud overhead, thicker and
thicker — lower and lower — will the fire give out be-
fore the smoke level reaches the sleepers?
  The calls at Jouy usually come in  about nightfall, just
as the long ravitaillement, or supply trains, are starting
for the  front under cover of the darkness. This makes the
running unusually  difficult:  M. Merland,  the genial
young medecin auxiliare, in private life a medical student,
takes his seat beside me and  with a whirr of the motor
                         399 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
we are off through the darkness. Dark, indeed! for  no
lights are allowed nor auto horn or Klaxon to clear the
track ahead. It is nervous work at best, for the roads are
narrow and  running with  mud, and while hard enough
in the middle, give way to veritable bogs on either side
where the "metalling" or stone surface ends, and beyond
this  the  inevitable deep ditch of  this part of France.
Unlucky he who gives too generous a berth to the passing
wagon! But, in addition, we have to pass an almost end-
less  stream  of ravitaillement—fourgons, caissons, two-
wheel carts loaded with full-length  young trees,  a very
dangerous combination to  pass,  coming  and  going,
appear suddenly out of the darkness,  and slide silently
by — great camions (auto-trucks)  of some twelve tons
loom out of the nothingness  ahead and thunder down
upon us — I have a fleeting vision of a little tin "flivver"
ground into a mass of junk  and jelly in the mud, and only
a quick turn of the wheel averts a collision. Always there
is the shrill whistle or Merland's sharp "a droite" at the
critical moment — and always our  luck is with us,  for
we are near the head of the column when we halt outside
the town to wait till the Germans' evening bombardment
of Gironville is finished. We watch the shells bursting —
sharp flashes in the gloom; there is a pause of a couple
of minutes, and we move on again.
  We reach  Gironville and run down its narrow street,
hemmed in on the left by the  whitewashed stucco backs
of the houses, on the right by the little extra-narrow-
gauge military railway —  that elastic ribbon of  ready-
made sections, like the children's toy, which follows hard
on the heels of  the front-line army — horse-operated,
hand-operated, engine-operated indiscriminately, as  oc-
casion serves — and which twists and winds up hill and
down dale, through field and wood, but by preference
using the road, where it is a constant menace to the little
ambulance, a-wayfaring on a dark night.
  "Arretez! Qui est Id?" — and the motor races a mo-
ment as we throw out the clutch at the sudden summons.
400 
SECTION FOUR
   "Ambulance Americaine, Thiaucourt," we reply, and
at the countersign the proffered bayonet is lowered, and
turning sharply to the right we slide down to the long,
level, really excellent  road to  Broussey.  It seems clear
for the moment, and we open up, cautiously; the road
glimmers faintly before  us, spectral figures appear sud-
denly ahead, and at the whistle melt into the darkness at
the roadside:  the long, ghostly procession of bare trees,
just discernible against  the sky, glides by — and again
we halt before the sentinel at Broussey.
  A sharp turn to the left in the middle of the shot-torn
town — through the lattice screens placed across  the
road to shield the  passing on the main  street from  the
Boche observing stations in the trenches and on "le vieux
Mont Sec" which dominates the region — to the right
again, and we are on the winding road to Bouconville.

                  At Bouconville
Still more "shot up" is Bouconville, and as we run up
the long street we can dimly see the sky through shell-
holes in roof  and gable,  or catch a fleeting glimpse of
skeleton rafters, gaunt and blackened. We turn silently
up to the ruined church, and circling, stop the motor at
the poste de secours,  underground in the corner of  the
little churchyard. A few dim figures are visible — silent
save for occasional whispers.
   " Vos blesses, sont-ils prets ?" — we whisper also.
   " II y a un qui riest pas encore arrive des tranchees."
   "Et combien en tous? — couches ou assis?"
  "Trois, dont deux couches."
  We  wait a few  minutes, and presently  our assis is
brought out, moving heavily and clumsily in his great
capote and broad, hobnailed shoes.
  "Attention a votre tetef" — the roof is low — and he is
seated " bien en avant" — musettes and knapsack and rifle
packed in  after  him — "Rosalie — n'oubliez pas  ma
Rosalie!" and the long,  slender bayonet, with its heavy
cartridge belt, is given due place.
                         401 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
  The supports for the third or upper stretcher are low-
ered and fastened, and one of the couches, not seriously
wounded, is lifted on his stretcher and slid into place.
The other is a grave blesse — both legs badly cut up by
an eclat — one will probably have to be amputated. Very
gently his stretcher is pushed into place, and very gently
we start on our return trip.
  But soon there is a sharp tap on the little window be-
hind my head, and the assis calls out, as we open, that
there is trouble with the grave blesse. Sure enough there
is a tiny stream of blood dripping out from under the
tail-board, and Merland is galvanized into quick action.
Flashlight in hand — carefully shielded, however, lest
the Boches see us — he tightens the pansement, straining
on the bandage until the slow, full dripping ceases — and
once more we are en route, Merland now riding inside.
Again, after passing Broussey,  we stop while the anxious
auxiliaire looks over his charge, still further tightening
the dressing; but strength is ebbing fast, and just outside
Jouy we halt for a third time, take out the assis and the
other couche, while Merland tries to give a hypodermic.
But the needle breaks, and loading up, we speed into the
town and draw up at the hospice just as the first shell of
the renewed bombardment screams in down the street.
Merland hurries in, attendants appear — we dismount
our patient to the ground, and the Medecin Chef, who
comes out on the run, feels the flagging pulse, and quickly
gives the required injection.
  "Allez! — allez  vite!" — and  we  are off  again. No
regard now to sparing pain — speed is the essential, and
the little motor hums busily to  advanced spark and open
throttle.  Just outside Jouy we round a corner and are
out of sight of Mont Sec, so stop a moment to light the
headlamps; and with their aid  increased speed is attain-
able. At Aulnois the assis and the less seriously injured
couche are left; once more our "bad case"  is given a
hypodermic, and again we are  off.
  The long run  on to Void is uneventful — no further
                        402 
SECTION FOUR
serious loss of blood, but a steady loss of strength. How-
ever, our patient still retains consciousness, and we start
on our homeward journey with the warming assurance
that he will pull through.
  And as I put the  car away, the last shell of the eve-
ning's bombardment snarls in and bursts a hundred yards
up the street.

             The Carriere de Flirey
The Carriere de Flirey! Always it appears to my inner
mind  as  I first  saw, or rather sensed it,  for it was well-
nigh pitch dark. It was my first tour on the Grosrouvres
service, and I had already had one call to battered, ex-
posed  Seicheprey  earlier  in the evening,  leaving  my
blesses at Menil-la-Tour and returning about  10  p.m. to
tumble into my sketchy bunk for what sleep might be
my fortune. But at two o'clock came the fateful steps
outside the door, and "Froggie," the telephonist, peered
in, "Carriere!  Cest vous qui  parte?" — for neither of
the other slumberers, having come in after me, had moved.
"Oui," and I tumbled out, and shortly, with a brancardier
beside me, was spinning off toward Bern6court; spinning,
that is, as  fast  as the ferociously bad road and the still
thick traffic wrould allow. We rocked through the boulders
of Bernecourt,  and  bore away along a road new to me,
and for half a mile or so, pleasantly smooth. Then it got
suddenly and surprisingly rough—"Old shell-holes —
there  is a battery right beside the road,  and the  Boches
try for it all the time," remarked my comrade. We passed
the repaired part and  swung  in through cloudy woods
that seemed at once to engulf us, the road,  and what
little  glimmer  there had  been, in one  all-smothering
blackness.
  More by touch and feel than by sight, we swung around
the corner and down the hill toward where a feeble point
of light served  merely  to dazzle and to  render the sur-
rounding blackness still more  impenetrable — and —
"Halte-ld!" —  my guide being only less new to the place
                        403 
,THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
than myself — brought up short almost against great
sandbag barriers,  where an  inquiring sentry held  an
embarrassingly long bayonet just where it would most
interfere with my internal economy. We had overrun our
turning, so, backing carefully a hundred yards, we came
to a gently sloping branch leading down past the bother-
ing light to a road up the middle of a long trough of
blackness. Backing the car into a broad shed,  I followed
my guide to a door a few yards away, which we entered,
to find, by the momentary flicker of a match, a rough,
board-lined room, with seven or eight bunks, and a small,
cold stove. One bunk was empty, and bidding my com-
rade good-night as he left for his own quarters, I  turned
in, and in spite of entire absence of ventilation was soon
sleeping with the best of them to a lullaby of occasional
sharp rafales from one or two batteries of " 75's" close at
hand.
  The Carriere de Flirey shows by day a narrow ravine,
running east from the road to Flirey, and parallel to the
trenches: a gray road along the centre, between the slopes
on either side thickly covered with slim young growth —
a  ribbon  of  the little, narrow-gauge  hand-and-horse-
railway that the French use to such good advantage,
along its southern, wooded slope. And the northern slope,
all rich browns and reds; soft creams and yellows, from
the torn earth and  rock, and honeycombed with a quad-
ruple row of shacks of all kinds, built back into the abris
or dugouts, in the solid hillside. And  yet,  such are the
exigencies of modern warfare, where the all-seeing  eye
of the aeroplane is ever overhead, the necessity for con-
cealment,  for protective coloring, has made what would
else be raw and tawdry a thing of real charm and interest.
Branches of evergreen hide fresh stonework; rough, gen-
erous blotches of brown, green, and  black paint trans-
form staring wood surfaces  to the quiet tones of field
and wood; and corrugated iron roofing is hidden under
great crossed beams, which  are in turn covered with
generous layers of  earth and rock. So that, save for the
                        404 
SECTION FOUR
darkness of opened doors and windows, there is little
revealed to the scouting aeroplane of the busy life within
— the electric power station, the telephone exchange,
the operating-room,  offices, supply  chambers, what-
not.
  Across the end of the Carriere, the road leads through
the barriers, around the shoulder of the hill, down through
desolate Flirey,  and  out through  the German  lines.
Across  the  road are  trenches, boyaux,  and yet more
trenches,  in the straggling ranks of modern  military
science — out  and out to No Man's Land. And back of
the trenches,  woods,  and yet  more woods; and here,
there, and everywhere, in all sorts of likely and unlikely
places, the big and little  guns of France — never tiring,
never sleeping.
  The Carriere de Flirey — a busy and a mauvais endroit.
Overhead tore the French shells, with the sound of rip-
ping cotton; or the German  shells sailed over, bound for
villages far back, with a sort of protesting whimper —
or swished in on us with  a sudden, indescribably vicious
snarl. From around us came the booming roar of the big
guns, or the peculiarly sharp bark of the " 75's"; and from
those located behind us there was an unusual echo effect
that I have heard nowhere else— "Oom pow! 00m —
pow ! oom — pow ! " — would come the ear-splitting salvo,
and the little  shells, in which the poilu rightly places so
much trust, would tear away overhead.
  A mauvais endroit — here men were killed and wounded
almost  at our sides — Adamson  saw  two killed within
five or six yards of him.  Here the road winding down to
the valley was under direct observation from the German
drachen or observation balloon over behind Flirey — how
we did hate that balloon! — and the enemy artillery had
accurately registered it, so  that, day  or night, those
traversing it had to take their medicine as it came.
  And the Flirey front was bad,  too — never a rest for
the troops, for they were always under fire; and ever the
freshly wounded were brought back to the little dressing-
                         405 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
station, whence we hurried them back to final treatment;
and ever the little wattled morgue received new inmates,
and silently, day by day, the long cemetery  across the
road grew and spread along the curving valley.
  The Carriere service  being the most important, the
entire activities of the Grosrouvres Squad revolved about
it; one car was kept in  the shed "garage" in the little
valley, the conducteur living with the brancardiers, and
eating, now in the little iron-roofed "kitchen" dug back
into the hillside above, or again with some of the friendly
officers, or with M.  Harel, the genial  aumbnier of the
Division,  black-bearded  and efficient.  Cases  of  minor
importance, sickness  or  slight wounds, were kept till
there were enough to make a load — but graves blesses or
seriously sick  men were sent  in to Toul at once. The
departure of the ambulance at any time, day or night, was
signal for a telephone message to Grosrouvres for another
car, which usually arrived a few minutes after the first
had left, so that the poste was always covered. Indeed,
the sending in of blesses from the trenches was always
telephoned from the trench  station to  the  Carriere,  so
that the operating-room  might be in readiness, and on
such occasions the relief car was usually telephoned for
at once, and arrived often before the first ambulance
had started away.

              At Seicheprey in 1916
The cars not  on duty at the  Carriere — two or  three,
depending on whether or not Flirey was busy requiring
a car en remplacement — the remaining cars of  the Squad
took care of calls from the other postes along the  front,
and of the towns lying farther back. Seicheprey,  down
in the valley, badly ruined, and fully exposed to gun- and
rifle-fire — as was also the white road pitching down into
it — we visited only at night. Even then there  were
occasions when some of our drivers  had their thrilling
moments, as when Dayton's heavily loaded wheels re-
fused  to grip the mud, leaving his car for long minutes
                        406 
SECTION FOUR
clearly outlined in the blaze of one of the rare moonlit
nights, apparently immovable and well  in range of the
ever-nearing rifle bullets; a providential cloud, a blanket
under the wheel, and no damage done.
  Daylight runs to the poste de secours of the Bois de
Jury had, as was pointed out in a special commendation
from the Division, never  been undertaken prior to the
advent of the Section. The  road led  from Beaumont
along a crest fully exposed to  observation from  Mont
Sec— le vieux Mont Sec, as the poilus termed it, much as
we would say "the old Nick" — it being held and gunned
by the Germans. And as the road and its vicinity were not
infrequently thoroughly shelled  by the  Boches in their
search for French batteries,  and as one felt that to a
part, at least, of the enemy forces the Red Cross meant
nothing, the daylight traverse was not without its thrill.

              Making "The Route"
Beaumont and  Mandres, Hamonville and Ansauville,
Bernecourt and Noviant,  all had to be visited; sickness,
accidents, wounds — the  towns were full of soldiers in
reserve, and all had to be cared for. And even well back
of the lines there was often "excitement" for us.  I well
remember the creepy-crawly feeling up and down my
spine as a shell snored and snarled along, following my
car in a direct line as I entered Ansauville, and the feeling
of relief as it passed close  overhead, after all, to burst on
the far side of a row of houses just ahead. And there is
also Allen's vivid description  of his  passage through
Hamonville with a load of assis, to the alternate tune of
obus snarling in and earnest beseeching from his pas-
sengers to "Allez! — allez! — allez! — "
  And at Grosrouvres itself, well-placed shells threw mud
and stones over our already well-muddied cars; on an-
other occasion dropped a still hot fuse-head at  Rantoul's
feet, and again was deposited, through the kitchen ceiling,
a fresh, hot piece of  Sclat  in our salad.  But the kitchen
was empty at the time, for on the occasions when these
                         407 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
 barracks towns were honored by bombardments, the open
 fields took on a decidedly populous appearance.
   That salad  was not our only  culinary experiment —
 for there was  the almost equally famous occasion when
 the rat, trying to navigate the chimney above, missed his
 hold and fell, like Milton's Satan  — but minus his flames
 — down the great fireplace, and square into our coffee.
 Shelled salad was one thing, but cafe au rat — alas! we
 went coffeeless to bed. Rats! They were a pest in more
 ways than one — they increased  and multiplied without
 stint; they ran riot through our Grosrouvres quarters;
 they ran up and down the wall,  shrieking anathema at
 one  another; they fell on us in  bed, and tried  to hide
 crusts beneath our pillows. At the Carriere they pervaded
 every corner, and like the ghosts in  "Julius Caesar" "did
 squeak and gibber" round the shacks. We looked in vain
 for a Pied Piper; frankly, I see no hope for the war zone
 short of so serious a food shortage that M. Rat will find
 a place on the menu.

                The Grim Reality
 These were the lighter sides  of the service; but ever
 there was the  grim reality of the devil's work going on
 ahead. At first the wounds were mostly from shell and
 occasionally from shrapnel; then gradually the percent-
 age of grenade wounds rose; and toward the end of our
 stay,  ugly things from trench torpedoes were much  in
 evidence. The  poor, torn fellows  were brought in at all
 times of the day and  night; but naturally the night runs
 were hardest. The first fifteen kilometres had to be cov-
 ered without lights of any kind, and this over the worst
 possible of war-torn roads. It seemed inconceivable that
 mere  traffic could so completely wreck  a  really good
 French road; great ruts, holes, deep gullies across the
highway, made the poor  car  pitch  and toss and roll
drunkenly like a logy tramp steamer in a cross-chop sea.
Try as we might  from Bernecourt  to Menil-la-Tour,  it
was impossible to prevent  racking the poor blesses, even
                        408 
MI-I JRTUNES OF WAR!
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AMERICAN AM151LANCES IN  A RUINED  VILLAGE NEAR
       VERDUN (SECTION FOUR AT IPPECOURT1 
 
SECTION FOUR
in broad day; at night it was infinitely worse, and we
suffered, I believe, almost as much as the wounded men
themselves.  A long,  hard ride for a badly hurt man, a
bitterly cold ride, for all the blankets rolled around him,
for a man suffering from the dead chill that follows much
loss of blood — some thirty kilometres to the big hospital
— an hour's to  three hours' running depending on the
gravity of the case and  the amount of light available.
But it was always a comfort to reflect that the evils were
at any rate  much less than earlier in the war, and that
the tortures and delays  of the old-style horse-drawn
ambulances  were,  for  such   service,  things  of  the
past.
  Compared to  the  awful run  in from the Carriere,  all
our other service at Toul was  sheer delight — the roads
good, for war-time roads, and the percentage of graves
blesses low;  but  no chronicle of our  sojourn during this
time would  be complete without mention of the weather
and mud of  France at war. Out of our entire four months'
stay in the Toul  sector, I doubt if there were ten pleasant
days. Mostly it blew — violently; almost always it rained.
The yard was a great bowl of mud, with one or two great
water-filled  depressions  in which  the  camion  drivers
washed their cars; the streets were seas of grayish, gritty
liquid that  covered car and driver from top to bottom,
and, lashing out in horizontal sheets, drenched the un-
happy poilu who did not make for the open field when he
saw a fast staff  car coming. As for the  ploughed fields,
they  were  well-nigh impassable; the whole of  France
showed a marked inclination to rise with each uplifted
foot, and Mother Earth firmly and instantly resented —
in great slabs — any attempt to stroll across lots.

                  Verdun at Last
Ippecourt lies some twenty miles back of the front-line
trenches of Verdun, but ever and anon, in the lulls of the
storm, came to our ears the interminable rumbling and
grumbling, the steady, pattering roar as of a distant cas-
                        409 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
cade of great boulders — but sinister and horrible in its
relentless busy-ness.
  Late on the night of the 15th, came a call for the en-
tire Section; there had been an attack by the French
— a successful attack — on the Mort Homme, and we
were to evacuate the blesses as fast as they could  be
rushed through the receiving hospitals.
  This marked our entrance into the Battle of Verdun, for
the work was now too heavy for the French Sections in
the sector to handle alone, and the next night, that of the
16th, we were called on for front-line work once more.
Hansen, McCall, Allen, and I took the first run, and fol-
lowing Lieutenant de Turckheim,  reached Fromereville
at dusk,  and looked  over our new advanced base. The
cars stood in the main street until sent for, and before
starting,  and on arriving once more, we were to report
at the telephone station of the G.B.D. {Groupe Brancar-
dier Divisionnaire) in the abri that had been made in the
back of a little debitant store. " Bourgeois" was the name
over the door, and "Bourgeois" grew to look almost like
home and mother after many a  trying trip.
  Our road, shimmering in the moonlight, ran up through
the French  gun positions — hundreds of them; every-
where, the fields were dotted with the little aiming-point
lights — and through the German artillery fire, some six
miles in all. The first three, to  Bethelainville were easy
going, the road good, and little  traffic. At Bethelainville
the fun began — bad shell-holes, water-filled, made the
going difficult, and there was a sharp turn through a
black,  narrow alley,  down which, without warning, the
ravitaillement trains charged at a swinging clip. It was a
bad corner,  on which the Boches had  "ranged"  very
successfully, and one could never tell when a shell would
snarl in;  so  that the drivers were not to be blamed for
"hitting it up" a bit.
  And now began the worst of the going. The farther we
came, the thicker were the guns around us,  bellowing,
booming, barking, and cracking on all sides — in the val-
                         410 
SECTION FOUR
leys below, in the fields alongside, from the hillsides above
us; and the thicker became the arrosage of German shells.
Where not torn by shell-fire, the road was simply worn
to unbelievable roughness; often hub-deep  in mud, the
bottom was  pitted and rutted as if by a violent earth-
quake, and,  try as we would, the cars would pitch and
toss, rolling  drunkenly like a dory in a tide-rip. .  . .
  On, up the winding road, narrower now than ever, and
crammed with supply trains — a chance shell here would
make rare havoc; but it's all in the game, and the sup-
plies must be got up,  regardless of the  cost. Now the
going is better for a space, as we run around the crest of
a long hill; and here the guns are below us, indicated only
by the keen stabs of flame from the " 75's" or the dazzling
bursts from  the big fellows. Again the road swings, pitch-
ing down, this time, and the scarred surface and torn
banks show that  the stretch,  clearly  visible from the
enemy's  drachens, is thoroughly "registered," and fre-
quently swept by their fire.
  Down we swing toward a ruined town, gleaming wanly
in the moonlight, from which comes ever and anon the
snarl and  flat,  dull crash of an arriving big shell — Mont-
zeville; but halfway down the slope, we swing sharply
to the right, and strike over a little rise and down into a
very wilderness of great holes; for here, almost  against
the roads, is a battery of great French guns, and on these
and the road  is  rained an intermittent shower of big
German shells.
  Up goes the road again, and down through another
labyrinth of holes, here again the Boches had accurate
registration; and up again, gradually, till we came out on
the top of the world, with the torn battle-field of Hill 304
and the Mort  Homme glimmering ghostlike to the north
of us.

                      Hill 272
In the bank beside us a boyau leads to the entrance to
the poste de  secours of Hill 272 — down several steps cut
                         411 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
in the clay, through a couple of blanket curtains, into an
abri whose arched roof of corrugated steel supports many
feet of dirt and stone. Here are rude bunks, straw-filled,
on  the floor on either side of a narrow passageway; the
white glare of the single acetylene flame throws into high
relief and black shadow the drawn, resigned faces of the
blesses, who,  mud-covered, bandaged and blood-stained,
fill  the all-too-small shelter to overflowing. At the far end
a curtain shuts  off a portion reserved for  the medecin
auxiliaire in charge of the poste, his records and supplies.
  Outside once more, we find the road on either side lined
with blesses,  sitting, standing, or helpless on stretchers,
fully and  unavoidably exposed to chance shell-fire; there
is no  room below, and expeditious transport is the only
answer. As quickly as may be we load up — three couches
inside, two assis in front with me — and begin the long,
hard run back. Easing into shell-holes, crawling out care-
fully, the going is not so bad for a while; but gradually
the light becomes deceptive, the  holes are  no  longer
evident, and racking and rolling through the worst places,
we  finally reach and pass the torn streets of Bethelainville
and roll smoothly on to Fromereville.
  Such was the Hill 272 run — simple enough in the tell-
ing, but infinitely nerve-racking in actuality, especially
on a pitch-dark, rainy night; for every jolt and jar meant
to the driver, mindful of his charge, only less torture than
to the blesse  himself, and the moans and agonized "Id-
la's"  of the poor  fellows behind went through one like a
knife.
  To this night  duty was added that  of  a  twenty-four
hour picket — one car always on call at Fromereville for
special work — emergency day calls, etc. We were not
supposed to visit Hill 272 by day, but I can clearly recall
my first tour as  picket  and the message received about
7 a.m.:   "Grave  blesse  ct  la  Cote Deux-cent-soixante~
douze." A lift on  the crank and we were off, skimming
smoothly through a fresh, clear morning, the sunshine
gleaming from daisy-starred, poppy-jewelled fields, flam-
                         412 
SECTION FOUR
ing on the red, scarred tracks leading in a vast network
to the countless guns, and losing itself in the cool shade
of the little grove beyond Bethelainville. On past Vigne-
ville;  and now, well up in the crystal-clear air, across the
lines,  shone the opalescent drachens of the German artil-
lery — were the observation officers  Prussians, or more
kindly disposed beings? The little ambulance,  crawling
now among the shell-holes, would make a splendid target,
and in modern warfare as practised by the Boche, the
Red Cross was no guarantee of security. On around Cal-
vary  corner,  and up across the roof of all  the world, a
wonderful "sporting chance" for their guns — but not
taken. Stopping at the poste, the brancardiers brought out
an  officer, blackened of face, unconscious,  breath com-
ing in heaves through  froth-rimmed  mouth; he  could
not breathe, flat on the stretcher, and  we packed blank-
ets gently under head and shoulders; several assis were
brought out, and  the brancardiers hastened back to shel-
ter— in  ten days they had lost thirteen out  of thirty,
and they were properly cautious.

             Section Four at Verdun
                                         July 21, 1916
Some four or five miles back of the lines, we stop for
orders — several cars lined up along the street. Fromere-
ville is bombarded rather frequently by a long-range, flat-
trajectory, five-inch gun, and the Germans occasionally
do pretty good shooting. It was taken rather as a matter
of course, at first — not too much attention to be paid
to  it; but  one night about  two  o'clock—I was there
on twenty-four-hour duty — there  came  the familiar
"boom" followed by the rather regretful  snarl of this
particular gun's missives, and the usual dull, flat explo-
sion down the street, with the accompanying rattle and
clash and clatter of broken tiles, like the proverbial bull
in the china shop, showing that they had struck a house.
Men  began to drift into the abri pretty quickly, dressing
as  they came, and at casual and leisurely intervals the
                         413 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
big gun boomed again, and the shots whirled in, marching
steadily down the street toward and past us; sometimes
a man entering rather shamefacedly — as if he only came
because it was the proper thing to do, and not because he
wanted to — would hear the bang outside and be almost
lifted by his own reflex action into the room, galvanized
into life, and changing expression rather ludicrously. It
was all rather gay, and there was a good deal of jollying
and laughing, and a little buzz of good-natured comment
at each fresh bang from outside,  till after twelve or fifteen
shots — some ten minutes,  perhaps, in all — there came
no more, and we streamed out into the street for a breath
of fresh air, and then, for the soldiers, bed  again.
   But at the door we met a group of men, rather hushed
in their talk,  carrying in two  or three wounded men.
"La maison au coin, Id-bas!"  I heard.  "II est mort?"
"Oh, oui — "So I went down to the corner. Except for a
few broken panes it did n't look very different, this house,
so I went in and peered over the shoulders of the quiet
little group that had preceded me. There was nothing to
be done — it  was quite complete. The shell had entered
the back of the house, passed through the room without
exploding, entered the big chimney in the middle of the
house, passed through it, and exploded in the great stone
mantel. The front room looked  singularly flat, no colors
and peculiarly little light and shade effect in the feeble
glimmer of the one candle — all was one dull, mat gray,
walls, ceiling, furniture, hangings, thickly covered with a
coating of fine plaster and stone dust. Down from  the
great gaping hole in the chimney breast streamed a long
pile of debris, gleaming pale in the flickering light, and at
the end of the pile on the floor at our feet, gray and al-
most indistinguishable, huddled on his breast, one hand,
palm  upturned, flung across his back, lay what was left
of one who had started too late. Head completely gone
— I don't think they ever found any of it — a little dark
stain on the floor; and across the room a big grandfather's
clock — I looked at it to see at  what time  the explosion
                        414 
SECTION FOUR
had stopped it — was still ticking away unconcernedly.
It was one of the last shells that did it, and had he moved
sooner — but none ever had struck there and it probably
seemed foolish to bother. . . .

         A Poste — Shells — and Repos !
                                          July, 1916
The road here is sunk perhaps three or four feet,  and
on one side is a wide ditch  bridged at intervals, with
little caves dug into the bank back of the covered places
— a ditch which, in time of heavy rains, beds a rushing
torrent which fills the little burrows three or four  feet
deep; and these are "homes" of aumoniers, brancardiers,
etc. On the other side of the road a boyau, or trench, leads
into the  bank, and off it, on one branch is the  cook's
abri; and on the other, down  a flight of steps dug in the
hard clay, through two blanket  curtains — light must
not be allowed to filter out — we find the main abri of
the poste de secours. Some thirty feet by ten wide, a great
shell of corrugated iron, covered  several feet deep with
earth; one third partitioned off for the officers and the
bureau, the rest  simply a long narrow passage down the
middle,  separated by  board  strips from the four-foot-
wide piles of straw on either side which serve as beds for
waiting brancardiers, malades, or  blesses. A single acety-
lene lamp usually lights both sides of the partition; smoke
— there is  n't much else to do — a little chat, sometimes
an argument,  and always the little flurry of interest and
excitement when we bring the  contribution of papers
from Bartlett and Crane—"Les Russes marchent  tou-
jcurs bien ?" — "Et les Anglais ?  ce n'est pas vite, en effet,
mais c'est bien sHr." "A la Somme nos prisonniers  sont
maintenant 8000!" — "Oh! nous  les aurons! " And they
are much interested in our politics — Germany  at the
bottom of  the Mexican trouble — was Roosevelt going
to run — would Wilson be reelected — and what sort of
a man was "Monsieur  Ooges? " The French  are marvel-
lously patient with our wandering diplomacy, unexpect-
                         415 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
edly cognizant of our  difficulties; and their journals
are,  if anything,  over-fair.  But  they all seem to ask,
"When will  the  true United States speak?" It isn't
action that they want (though there are many who feel
that we should be supplying free ammunition and things
as a government  taking part in a job of world-policing,
rather than selling as individuals). But they still hope to
see our country live up to its ideals and leave its impos-
sible policy of aloofness — the " none-of-my-business-so-
long-as-it-does n't-touch-my-pocket"  attitude.
  Away there to the  north,  just not visible over the
crest,  three  kilometres away, are the trenches.  They
were pushed  over the first week  we were here, leaving
behind — we can see it all clearly when we have to make
a daylight trip — a great slope of raw, scarred, and fur-
rowed clay, pitted with great craters, with zigzag boyaux
running  up,  and  long,  wavy lines of trenches length-
wise — no sign of life — apparently an absolutely bar-
ren waste — till something starts.
   But at night here is none of this visible — sheer black-
ness on dark nights, or, when it  is clear, the long,  dim
outline of the hills, dark against the dull sky above, with
ever a light cloud of mist or smoke hanging low over the
trenches. Up from the lines, now here, now  there, rise
the quick, soaring arrow-sprays  of the rocket-lights —
the fusees eclairantes — a golden pencil-stroke of star-
dust, breaking,  high over the trenches,  into a single,
great, dazzling ball of white fire;  the rocket head shoots
on up with its train of fire and, still mounting, disappears
in the darkness. The flare, flickering slightly, more power-
ful and  more brilliant  than any arc light,  sinks, now
drifting  or falling rapidly,  now  almost  stationary, the
vast shadow of its supporting parachute wheeling above
it on the low-hung clouds; beneath, for miles around, the
light of a decent-sized moonlit night. When going away
from the lines this light is really of great assistance to us.
These are the French lights, lasting for ten or twelve
minutes. The German flares ignite at once, as they ascend,
                         416 
SKCTION  FOUR ON SERVICE IN VERDUN

y^g^t^m^SmmJSt
U4r

EVACUATION  HOSPITAL AT  (iLORIEUX AT THE  MOMENT OF AN ATTACK
                       ON THE VERDUN  FRONT, 1917 
 
SECTION FOUR
descend  quickly, and do not  last long.  Green-starred
rockets,  red-starred rockets, rockets that release  long
strings of white stars, or red or green stars, falling in long
serpentine  trains, or great  showers of stars, veritable
constellations, each presumably giving its message as to
range, attacks, etc., to the distant artillery,  in a  code
presumably changed constantly — the whole front from
Switzerland to the  sea is one long feu d'artifice, nightly
repeated.

                                       September, 1916
Around us the guns are constantly at it — sometimes
all  at once  in an  attack,  more  often  turn and  turn
about — now here, now there, the  short, sharp  bark
of the "75," with the wicked, tearing swish and snarl of
the shell hurtling off overhead, soon lost to hearing; the
lively boom and  deeper note of the medium-sized weap-
ons; the deep crash of the big chaps followed by the roar
as of a heavy express train entering a railway cut as the
shell tears off into the far, high places above; every now
and then some big gun, more distant, emits a sort of
mellow, musical note, and the projectile eases off on its
errand, calmly and  quietly, with an accent of confidence.
This is singularly emphasized in the case of the big shells
passing overhead from so far behind that the boom of the
gun is lost — we merely hear an unhurried, dispassionate
whisper overhead, " I 'm not saying much, I 'm not worry-
ing, I 'm not hurrying, but I 'm on my way — just  wait
and —" He passes on with all the airs of manifest destiny,
and all is quiet till away in front rises  a great ragged
sheet of smoke and flame, and a  few seconds later the
heavy, sullen " G-r-r-r-ooMP!" that shows that part of
its self-confidence, at any rate, was well-founded. More
often, though, the shelling does not appear to be on the
lines, but on the roads and villages behind, through which
the supply trains and troop reliefs must pass.
417 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
                                           October, igi6
And so our life is very pleasant, when the weather per-
mits — which it mostly does n't; we run at night, but not
every night, sleep until lunch-time, and then work on the
cars or sit out on our pleasant little slope lazily watching
the  clouds drifting  across,  the aeroplanes  and  birds
wheeling  overhead,  listening to  the wind  constantly
whispering and rustling  in the  poplars  along the busy
little brook, the bright little chirrups and trills and liquid
notes of the birds, the gay and voluble chat of the little
groups of soldiers. . . .
                                 Richard C. Ware1
  1 Of Milton, Mass.; Harvard,'o4 ; served ten months in Section Four in
1916, and as Sous-Chef of the Section; subsequently a Captain in the
U. S. Field Artillery.
 
Ill
         Near Mort Homme and Hill 304

The Section was cantoned, in July, 1916, under canvas
among the ruins of Ippecourt, destroyed in the Battle of
the Marne, and about twenty-five kilometres from Ver-
dun. The unit was commanded by the  French Sous-
Lieutenant, Frederic de Turckheim, with Oliver H. Perry
as Chef, and Paul Delanoy as Marechal des Logis. We did
front poste work only, for the 64th and  65th Divisions
which were resisting the Boche counter-attacks after the
big Verdun battle of a few months before. The runs were
almost  entirely at night  from  Ippecourt to  the main
poste at Fromereville, a town badly damaged by shell-fire
and situated between Verdun and the lines of the famous
Mort Homme and Hill 304. Several roads lead to Fromere-
ville from Ippecourt, Osches, Lemmes, Souilly, Jubecourt,
Rampont, Souhesme, and Dombasle. The last-named
route was badly shelled and frequently dangerous. Fro-
mereville was often under fire.
  The  runs to front  postes were from Fromereville to
Hill 272 just back of the Mort Homme, passing through
what was left of Bethelainville and Vigneville. There was
another run from  Fromereville to Marre, a poste  four
hundred metres from  the Boche lines and fourteen kilo-
metres from Fromereville. This route skirted Verdun and
ran along the left bank of the Meuse past Charny. Marre,
completely in ruins, is close to Chattancourt, from which
the blesses were brought in.
  A third run was a short one to the ruins of Germon-
ville, a town on the edge of the Bois Bourrus, where were
a lot of French batteries. Hill 272 was quite spectacular,
as it looked over the trenches on the Mort Homme, and
to go thither you passed a corner we called Calvary, on
account of a grave there with a huge cross.
                         419 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
  All these roads were badly rutted with shell-holes which
made the driving difficult. At one time the holes were so
numerous and deep that, for thirty hours, four men who
had gone to one of the postes could not get back with their
ambulances, but were forced to bring the wounded back
as far as they could, unload them and carry them, by
hand, through the bad place on the road,  and then put
them into other ambulances which had been sent for the
purpose. The French batteries, lined along the road, added
to our troubles by their noise, while star-shells, bursting
eclats, and shrapnel in the sky were like fireworks. These
helped a little, as they lighted us on our way.

              The Death of Kelley
At ten o'clock in the evening of September 23,  Roswell
Sanders,  in  company with Edward Kelley, was driving
his ambulance through Marre on his way to the poste.
When about two hundred yards from the poste,  a shell
exploded in front of the car,  killing Kelley  instantly and
badly wounding  Sanders in the head. The driver of an-
other ambulance, Robert Gooch, who was in a neighbor-
ing abri, came  out,  went down the road alone under
machine-gun-fire, and brought in Kelley's body.  Kelley
was buried two days later at a near-by  town, Blercourt,
while Sanders, after hovering between life and death for
two weeks at the nearest field hospital, finally recovered.
Kelley received the  Croix de  Guerre and  Sanders the
Medaille Militaire and the Croix de Guerre.
   In the little stone chapel of the village a funeral service
was held,  brief, simple, and sincere,  yet amazingly im-
pressive because of that simplicity. The small procession,
sturdy of  faith  and loyalty, wound slowly up onto the
hillside at the town's edge, where crouched brown earth
heaps beside new graves. There was a  choir of grizzled
brancardiers, in their stained, faded tenue once horizon-
blue, whose  hearts were  in their voices. The aumonier,
clad in uniform of war, read the service  for the dead,
fondly and  movingly.  Then Lieutenant de Turckheim
420 
SECTION  FOUR
put into words the adieu and feelings of the  Section.
Those deeper feelings which  are well-nigh  impossible for
an American to voice. The Medecin Inspecteur, M. Gou-
zin, spoke in appreciation at the new-turned grave:

   Cest dans une douloureuse 6treinte que nous sommes reunis
autour de ce cercueil, pour rendre les derniers  devoirs au con-
ducteur volontaire  americain Kelley, Edward, mort pour la
France.
   Voulant apporter a la cause sacree l'ardeur de sa  jeunesse,
il  vient, d'un geste  genereux, de cueillir dans la mort son pre-
mier laurier.
   C'etait, en effet,  son voyage de d6but dans  le secteur, et le
conducteur  Sanders,  Roswell — un  veteran de ces  missions
perilleuses — qui lui  servait de  guide, s'est  lui-m6me,  sans
partager le sort fatal de son camarade, inscrit a ses cotes au
livre d'or des braves de la Grande Guerre.
   Nous les voyons  chaque jour a l'ceuvre  ces vaillantes sec-
tions sanitaires, et, dans des circonstances toutes recentes, nous
avons  pu admirer  avec quel sang-froid,  quelle intrepidite,
quelle  habilete, quelle sollicitude touchante pour nos chers
blesses, elles s'acquittaient de leur rude et noble tache, en depit
des difficultes sans nombre.
   Ah! que ces jeunes gens au cceur franc, au visage ouvert, ex-
priment bien le caractere loyal et chevaleresque de leur race, ce
temperament qui, sous des dehors froids et  reserves, abrite les
aspirations et les ardeurs les plus genereuses! Leurs chefs qui,
avec la meme simplicity, la  me:me modestie, apportent a leur
mission tant de competence et tant de courage, sont justement
tiers de commander a de tels hommes, dont ils partagent les
fatigues et les dangers.
   Et quelle discipline ideale que celle qui, sans autre rein, unit
si  familialement toute cette jeunesse d'elite dans un meme
sentiment de haute  pitie, d'abnegation, de sacrifice librement,
volontairement consenti! Car vous souffriez de rester inactifs,
temoins impassibles du grand conflit mondial, et vous n'avez
pas hesite a franchir les mers pour venir spontanement offrir a
vos freres d'Europe, meurtris dans la  lutte et pantelants, votre
aide secourable et d6sinteressee, aux cdtes de vos braves cama-
rades des sections sanitaires franchises.
   Dignes fils de la grande Republique soeur, dignes emules de
vos compatriotes, les  Chapman, les Rockwell, qui, eux aussi,
en d'autres  lieux, sont  tombes  glorieusement au service de
notre chere Patrie, vou's avez droit a notre  reconnaissance in-
finie, imp6rissable:  nul ici ne vous la menage, vous  6tes nos
421 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
amis et cette affection profonde que tous nous vous portons
survivra a l'heure presente.
  Devant cette tombe qui va se refermer sur les restes mortels
d'un jeune heros, nous nous inclinons avec respect. Votre fa-
mille, Edward Kelley, en apprenant la fatale nouvelle, saura du
moins que, mort en soldat, decore de la Croix de Guerre par le
General commandant le Corps d'Armee, vous avez recu sur le
sol de France,  les supremes honneurs qui vous 6taient dus,
parmi la foule emue et recueillie de vos compagnons de mission,
de vos camarades francais. Puisse ce pieux temoignage de notre
douloureuse sympathie adoucir 1'inconsolable chagrin de ces
Stres aimes!
  Adieu, Kelley, reposez en paix dans cette terre sanctifiee par
votre sang: votre mort est un symbole et un exemple, votre
souvenir ne perira pas!

  Then each of us tossed some earth onto the coffin in its
resting-place and turned away, eyes dry, throats queerly
tight — turned away, back to the scurrying tasks of the
day's service.

                 The Fall of 1916
During the latter part of September, Section TwTo was
attached to the 65th Division, leaving us the work of the
64th only. We gave up the "Hill" run, which was a poste
for the 65th, kept Marre and took on the evacuation back
from Fromereville to the hospitals at Blercourt and Vade-
laincourt. We  also maintained a twenty-four hour piquet
at Glorieux on the outskirts of Verdun, whence we ran on
call to various forts or postes, the former being Forts de
Charny,  Vacherauville, and  Sartelles.  From the top of
the hill back of the large hospital at Glorieux, where we
were en piquet, one had a splendid view of Verdun, Bras,
Vaux, Douaumont, and the  whole valley of the Meuse.
  During the  time we served on these runs we saw the
French troops take Fleury, Douaumont, Vaux, and the
Fort de Vaux, and later the famous C6te du Poivre. The
weather  was almost always bad — rainy and  foggy —
while deep mud was everywhere; from about September
20 on, we began to carry many cases of trench feet and
marvelled how the men could live, to say nothing of fight,
                         422 
SECTION FOUR
under such conditions; while in addition countless rats
were most annoying both to them and us, these pests
often running over our bodies and faces when we slept
in the abris.
  About November, we were given a fortnight's repos,
during which time the only work we did was to keep three
cars stationed with the Division at its headquarters back
of Vaubecourt, whence we carried the malades of the Divi-
sion to various hospitals at Triaucourt, Conde, Rember-
court, Erize-la-Grande, Erize-la-Petite,  and Bar-le-Duc.
The rest of the Section remained at Ippecourt, painting
and working over ambulances, and then moved just out-
side Ippecourt to a new cantonment, a long line of small
cabins, three of us lodging in each cabin, the park for our
cars being the paved space in front.  This "home" had
been made by Boche prisoners about a year before.

    Dombasle — Esnes — Ville-sur-Cousances
After repos our Division moved up into the trenches of
Hill 304 and into the Foret d'Esnes, which meant new
postes for us. The new Ambulance Headquarters were at
Jubecourt with the triage at Ville-sur-Cousances. We had
one poste at Dombasle,  another  nearer the lines in the
Bois de Bethelainville, another at Montzeville and the
nearest at Esnes. From Ville-sur-Cousances we  evacuated
back to Froidos and to the hospital at Fleury-sur-Aire.
  In this sector two ambulances were  sent every other
night for evacuation work at Ville-sur-Cousances, alter-
nating with  a French section, while one car was kept at
twenty-four hour piquet work at Jouy  at the  bureau of
the Medecin Divisionnaire and two other cars at Jubecourt
for  the runs to Montzeville and Esnes.  The Jouy ambu-
lance  also ran to Montzeville and Esnes on  call,  with
extra  ambulances always  posted at the cantonment  at
Ippecourt in case of  an emergency. The run from Jube-
court  to Esnes was twenty kilometres, passing through
Brocourt, Dombasle, and then up over a long hill through
the Bois de  Bethelainville and down to Montzeville on
423 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
the other side. From the top of this hill one had a remark-
able view of the Mort Homme and Hill 304, with shells
bursting on the slopes. Montzeville by the way, was a
complete wreck of what had once been  a smiling village,
most of the streets being so littered with debris as to be
impassable.  We managed, however,  to keep one street
clear,  although, in spite of our efforts, it was usually full
of shell-holes. Our poste de secours here was in an abri in
the cellar of a wrecked house with ruins everywhere. On
the way to Montzeville was a poste de  secours, an abri
into the side of a hill, in the Bois de B6thelainville, which
was used mostly for sick and for men slightly wounded or
suffering from trench feet. It was a good specimen of one
of these side-hill dugouts.
  The most interesting part of the run was from Montze-
ville to Esnes, as the road wound back of the famous Hill
304, so that on active nights we  had a  good view of the
star-shells and  the general  fireworks. This  road, I may
add, was most desolate in appearance — along each side
being only the stumps of  trees, broken-down  wagons,
smashed automobiles, old wire entanglements and debris
thrown over the ditches; and furthermore, it was rather a
river of soupy mud than  a highway. There was one spot
in it which was particularly bad, full of shell-holes, with a
spring underneath. Here we frequently had  to build
across it a sort of temporary bridge of logs and small
wood, in order to get through with our ambulances; some-
times even we had to take out the blesses and replace them
after our cars had passed the worst stretch.
  Esnes itself was absolutely in ruins, with debris littered
about everywhere. The remains of the church were espe-
cially impressive on moonlight nights, and from it led a
sort of broken road to the ruins of what had once been a
chateau, in whose cellar was the poste de secours. We
called this  little  road  "Hogan's Alley," and on black
nights it was far from easy to find one's way in. Back of
the chateau, was a battery of " 90's," and often the Boche
guns in  trying to get it would send shells into "Hogan's
                        424 
SECTION FOUR
Alley" and into the courtyard of the chateau in front of
the poste.  Fortunately none  of  our drivers or their
wounded were ever hit there, although several had some
narrow escapes, while some of our cars were not so for-
tunate. The same good luck was with us on the road from
Montzeville and going through the streets of Esnes.

                     An Attack
At about 4 p.m., on December 7, the Boches made a very
vicious attack on our 340th Regiment, which  was in the
trenches  between the Mort  Homme and Hill 304, and
drove a salient into our line,  thus being able to shoot en
enfilade down our trenches. Our first car up, leaving Jube-
court at  3.30 heard  the tir  de barrage from the top of
Bethelainville Hill, and in spite of the dusk and fog could
see the innumerable gas-flashes. On reaching Montzeville
we found everything was fairly lively and the blesses al-
ready being brought  to the poste. At this point the tele-
phone communications were cut, and as  the orders were
to take the farthest and most  important poste first, the
driver would  leave word for the second car to take back
to the triage all blesses from Montzeville.
   This bringing  in the wounded was slow work on ac-
count of the awful  mud which was nearly up to the knees
of the brancardiers, so that, naturally, progress was diffi-
cult for them. For example,  it took four brancardiers an
average of  four hours to make the trip of eight hundred
yards to the trenches and back with one blesse couche. In
the end,  twelve  additional ambulances were telephoned
for and arrived in about an hour. They worked all night,
some  all the following day, and part of them  during the
next night — such a  labor was it to get the wounded to
safety. The roads were full of troops, wagons, and guns,
which did not help matters. The poste in Esnes was much
congested with the ambulances coming, going, and wait-
ing outside for the wounded and with the brancardiers
bringing them in in a steady stream. Montzeville was the
same. We also made trips to the poste at Hill 232. In fact
                        425 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
the attacks and counter-attacks kept us very busy for
two weeks, our Division regaining all the lost trenches
except one salient.
  A few days before Christmas we took over an additional
poste de secours to the left of Esnes, known then as the
Coupeur dEsnes and later as poste B. 2. This was on the
edge of the Foret de Hesse, between Esnes and Avocourt,
and about a kilometre behind the French trenches. The
French ambulances had never been up to that poste, their
weight making it impossible for them to run on the bad
road. But our light Fords were able to bring the service
two and three kilometres nearer the lines, saving much
time and labor for brancardiers, who before this brought
back the blesses either by hand or with two-wheeled carts.

          Snow at the Front — Repos
After December 15,  we began to get lots of snow, sleet,
and  hail, and  the weather became  much colder, which
did not make the driving  any easier. There were times
even when, notwithstanding chains, we had to put blan-
kets under the wheels in order to get up the hills — espe-
cially the Dombasle Hill which was particularly steep.
  During the first week in January, 1917, our Division
went en repos for a week, preparatory to changing sectors,
the Division to which Section One was attached taking
its place. Section One came over and took our quarters at
Ippecourt while we moved into large vacated barracks of
the hospital at Glorieux on the edge of Verdun for our
repos, when every man of our Section had an opportunity
to visit thoroughly the famous city.

       The Argonne — Work in the Woods
About the middle of January our Division moved over
farther to the left in the Argonne sector back of Vauquois
and Avocourt. We went with it and took up quarters in
Rarecourt,  where we replaced English Section Ten and
assumed the work at new  postes, most of which were in
the woods.  Every afternoon we made a ramassage with
                        426 
-V'f
CARS  OF SECTION  FOUR AT IPPECOURT,  WINTER OF 11)10 
 
SECTION FOUR
an ambulance, visiting the different camps in the woods,
getting the sick and taking them back to the triage. Our
runs to the postes avances were long, and on dark nights
very difficult  owing to the woods shutting out every
vestige of  light.  Nevertheless,  either because  we had
good, careful drivers, or good luck, or both, it was extra-
ordinary how few accidents we had. The work was light,
however, but  the weather was exceedingly  cold — the
coldest winter in twenty-two years, in fact.  Yet it was
the mud that  was the  most disagreeable feature of the
situation. All the abris were made well dowm in the ground
and  whenever there came a thaw this mud  was every-
where and most irritating.
  The cars were kept  on twenty-four hours' piquet at
Camp Dervin  and at Bon Abri, running on  call to Les
Ailleux and B. i. The  poste at  Les Ailleux was within
about four hundred yards of the Boche lines and  B.  i
about one kilometre. As in the other sectors of our service,
here, too, we  were able to  advance the postes beyond
where they had been before, our light Fords being able to
travel over the bad roads.  B. I, for instance, was at  least
three kilometres nearer the lines than had  ever been the
case before.
  The other poste to which  we sent a night piquet was
Neuvilly, the  ruins of what must have once been an
attractive village on the banks  of a large stream. From
there we sometimes went  on call to a poste called  Abri
Brainere, which was really  very  much  exposed, as the
road to it was in plain view of the German trenches and
not over five hundred yards from them. On the way to
Neuvilly we passed through the ruins of Clermont, which
had  once been a beautiful town.  Even as it  was, the
ruins were  most impressive. The town had been built
around a great natural acropolis of rock, the top of which
was covered with pine trees.  On moonlight nights, par-
ticularly when there was snow on the ground, the  lines
of the ruins against the white and sky, with the acropo-
lis looming up, made a  wonderful  if saddening picture.
                       427 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
  On February  12, 1917, Oliver H. Perry, our Chef, left
us, much to our regret, after a year's service, during which
time he had  contributed much to the splendid spirit of
service which existed in the Section.
  Owing to the  extreme cold and to the fact that it was
very difficult to find wood, to say nothing of coal, there
was considerable sickness in the Section, so that at times
only fifty per cent of the drivers were well enough to send
out on service.

                  The Champagne
Toward the  last of April Section Four left the 64th Di-
vision after having served it sixteen months, preparatory
to joining  a new Division, which we expected would be
in the  Champagne sector. In many ways  this was a sad
parting, as "we had so many friends in the Division, and
yet we were glad to move to what promised to be a more
active  field. In the meantime we received  a splendid let-
ter of thanks and appreciation for our service from Gen-
eral  Colin. Then we went  en  repos for three days at
Fains,  a town on the outskirts of Bar-le-Duc, where we
received orders to move and report to  the Fourth Army
at Chalons,  going thence to Bussy-le-Chateau,  about
twenty-five kilometres out from Chalons, where we took
on, temporarily, evacuation work for a large hospital.
  After ten days we received orders that we would be
attached shortly to the 20th Division,  Fourth Army —
one of the best  — and be sent up into action. At this
time Henry Iselin became Chef. Although a young man,
he had seen  long service, and quickly won the respect
and admiration of all.
                       William de Ford Bigelow1
  1 Of Cohasset, Massachusetts; Harvard, 'oo; a member of the Field
Service from August, 1916, until its militarization; served as driver and
Chef in Section Four; later, as Captain, commanded a pare; subsequently
a Major in the U.S. Army Ambulance Service. 
IV
      Villers-Marmery — Mont Cornillet

                        1917
The personnel of Section Four was largely renewed in
the spring of 1917, and a dozen more or less inexperienced
men came from  the  Field  Service camp at  May-en-
Multien, May 9, 1917, to join us at Villers-Marmery, in
the Champagne, where we were informed that we were
to  join the 20th Division,  10th Army  Corps, of the
Fourth Army.  The delight  of  the Section was  un-
bounded when we heard that we were to be attached to
that crack attacking portion  of the French Army. Other
Sections had tried in vain to get the  job, but it took
Lieutenant de Turckheim to secure it for us.
  We were to take over the work of a French ambulance
section, and for that reason the new men of our group
were sent first, in order that they might work with experi-
enced drivers, and thus learn the roads, postes, etc., under
the most  favorable circumstances. The  next day, on the
10th of May, the second half of our Section moved to
Villers-Marmery and took over the work  of the French.
As  soon as we got into camp and had had some lunch, we
went to our postes to relieve the old piquet. We had French
orderlies to show us the way to our postes, after which
they said farewell and went back to their cantonment on
the returning cars, leaving us to our own devices. The
assumption was that we were experienced men and could
take care of ourselves.
  Our front postes were at Fosse-aux-Ours, the camp of
our poste de secours at  the boyau  at the foot of Mont
Cornillet, and at Wez, near Thuizy, a little to the left of
Mont  Cornillet. From Wez we  worked a poste at the
Maisonnette, a small railroad crossing in  the midst of a
swamp not far from Prunay. The poste  at the boyau was
                        429 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
a little bridge that crossed an old  trench. There was
just room  to  crawl in  on your hands and  knees and
lie down. It was a draughty, damp, uncomfortable hole.
The approach to this poste was over a plain which lay
under  observation  by  the Boches from a hill back of
Cornillet and somewhat to the left. The road was heavily
screened but we had to drive slowly  so as not to raise a
dust, which would rise above the screen and warn the
Boches that the road was being used. Here the road was
for the most part very good, just the opposite of the road
from Wez  to the  Maisonnette, which ran  through  a
swamp. Around Fosse-aux-Ours and the boyau, where the
batteries abounded, the Germans did comparatively little
shelling, and at the Maisonnette, where the French bat-
teries were less active,  the Boches kept up quite a shell
display. The road was cut to pieces and the swampy soil
made travelling most difficult. One afternoon  two of the
fellows timed the arrivees and in two hours the Boches
threw in eight hundred shells. The Maisonnette poste was
in a log abri not far from a railroad. All this railroad
needed to fix it up was a new roadbed, new ties, new rails,
and  a new  crossing. In time the road from Wez became
so bad that we drove to the  Maisonnette only on call.
Besides these postes, we had a car stationed at Livry-sur-
Vesle at the Direction du Service de Sante.  Here a fellow
could get a good rest for twenty-four hours and, if he were
fortunate, alittletaxi service for theMedecinDivisionnaire.
  While in the Champagne we did no evacuation work
(that is, carrying the blesses from the triage or sorting hos-
pitals to other hospitals).  We carried our blesses to the
triage in Villers-Marmery and S.S.U.  13  did our evacua-
tion work. The peculiar thing is that in all our front work
we  had no casualties, while Section Thirteen,  working
back, had three of its members, its lieutenant and two
drivers, meet an obus and come out second best. Cest la
guerre!
  On the 12th of May the French began to rush up a lot
of their zouaves, and Madagascar and Senegalese negroes
                        430 
SECTION FOUR
to join the 19th Division, stationed on Mont Blanc, at the
immediate right of our Division. While the troops moved
forward, the French cannon quieted down a bit, so as not
to draw too much of the hostile fire on the batteries that
skirted the roads. This did not prevent the Boches from
throwing shrapnel over the road, however.

            The Attack in Champagne
On  the 20th of May our whole Section was ordered out
for  the attack about to start. We sent fourteen ambu-
lances to Fosse-aux-Ours and four  or five to Wez. The
attack by the 19th Division was to  begin at noon. From
about 8.30 on, the French  batteries let loose. It was like
a giant corn-popper. At noon the troops advanced. Look-
ing  through a break in the woods, we could see  the splen-
did  troops go  up the hill, wave  after wave, to  get the
Boches. Before the attack  the French had held one side
of the range, the Germans the other side. Three times
before had the French attacked and failed.  The Boches
had held their positions from shell-holes and concrete
machine-gun emplacements. Three times the French had
been  unable to maintain the ground they  had  gained.
This was the fourth attempt, and they were determined
to succeed. The 20th Division attacked at the same time
as the 19th,  and succeed they did,  but the decision was
close.
  The wounded began to come in about eight  o'clock in
the  evening. We were kept quite busy, but  less  so than
we  had feared. Most of the  wounded had fallen in No
Man's Land, and as soon as  the fever of the attack had
cooled down, the Boches turned their machine-guns on
those blesses, and there they  died, French and German.
The only ones we carried were those who had fallen in and
near the trenches.
  The next day the authorities started to withdraw the
negroes and  send them to  the rear. They are wonderful
men for attacking, but do not stand up  well under the
hammering of counter-attacks. On the 25th of May our
                         431 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
Division moved out of the trenches and went back en
repos. They had been in the trenches, attacking, for a
month and  they were about "all in." On the 26th we
followed our Division en repos, turning over the work to
the French Section that came to relieve us.
  We went under  tents at Rouffy, a little village about
midway between Chalons and Epernay. The Section re-
mained  there from May  26  to June  15, overhauling
cars, washing, scrubbing, sweating, loafing, playing, enter-
taining  the  Frenchmen and  getting acquainted with
them. We had been too busy at Villers-Marmery to be-
come acquainted with our allies, and now was our chance!
On the 15th of June we followed our Division to Verdun,
making  our home in an old hospital at Baleycourt.
                                Leon H. Buckler l
  1 Of Rochester, N.Y.; a member of Section Four from December, 1916,
until  the Service was taken over  by the  U.S. Army. Subsequently a
Sergeant in the U.SA. Ambulance Service. Died of pneumonia at the
front on September 23, 1918.
 
V
       The Verdun Attack of August, 1917

July 28, 1917, will long be remembered by us, for in the
night a  most violent  explosion, several  miles beyond
Verdun, broke nearly all the windows of our quarters and
served as a good prelude to  the Boche air raids  which
were to come later. At this time the postes d1 evacuation
were at Bras and Montgrignon and the triage in Verdun.
This latter, however, was changed on August 5, to Glo-
rieux, and the Section did both evacuation and triage work,
which was not hard at this time, but which became in-
creasingly  difficult with the moving-up  of artillery and
troops in preparation for the great offensive.  Enormous
guns were placed on each side of our camp at Baleycourt,
and  though they were well concealed, within one hour
after they  had fired the first shot the Germans replied,
their shells landing in  a field in close proximity to our
guns and camp. In addition to a daily bombardment, the
Boche aviators came nearly every night to bomb, so that
a good abri was a necessity. Such a  one was made and
resorted to about every night until after the battle, which
broke forth in all its fury on  August 20.
  During the entire period of that  terrible  night, the
enemy maintained a firm reply to the fierce barrage of the
French artillery, with the result that  daylight uncovered
a series of ghastly  scenes along the  road to  Bras. But
nothing dampened  our spirits as we worked that fine,
clear day, while report after report brought news of splen-
did French successes. By noon, all the  objectives had been
attained, while the  transportation of the wounded pro-
ceeded smoothly. In the afternoon,  however,  the work
threatened to become messed up, for the reserve ambu-
lances, which had been hidden  behind a  camoufiage  at
Petit Bras, found themselves forced  to fly in haste, the
                        433 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
 enemy concentrating their shelling for half an  hour on
 that spot.
   Soon the increasing number of wounded crowded the
 poste at  Bras, and a temporary  one was established up
 about halfway from Bras to Vacherauville. But the next
 morning, after a further advance of the French troops,
 this poste was abandoned, and the ambulances began to
 work as far forward as Vacherauville. That day a  still
 further advance  poste was established at a place called La
 Cage, but after a few attempts to run to it, the impracti-
 cability of  the venture was manifest.
   For three days and nights  Section Four worked with
 Section Eighteen in transporting wounded  from Bras
 and Vacherauville to the triage at Glorieux.
   On Tuesday night of the attack, after Evans  had  left
 Bras  with  a load of  blesses,  a shell  exploded near his
 machine, wounding him in the arm and inflicting new
 wounds on two  of his already badly  wounded  couches.
 A curious incident happened  in connection with this —
 an eclat of the shell hit the gasoline cock, shutting off the
 supply of gas, so that the machine ran about a hundred
 yards and then stopped. Thereupon Evans's blesses were
 taken to Glorieux, while he went  to Montgrignon, where
 his wound was dressed.

    Aeroplane  Bombs — Wounded and Killed
 This event was followed by one still sadder for the Sec-
 tion. In the night of August 22, a German aviator dropped
 a bomb which struck about ten paces from our quarters,
 wounding three  men,  our French brigadier Berger and
 drivers Shreve and Greenhalgh. Berger was so grievously
 injured that he died a few days later and now sleeps with
 hundreds of others in the cemetery of Glorieux, others
 who like  him are morts pour la France.
  Finally the bombing became so bad at Baleycourt that
we were ordered to leave and  take  new quarters  at
 Glorieux, the change being made on the last  day of
August, which did not prevent us from keeping one am-
                        434 
THE G.B.D. " POSTE" AT  BRAS ABOVE VERDUN
'POSTE" AT VACHERAUVILLE ON AUUUST 21, 1917,  WHEN
                THE FRENCH ADVANCED 
 
SECTION FOUR
bulance always on duty at the Verdun citadel, bombarded
every day by the Germans.

   October, 1917 — Last Days of Section Four
The last work done by Section Four while still a part of
the American Field Service was difficult — indeed, about
as hard as  that done  during the French offensive  in
August.  Cold fall rains set  in during the first day  of
October, and in addition to working the postes mentioned
above,  there were  frequent  calls to Equarrissage and
Charny, coupled with long runs to Fleury and Souilly, all
of which made  the  work increasingly severe. Cases  of
trench feet increased  in proportion to the rain, and with
four sections evacuating from front postes to the Glorieux
triage, our days  on  duty there became  very hard and
trying with small Fords and thirty-kilometre runs. But
these were not all our trials. Members of  the Section will
remember during this period the frequent  gas attacks
made by the Germans on the French batteries between
Vacherauville and  Bras, and  the  difficulty of driving
through the gas at night wearing a gas-mask.  Several of
us were gassed. Finally, having served in the Verdun sector
continuously since  June, and  outlived there five other
sections, Section Four was relieved on October 22, 1917,
and given a rest which it had richly earned, and its last
month's work closed in a fitting manner a long and hon-
orable career as a member of the American Field Service.
How honorable this career was is best illustrated, perhaps,
by the fact that when  the Section was  finally relieved,
Lieutenant  de Turckheim, its French Commander, re-
ceived  four  Croix de Guerres "to be given  to four  of
the most deserving members." "But I returned them,"
states that  officer,  "saying  that all had done so well
that it would be unfair to pick out any four."
                             Charles H. Hunkins x

  1 Of Providence, Rhode Island; Dartmouth and the University of Paris;
joined the Field Service in June, 1917; subsequently served with the Mil-
itary Censorship Department, United States Army.
                         435 
VI
  Summary of the Section's History under the
                United States Army

Section Four lost its identity as a Field Service Section dur-
ing September of 1917. It was then that the remnant of its old
personnel officially enlisted, and became new Section 627. The
Section was en repos at the time in a little village by the name
of Villers-le-Sec which is situated about forty kilometres to the
northwest of  Bar-le-Duc. Along about the middle of October
we moved back to the front in the Verdun sector. We had our
quarters in the small village of Sommedieu, where we were des-
tined to spend the winter of 1917-18. We did not leave this sec-
tor, which was remarkably quiet during our stay, until about
the 1st of March. During all  this  time we were serving the fa-
mous 20th Division of French Infantry which hailed from the
coast of Normandy. In this sector we had only two front postes
which, in reality, were not front postes at all.
  The 1st of March, 1918, saw us en repos at Pierrefitte, a siza-
ble village in the valley of the Meuse. After a few days we were
detached from our  Division,  which was to be broken up and
sent in to strengthen various parts of the line in preparation for
the coming Boche  spring offensive. We moved to Ravigny,
which is only the name of a patch of woods to the  east of
Souilly. The Section had been with the 20th Division for over a
year, and so it was hard for us to part with these old friends of
ours. Also we  lost our wonderful French Lieutenant, the Baron
de Turckheim. While we were at  Ravigny the first Boche at-
tack broke out which almost resulted in the taking of Amiens.
Suddenly  we got orders to  move. Then began our tour of
France. We made the voyage all the way from the valley of the
Meuse to the sea, then back again to Doullens. There we stayed
for a short time, doing the drudgery of evacuation work for the
Tenth Army. The Boche again  attacked, this time  on  the
Chemin des Dames, and we were ordered south to replace a
French Section which had been badly handled during the re-
treat. We  were with  the 1st  French Division of Infantry, at
whose head was  General Gregoire aided by General  Duvais.
We went into action in the Forest of Villers-Cotterets, just to
the northwest of  that famous town.
  That sector was  what one would call "hot." We had two
main front postes working back through a G.B.D. poste and
                           436 
SECTION  FOUR
then to the Hdpitaux a"Evacuation, which were situated in al-
most every little village behind us. Our first attack was that
made upon the Ferme de Chavigny. During a period of about a
month and a half, half the Section worked one day and the
other half worked the next. The work was very difficult, for the
traffic was terrible, and to add to the amusement,  the Boches
made out rather well with their shelling. After the coup  de
main on  the Ferme de Chavigny, we were ordered en repos
again, where we stayed the long time of one day and a half.
Then we  were ordered back for the ever-famous attack of July
18. Our Division went over in the first line of assault, helped
out by tanks. We advanced  steadily, and  as our front pro-
gressed, we passed with it up through Longpont  to our old
stamping-grounds at Villers-Helon, Blancy, Saint-Remy, and
le  Plessier-Huleu.  The  hottest spot  was le  Plessier-Huleu.
There many of the men had to drive through almost a barrage
to get to the poste, which was supposed to exist in the above-
mentioned village. Our poor old division was finally pulled out
of the line and we went en repos in a little village to the west of
that famous old pile,  Pierrefonds. There we stayed for a few
weeks, and then we began our second trip across France, going
this time in the opposite direction, and finally finishing up in
the valley of Thann — to be specific, the village of Ranspach
in Alsace Reconquise.
   It was  here we had to report the deaths of three of the finest
men in the Section.  Sergeant Buckler, Phil Winsor, and the
French mechanic who really had no right to be in the war at
all. They died  of  influenza and were buried in  the Vosges
Mountains; Sergeant Buckler and the  French mechanic in the
military cemetery at Urbes, and Philip Winsor in the cemetery
of Bussang, with all the honors, such as they are, of war.
   We were all glad when about the ist of November we started
on another trip which saw our Division first in Belfort, then
near Nancy. At Darney we first began to hear rumors of  an
armistice, and  the  nth of November saw us just south  of
Nancy, ready to go in when General Mangin was to begin his
great attack in Lorraine. At  Darney the Section received  its
citation for the work it did during the attack at Villers-Cotte-
rets.
   Then began our march to the Rhine, one of the hardest trips
we ever had. We crossed the old line near Chateau Salins; then
went up through the valley of the Sarre,  stopping at Saar-
briicken, Kircheim Bolendon, and so on to Mayence where we
saw Generals Fayolle and Mangin enter the city in triumph.
We then went on to Grosse Gerau, where we stayed for the
437 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
winter. Our work in Germany could not be called hard or diffi-
cult. We did quite a good deal of evacuation work from the old
prison camp of Darmstadt — the name of the camp itself being
Barackenlager.
  At Grosse Gerau we stayed until we were ordered to report
to Paris en route for the United States in February, 1919.
                                    Hugh J. Kelleher 1
  1 Of New York City; Harvard, '18; joined the Field Service in January,
1917, and served at various times in Sections 12, 3, and 4; with the U.SA.
Ambulance Service after the incorporation of the Field Service in the U.S.
Army.
 
    Section Eight

  THE STORY TOLD BY
 I. William B. Seabrook
 II. Malbone H. Birckhead
III. Grenville Temple Keogh
IV. Charles Law Watkins
 V. Austin B. Mason
VI. Harry L. Dunn 
SUMMARY
Section Eight left Versailles on May 25, 1916, going directly
to Champagne in the Mourmelon sector. It remained there
but a few days when it moved on to Dugny for the great bat-
tle of Verdun. It next served in the region of Les fiparges. Re-
ward came in the form of an extended repos  in the Moselle
region, followed by a long journey to the Somme where it spent
part of the winter of 1916-17. From there it went to the Meuse,
thence to Sainte-Menehould and the Argonne in  the early
spring of 1917. In April of the same year the Section went again
to Verdun. From there it moved to Champagne, remaining un-
til August, then returning once more  to Sainte-M6nehould. It
was while here that Eight was taken over by the Army in the
autumn of  1917, as Section Six-Twenty-Eight of the U.S.A.
Ambulance Service. 
                  Section Eight1

          In weariness and worry and mischance
          Remember the long fortitude of France,
          And write in deeds your country's true romance.
                                 Jefferson B. Fletcher

                             I

                    The Beginning

It was about the first of May that our Section assembled
in the General  Headquarters at  Neuilly-sur-Seine.  The
men were ready, but the cars were not. The chassis were
standing in line in Kellner's great carrosserie works, near
Sevres, a couple of miles beyond the Bois de Boulogne,
awaiting the construction of the wooden bodies which
were only half completed. Kellner was short of men, and
we went to  Kellner's.  Within twenty-four hours  men
among us who had never swung anything heavier than a

  1 The numbers attributed by the French Army Automobile Service to the
ambulance sections of the American Field Service were not always consec-
utive. Thus, while the numbers run from one to seventy-two, this Service
really embraced but thirty-three separate sections. The intervening num-
bers were given to other formations provided either by the French or other
countries. In general, the numbers were assigned chronologically according
as new sections were provided. In some later instances, however, Field Serv-
ice sections received numbers originally borne by the French Army sections,
which they replaced.
441 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
mashie were working at forge and anvil, making heavy
iron braces and hinges; others drilled holes in the wood
and iron; still others screwed and riveted  the parts to-
gether. The sturdy women, who were working by hun-
dreds in place of men who had gone to the front, stopped
building bomb-cases and handling heavy tools to watch
us for  an instant from  time to time, and bring us lit-
tle sprigs of lily-of-the-valley, "le muguet qui porte bon-
heur." The French carpenters became our friends and
frequently invited us to share the coarse bread and red
wine which they kept loose in the same box with their
tools, by way of refreshment between meals.
  In eight days we had  completed the work, and in an-
other twenty-four hours a squad switched to the paint
shops and covered the cars with the official  battleship-
gray. On Saturday, May 20, moving  pictures  were taken
of the Section at work in  the shops, and on Sunday morn-
ing, May 21, the twenty cars were  standing in line in
front of the hospital at Neuilly, completely equipped and
ready for the field.
  Among the men of our Section who worked as laborers
and mechanics at Kellner's were many who had never
handled tools before — the Section included professional
men, business men, university students, Rhodes scholars,
a minister of  the Gospel, a winner of golf tournaments,
and even a dramatic and  musical critic. Indeed, our meta-
morphosis seemed a slight thing  when some of us learned
that in the great historic porcelain works of  Sevres  im-
mediately across the river all art had ceased for the time
being, and the men whose brains and hands  had only a
short time before been engaged in designing plates and
vases of marvellous grace and beauty were now one and
all occupied solely with the rude labor of constructing
immense rough earthenware jars and  acid-containers
used in the manufacture of high explosives.
  No,matter what experiences may come to us later, we
shall never forget those  days — the  early morning rides
from Neuilly  through the  Bois, the trees in leaf and
                        442 
SECTION EIGHT
flower, the silent lakes with here and there a single swan
— a splotch of white on the black surface of the water
beneath tall cypress groves; perfect beauty, perfect peace.

                          Chdlons-sur-Marne, May 25, 1916
We started this morning from Versailles. On the way here
we began to see wooden crosses dotting the fields by the
roadside, sometimes  a single grave, sometimes a cluster,
sometimes a field full of them.  Each cross is made from
an upright piece of pine sapling  about five feet high, with
a cross-piece of the same wood about three feet in length,
the bark still on, and the name, when there is a name,
inscribed  on  a small board nailed to the centre. Some
of the crosses stood  over barren mounds; other mounds
were covered with flowers; but beneath them all, marked
or nameless, lie men  who died to save France.

                             Mourmelon-le-Grand, May 26
From Chalons we came on to this village situated in the
plains of Champagne about twenty-five kilometres south-
west of Reims and  about nine kilometres behind the
trenches. This is  to  be our headquarters as long as the
6th Army Corps, of which we are a part,  remains in this
sector.

                                            May 27
To-day Section Eight received  its baptism of fire. Three
cars were called  to  Saint-Hilaire, our evacuation poste
eight kilometres from Mourmelon and about two and a
half kilometres behind the first-line trenches. We  arrived
there under  a German  bombardment. "They are  not
firing at us," explained the French sergeant on duty there,
at the entrance to his dugout and smoking a pipe, while
a half-dozen of his stretcher-bearers were sitting  around
under the trees; "but a shell timed a fraction of a second
earlier, or fired a fraction of a centimetre lower, might
land here by accident; so we had better get our blesses
loaded and away."  Scarcely had the sergeant ceased
                         443 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
speaking when the shells began to fly about us. By the
way,  descriptions of how one feels under shell-fire are
always inadequate because every man feels  differently;
but close observation, on this and subsequent occasions,
of the men of our Section, seems to show that they are
alike in only one respect — they all hold their ground.

                                            May 29
Calm follows storm on an artillery front, as we discovered
on one  of the quiet  mornings recently when an officer
consented to show us the batteries in  the woods behind
the evacuation poste. Though many of the guns  were
quite close by, they  were so skilfully  screened by  trees
and brush-heaps that we could never  have found them
without a guide. Birds were singing, the trees glistening
from a flurry of rain, while the sun was again breaking
through the leaves around the now silent monsters of
destruction.
  We surprised the  Lieutenant  of the nearest battery
engaged, like Candide, in cultivating his garden. He had
cleared a tiny spot, a few  yards wide, facing the entrance
of his bomb-proof dugout, and had planted lettuce and
radishes, with rows of flowers between the vegetable beds.
He had even built a  little wooden bench where he could
sit and smoke his pipe and dream of his real vegetable
garden in Provence.  One  of his men was darning socks;
another was mending a shirt; a boy who looked scarcely
more  than twenty was amusing himself tossing bits of
bread to a puppy; while others  were  reading  books or
laughing over last week's funny papers from Paris. "So
you find an opportunity to enjoy life even here," one of us
remarked to a grizzled veteran, who, with a smile that was
half a sigh, responded: "Mais il lefaut,  on est tue si vite."

   From Mourmelon to La Veuve — En Repos
                                     La Veuve, June 2
A formal order came to our Section yesterday instruct-
ing us to leave Mourmelon at 2 a.m. and repair  to the
                        444 


\  ' '
STRETCHERS  SLUNG BETWEEN TWO WHEELS ON THEIR WAY FROM THE TRENCHES 
 
SECTION EIGHT
stable and back yard of the Widow Cueux, in this village
where we are now billeted. We filed out of Mourmelon
in the darkness,  running without lights, but by 2.30 the
dawn was red and it was broad daylight at 3 a.m., when
we got here, turned down a narrow side street, found the
Widow  Cueux's house and  parked our cars  under the
sycamore trees. It is true that this village is squalid; it is
true that the mayor had to order the removal of large
quantities of stable manure from the Widow Cueux's
premises before its barn doors opened to receive us; it is
true that a score of our own huskiest lads had to work
with shovel and wheelbarrow to make the yard habitable;
but the squalor of La Veuve has its picturesque qualities,
nevertheless. It straggles along the main road from Cha-
lons to  Reims just where the Mourmelon route branches
off. And the very thought of Reims lying at the far end
of this same street lends romance to the humble town.

                                             June 3
This morning the poilus who are en repos in this village
introduced us to the corporal who has '' sixteen bullets in
his blanket, but not a scratch on his skin." He proudly
exhibited the blanket and told us how the poilus, when all
patent armour devices and bullet-proof jackets had failed
to deflect the German rifle-fire, had themselves invented,
or rather discovered, the unknown buffer that no rifle
bullet can pierce. They take their own heavy sleeping-
blankets, soak them in water, and then roll two or three
of them in a tight wad, sometimes putting a knapsack in
the centre of the roll to make it thicker. Crawling along
on their bellies, pushing the wad of blankets foot by foot
in front of them, it affords just enough cover to protect
them from horizontal rifle-fire. The high velocity bullets,
which neither wood nor steel can turn, sink into the soft,
soggy, woollen roll and die there, harmless as  eggs in a
nest. Many another trick the poilus have learned in order
to save their skins, but none so efficient as this roll of
wet blankets.
445 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
   Taking Stock of Ourselves and Neighbors
                                            June 10
Our ten days here with the soldiers of our Division,
quartered at La Veuve and in neighboring villages, have
given us a splendid opportunity to take stock of our-
selves and also to learn something of the men with whom
we shall be associated for the next few months. We are
the official ambulance section of the 12th Division of the
6th Corps of the Fourth Army. Our Division is composed
of four regiments of about three thousand each,  totalling
in all some twelve thousand men. We are as much a part
of the  Division as if we were all born Frenchmen. Our
rations are furnished by the army; we are under army
regulations;  billeted  in  our sleeping  quarters  by the
army; each of us receives five sous per day, the regular
pay of the poilu; and each of us receives his army ration
of pipe-tobacco every ten days. Back in  Paris the Field
Service furnished  us a list of  things which we ought to
have; but all this would have been as appropriate for a
hard auto-camping trip across the American continent in
time of peace as it is for our present purposes here. On the
first  day of our arrival at the front, the army added two
items for each of us more important than all  the rest,
namely, one regulation steel casque and one regulation
gas-mask. So here we are, poilus and comrades like the
rest, by these two tokens, and by the aluminum num-
bered identification tags which we wear on a chain around
our wrists.

                                            June 11
The regiment which we have learned to know best is the
67th, as it is quartered in La Veuve. It has been one of the
hardest hit by the war; thirty thousand men have passed
through  it during the past  sixteen  months.  As they
marched by in closed ranks at a review the other day, we
could recognize many faces of new-made friends. How
many of  them, we wonder, will be left "l&-bas" in the
                         446 
SECTION EIGHT
next attack;  how many will be brought back bleeding
and broken in our  "belles petites voitures," which  they
have  gathered  around  so  often  in  the evening  to
admire.
  We were merely spectators at the review. An hour later
our new Commander, General Giraudon, left  his limou-
sine, left his  prancing steed, left his general  staff, and
came down the alley on foot through the mud to our barn-
yard,  accompanied only by an orderly, to "review" his
new "section sanitaire."  As we are all under military
regulations, we scarcely dared to blink an eyelid as we
stood stiffly beside our cars on his arrival. The General
walked along the line and stopped before Boyd. We had
been given our instructions to stand at attention and not
salute while under inspection; so Boyd stood like a statue,
until  it became unmistakably evident  that the General
intended speaking to him. Boyd's hand then started to-
ward  his cap  in a salute that was never finished. Those
of us up the line never will know exactly what happened
in that embarrassing half-second; but an instant later the
General and Boyd were shaking hands in good American
fashion, while words escaped Boyd's lips which sounded
suspiciously like "How are you?" The ice was broken,
and when  the General left he told us  he was proud to
have  an American section in his division.
   Our only duties while en repos here have been to trans-
port occasional sick men in the Division. Most of our time
off duty has  been spent exchanging visits and souvenirs
with the poilus of the 67th, who have been very much
taken  with the American songs. Every  evening  they
gather in a ring before the cars to hear Armour, Jacobs,
and the other musical members of the Section singing to
the accompaniment of mandolin and guitars.  One night
they decided it would be appropriate for them to exchange
courtesies,  and  they invited the Section to the sleeping-
quarters of one of the companies  in a neighboring barn,
where wine and cakes were served in the straw, and chan-
sons de guerre were  sung.
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THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
       Brabant-le-Roi — Dugny — Verdun
                                Brabant-le-Roi, June 12
Fifty kilometres we came in cold and rain, and here we
are, quartered for three days in a huge stock-farm barn
with Verdun fifty-five kilometres farther north. But we
are still too far away to hear the guns.

                                            June 13
Still at Brabant-le-Roi.
  It  was among the ruins of one of the little villages in
the Marne that Charlie Faulkner encountered and made
friends with a fluffy-haired puppy of mongrel  breed in
which the setter seemed to predominate, and straightway
adopted him as the mascot of Section Eight. After the
puppy was washed and as many of the fleas removed from
his hide as possible, the problem of a name presented it-
self. Some one suggested the name of  "Pinard," which
is war-time slang for the red wine furnished the men in
the trenches, and the soldiers found both the dog and the
name so droll that Pinard became not only the mascot of
our American Section, but the joke and the pet of the
whole French Division. Some of the boys of the Section
who  are not very strong  on  French, have anglicized
Pinard's name and call him "Peanut."

                                      Dugny, June 21
This village is four kilometres behind the city of Verdun.
Here we have been with our Division since the 18th inst.
We will remain here for perhaps a fortnight longer, when
we will be sent back en repos and replaced by a new
Division. Three weeks is about the limit of human endur-
ance. For four nerve-racking days and nights our little
cars have been -climbing to the citadel of Verdun, turning
to the right and going into the hills among the  batteries
and bursting shells, to a poste de secours in  the Fort of
Tavannes, less than two kilometres behind Vaux and  the
first-line trenches. The road by which we pass is shelled
                        448 
SECTION EIGHT
day and night. Ambulance drivers have been killed and
wounded in the sections which preceded us. We have
seen men mangled by shells bursting a few yards away in
front of us while we have escaped. We have driven our
cars over the bodies of dying horses. Three of our cars
have been pierced by shrapnel and shell fragments. Yet
not a man among us has been touched. Lack of sleep, the
continued noise of artillery, bad drinking-water and the
attendant dysentery have put our nerves on edge; but
we are doing the  work, and the one thought  in the
minds  of all of us,  when we are not too worn  out  to
think at all, is that,  come what  may,  we are going
to stick it out.
   It is hard to write about — this Verdun service. Those
of us who used to laugh at danger have stopped laughing.
Those of us who used to turn pale have got the same set
look about the jaws and eyes as the  rest, but  we no
longer change color. We don't come back any longer and
tell each other with  excited interest how close to our car
this or that shell burst — it is sufficient that  we come
back.

                                            June 22
The hundred and sixty brancardiers, or stretcher-bearers,
of our Division had  to be  transported from Houdainville,
near Dugny, to Fort Tavannes, and the duty fell to us.
Each car made about four trips by night during a period
of thirty-six hours,  in the midst of conditions like those
described in my last entry. It was inevitable that some
of our cars and some of our men would be touched. Three
of our twenty cars were en panne, and the other seventeen
were doing the work supposed normally to be done by
two sections totalling forty cars. It was during  this time
of stress that we  also evacuated 540 wounded from
Tavannes Fort to Dugny, a distance of fifteen kilometres
each way, in twenty-four hours, making the record of the
war, so far, for that particular poste, and for that speci-
fied length  of time.
                        449 
THE AMERICAN FIELD  SERVICE
                Riddled with Eclats
                                               June 23
Night before last Davison1 answered a midnight Ta-
vannes call and had his car pierced through and through
with shell fragments as he was entering the fort. The next
morning, as I was leaving the fort with a load of wounded,
my car was struck in the same way. Both Davison and I
were untouched, but one of the wounded men in my car
was hit in the side by a small fragment.  In the afternoon,
Rogers,2 lying on the grass near our dining-tent, received
a slight surface wound in the leg from a stray piece  of
shell. Yesterday morning the entrance tunnel of the same
fort was caved in by German "380" high-explosive shells.
Rogers, Faulkner, Boyd,  and MacMonagle3 were in the
fort at the  time and  escaped, by a  miracle,  with  their
lives. They were hurled to the ground by the concussion.
The place is no longer tenable as a poste de secours and
so is to be abandoned. While we are not afraid to go there,
we are glad to leave, for the underground, vaulted tunnels
of that fort composed a chamber of horrors which we
remember in our dreams. The floors were mud, the ceiling
slimy-dripping stone;  and the light was scant, while the
wounded were so  numerous that we had  to step over
their prostrate bodies; and to add to it all, the stench
was horrible.

                                  Cabaret Rouge, June 24
To-day this picturesquely named place became our regu-
lar poste de secours. There is a diabolical fitness about the
name.  The house,  which is halfway up the slope in a val-

  1 Alden Davison, of New York City; Yale, '19; joined the Field Service
in February, 1916, serving with Section Eight until September; entered the
U.S. Aviation Service, and was killed in training December 26, 1917.
  2 Randolph Rogers, of Grand Rapids, Michigan; served with Section
Eight of the Field Service from April to September, 1916; subsequently en-
listed in the U.S. Infantry, becoming a Sergeant; he was killed in action on
the Marne, July 15, 1918.
  J Douglas MacMonagle, previously in Section Three; killed while in
French Aviation, September 24, 1918, near Verdun in aerial combat.
450 
SECTION EIGHT
ley, is simply surrounded by the French batteries, while
German  shells  are continually  bursting in the  fields
around. Red signal rockets illumine the sky. Down from
the trenches come the stretcher-bearers with their crim-
son burdens. Red Cabaret, red rockets, red  fire, red
blood!
                                            June 26
The Germans keep shelling the road. On the night of the
23d, Charlie Faulkner, volunteering to drive a car, had
the metal part of the searchlight smashed by a shell. The
next night, Keogh, the laughing, brave-hearted boy we
love perhaps most of all, came walking back with his arm
streaming blood, and last night I was  nearly finished off
by a gas attack, but was saved by Faulkner.

           Section One for Neighbors
                                            June 28
To-day the French ambulance section was replaced by
our Section One, so that we now have two American
sections, parked side by side here, with forty cars doing
the work that we originally had had to do with seventeen
cars. Yesterday, Charlie Faulkner saved a French soldier
from drowning in the swift current of the Meuse where we
often go to swim. He went in and got him, having to swim
against the current  and  go twice  to the bottom. The
Frenchmen were  filled with gratitude and admiration.
"We can't swim  like Americans," was  one  of their re-
peated comments. Then Faulkner leaped on a bareback
horse, galloped  across the marshes to Dugny for a doctor
and an ambulance, and soon the little  Ford came tearing
along in best three-reel-thriller style  with Faulkner  on
the seat. We all began laughing and wondered if he had
the horse inside.
                                             July  1
The chief medical officers of the Division tell us that our
little cars are doing great work. We are glad,  for we have
been doing the  best we can, and, without knowing it,  we
seem to have established some new records in this sector.
451 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
Thus, on our "best day," June 22, in thirty-four hours we
transported 555 wounded from Tavannes and Cabaret to
Dugny,  an average distance per round trip of 25 kilo-
metres. The work was done by 19 cars, the total 19 mak-
ing an aggregate distance of 1339 kilometres loaded, and
1359 kilometres empty, or an average of about 142 kilo-
metres per car.  Practically all the work was done under
shell-fire. Armour made the best individual record, total-
ling four trips to Tavannes and five to Cabaret, carrying
a total of 51 wounded.

                                             July 7
Our work has been growing lighter so that we were able
to let half of our men go up to Paris to celebrate "the
glorious Fourth." When they came back we had a pleas-
ant surprise for them. Section Eight had left Dugny and
had gone in convoy to Ancerville, a lovely village fully
eighty kilometres behind the lines, out of sound of the
guns.

    The Glorious Fourth — and Fourteenth
                                    Ancerville, July 15
Yesterday was celebrated the  French national fete. We
joined heart and soul with our friends of the Division in
celebrating it. The Section Americaine was featured on
the programme as the "grande attraction," and consisted
of mandolin and guitar music  by Armour and  Jacobs,
followed by a boxing bout between Jacobs and Mac-
Monagle, and another bout between Buffum and Armour.
The applause was generous and sincere. That night there
was a torchlight procession through the village in which
our boys carried lanterns, marching and singing, side by
side, and arm in arm with the poilus.

             Back to Cabaret Rouge
                                      Dugny, July 18
Early yesterday morning we left our Division to go back
to Dugny. It was a real ichagrin for us. Early as it was,
                        452 
SECTION EIGHT
scores of our personal friends in the Division came to bid
us good-bye. Our work is to be the same as before. In fact
we had n't been here five minutes when an orderly came
with his little square scrap of paper: "Two cars quick
to the Cabaret Rouge."  The people of  Dugny remem-
bered us and seemed to be glad to see us again — espe-
cially the little woman who still makes "cafe chaud ct
toute heure." We brought her a dozen glasses, which she
needed, and some shirts from Paris for her little boy.

                                            July 23
The day after our arrival there was consternation in the
Section. Pinard was missing. He came on Armour's car
from Ancerville to Dugny, and had been seen frolicking
around the street. But on the evening of our arrival a big
German shell burst near us and Pinard ,was seen no more.
We did n't seriously believe he had been struck  by the
shell,  but he had nevertheless completely disappeared.
Armour found it necessary to return for a day to Ancer-
ville, and there, exhausted and asleep in the straw of the
deserted house where we had slept, he discovered Pinard,
lonely, miserable, lost.  He brought him back in triumph
and there was joy at his return.

                                            Jidy 25
The troops in our sector are now taking many German
prisoners,  and we are all avid for German souvenirs, and
so are the poilus.  Sometimes the  prisoners are willing to
let us take their little red-banded vizorless caps, provided
we give them some kind of head covering in exchange.
But we have never seen an American or Frenchman either
take a cap from a German without asking it and unless
the owner was willing.

                                            July 26
A queer story came to us a couple of nights ago about the
German wireless message, said to have been picked up
by a French station over on the other side of Verdun near
                        453 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
 Mort  Homme. Rumor said the message  was from the
 German General Staff,  announcing that an  American
 ambulance unit, working the Cabaret  Rouge poste, had
 been seen by the German aviators, and that instructions
 had been given the German gunners not to fire on Caba-
 ret. But just as we were beginning to give serious credence
 to the tale, word came that fifteen men had been killed
 and fifty wounded  by shells within a  few paces of the
 poste;  and a few hours afterwards, while Iasigi's car was
 standing in front of Cabaret,  a German "77" landed
 within five paces of it, luckily doing no  damage. No won-
 der we are now laughing at our own credulity.

                                             July 27
 Though the work  here as a whole is  not so dangerous
 now as it was in June, some of the men have had rather
 narrow escapes since we returned.  For instance, a piece
 of shell came through the top of one car yesterday, and
 Keogh was missed less than two feet by a fragment that
 struck the seat beside him.

                  The Real Hero
 And let me close this record with one reflection. The real
 hero of Verdun  and of the war is the poilu, or infantry
 soldier, of the first-line trenches. The destiny  of France
 is in his keeping. The man in the trenches is the essential
 factor. The rest of us, back here among the batteries and
 observation points and postes  de secours, are engaged
 solely  in the work of backing  up his  efforts.  Whether
 generals,  artillerymen, stretcher-bearers, or ambulance
 drivers, we are here only to protect and  serve the men out
' yonder — preparing the way before him with shell and
 shrapnel when he advances, and transporting him back,
 covered with blood and mud and glory, when his work is
 done.
                            William B. Seabrook *
   1 Of Atlanta, Georgia;  Newberry College; spent six months in the Field
 Service during the year 1916 with Section Eight. 

SAUCISSE ABOVE VERDUN 
 
II
    Shells and Gas"— The Roads of Verdun
                       In the Hills of France, June 23, 1916
They have given us a very important work as well as a
dangerous one — to  evacuate  the  wounded about one
and a quarter miles  from the  first-line trenches  in this
Verdun sector, and since we have been here — about a
week — our little ambulances, holding five wounded,
have carried some hundreds of men. We are quartered in
Dugny, about four miles away from the front, which the
Germans take pleasure in shelling twice a day. We got
here a week ago, or Friday, and on Saturday morning I
made my first trip, on a French machine, to our poste
de secours. The first part of the drive is through a  valley,
where there is a beautiful winding river, and some pretty
old towns. Then you begin an ascent for about two miles
on a road which  is lined with French batteries and quite
open  to  the view of the Germans,  who have a large
observation  balloon only a mile or  two away.  Conse-
quently the road is fired over all the time;  so you feel
that a passing shell may at  any moment fall on  you.
Just this morning, about four o'clock, three  shells went
over my machine and broke in a field  near by. WThen one
reaches the top  of the ascent, there  is a piece of road,
very rough, and  covered with debris of all kinds — dead
horses, old carts and wheels, guns, and confusion every-
where. This road leads to an old fort where our wounded
are, and on this  road the German fire is even worse.
  Well, this first morning, just before we arrived, the
Germans began a bombardment which lasted five hours.
The shells landed all around us,  but we finally got  in
safely. Before this, however, we discovered a small tunnel
large  enough to hold three of our cars, and here I  waited
five hours, without any breakfast, hearing the roar of the
                        455 
THE AMERICAN  FIELD SERVICE
shells — they made a noise like a loud, prolonged whistle
— and then listening to the French batteries answer with
a more awful roar, because nearer. To add to the interest,
two or three gas-shells exploded near us, which made our
eyes water. Luckily we had our gas-masks with us; but
we had got the gas in our faces before we could put them
on. Meanwhile, the wounded were being carried in  from
the first-line trenches by the stretcher-bearers, who, by
the way, are among the real heroes  of this war. Finally
the time came for us to go out into the open in order to
let the other cars get in after us. We went along slowly
but surely, and at last we got down the hill, away  from
all the noise and danger. It was worth while, though, for
we were carrying many wounded with us. For a week we
have been doing this work and are still alive; and we  have
to our credit about 700 blesses. The French are, of course,
very appreciative of our labor. I may add that I am well
in spite of the excitement, but tired to death of the hor-
rors, the smells, and the sights of war. I am glad to have
got a taste of real war, though, so as to know what it
really means.
                          Malbone H. Birckhead *
  1 Of New York City; Harvard University;  an Episcopal clergyman;
served in Section Eight from April to October, 1916. The above is an
extract from a letter written to Mr. Birckhead's mother.
' *»>**u^. 
Ill
                                     Thursday, July 20
This morning at 1.30 I left Dugny and went up to Caba-
ret, where I relieved, with Forbush,1 who went with me,
the two cars which were there. At the time there was a
very heavy French attack going on, so our run up was one
of the noisiest that I ever  made. All along the road the
French batteries were  firing tirs de barrage, and roaring
right  in our ears. The roads were  also  very bad  with
breaking shells, because, naturally, the heavy fire of the
French guns called forth much bombarding by the  Ger-
mans. At Cabaret there were no wounded, and I just had
to sit around until 8.30 a.m., when I was relieved by two
other cars from our Section. During the first few hours of
my wait, I lay down in the straw on the floor of the dug-
out and tried to get some sleep. This,  however, was out
of the question, owing to  the terrific noise.  At about
3 a.m. I got up and just hung around. The day was just
beginning to break, and it was a wonderful sight to see
the long trains of artillery passing along the brow of the
hill directly behind Cabaret, coming in from their night's
shift. All around  Cabaret were  situated French  "75"
batteries. I went down into the dugout connected  with
the nearest one of these, and watched it work. It was really
a foolish thing to do, for the batteries were being bom-
barded. However, I thought it too good a chance to miss,
and I am now very glad that I did it. The Lieutenant in
charge of the battery gave me little plugs to put in my
ears, and mica goggles to keep the powder out of my eyes.
He also told me that each time that a gun was fired  to
rise up on my toes. This stops a great deal of the shock to
your ear-drums. At about 5 a.m. the sun was bright enough
to enable me to take pictures. I got some good views of
  1 Frederic Moore Forbush, of Detroit, Michigan; served with Section
Eight of the Field Service from April 26 to October 24,  1916; subsequently
in the U.S. Navy; died of pneumonia October 6, 1918.
                        457 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
the guns in action. The Lieutenant in command did every-
thing he could to enable me to get the best possible posi-
tions and  exposures.

                                       Friday, July 21
I slept quite late and got up just in time for lunch. Dur-
ing the afternoon worked on my car. At 8 p.m. our Divi-
sion went  again on call and "Doc" Armour and I immedi-
ately left for Cabaret, to relieve the two cars of the other
division and to stay until 2 a.m. to-morrow morning. On
our  run up,  there  was not very much firing done by
either side, and it was not until 11 p.m. that the action
began. At this hour the Germans launched a very heavy
attack on all positions along the line of our sector. The
attack lasted for an hour and was  immediately followed
by the French counter-attack, in which they regained all
the ground that they had lost. This  French attack, of
course, made things very uncomfortable for Doc and me,
who had to stay in the dugout behind Cabaret.  Cabaret
itself simply rocked with the vibration and concussion of
the huge guns which were firing all  around it. The whole
country, as far as we could see, was a mass of flashes from
the French light and  heavy artillery.  The  terrific noise
was  mingled with  the crashing of the German shells,
which kept continually breaking on the hill just behind
Cabaret. Many times they broke so close that our dug-
out was sprinkled with Eclats and pieces of stone. At about
midnight there were four men carried in from one of the
near-by batteries  in a horrible condition. A German
gun  had found the range of this battery,  and before it
could be moved had killed most  of the gun crew and
wounded nearly all the rest. The doctor in Cabaret (a
surgeon) dressed their wounds there. It looked just like
the pictures you see in books of a  doctor  fixing up the
wounded in a little dugout. This doctor did all the dress-
ing on his knees because it was not possible to stand up
owing to the  lowness of the roof. He had on his helmet,
with his gas-mask fastened at his  side. During all  the
                        458 
SECTION EIGHT
dressings the French batteries directly outside the door
and all around the surrounding hills kept up the steady
roar of a tir de barrage.
  I left Cabaret at 12.30 with my first load, and, as soon
as I had delivered them at the hospital, returned, because
we were not to be relieved until 2 or 2.30 a.m. On the trip
back and forth I had some quite narrow squeaks. Once a
shell broke right in the road about twenty yards in front
of me, and before I could stop I ran  right into the shell-
hole, but did n't break the car at all. However, it gave the
blesses a terrible shaking-up and they all roared to beat
the band! A small piece of the same shell chipped one of
my front spokes. At 2.15 a.m. the other two cars arrived
and I went straight back to Dugny.

                                      Monday, July 24
This  morning at 2.30 a call  came  in  for two cars at
"Berlin." The reason that we call this poste "Berlin" is
because it is  only two hundred  yards away  from the
German trenches. It  is a very dangerous run and  also
a very interesting one. From the poste  (a little dugout)
you can plainly see the men firing their rifles from the
shell-holes out on the firing-line. Bill Seabrook  and I
were the first two on call, and were therefore  the ones
sent out. When we left Dugny we  could easily tell, by the
exceptionally heavy firing, that there was an attack going
on. The road  after we passed  Belleray was as bright as
day owing to the great number of batteries firing directly
over it and to the star-shells with  which  the sky was
thickly dotted. This did not make any difference to us,
until after we passed the hill beyond Cabaret. In fact, it
was really a great help. When we passed the top of the
hill, however,  we came into plain sight of the  Germans,
and this made it very dangerous. We  also came into sight
of the whole attack, which happened to be taking place
around Fleury. It was a magnificent  sight to watch. The
whole valley was filled with the little puffs of flame from
the German and French rifles. We had to run down to
                         459 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
the Rue de Moulainville which was only three hundred
yards away from the lines, and which was therefore very
nearly in rifle range. Our blesses were all ready, waiting
for us in a little dugout which was at the junction of the
roads.  I for one was very glad that they were ready, be-
cause this was my idea of "nowhere to hang out."  We
got our cars loaded and started back. Bill Seabrook's car,
which was just in front of mine coming back, was struck
by a number of eclats. The woodwork on the back of his
car was filled with holes, and one of the blesses whom he
was carrying was hit again. He himself was not touched.
We arrived, back at Dugny again, at 5.45 a.m.

                                   Wednesday, July 26
This morning at 1.30 I left Dugny for Cabaret. When I
arrived there, there was a terrible tir de barrage going on.
The noise was absolutely deafening. All the hills around
Cabaret were as light  as day owing to the flashes of all
the guns. Their fire kept up steadily until nearly three
o'clock, when it stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
However, this was by no means the end of the noise. All
this heavy firing enabled the Boches to locate the bat-
teries,  and when they once got the range the slaughter
began. For an hour and a half they kept pouring enor-
mous shells into all the hillsides. We spent the whole day
in an abri, and I never spent such an hour and a half in
all my life. We did not know at what minute a shell would
hit our dugout  and smash it to pieces. However, none
even as much as touched it, and when the bombardment
ceased our work began.
  Wounded kept pouring  into Cabaret from all sides.
They, of course, had had no dressings, and therefore the
ones who were  badly  wounded were in a terrible way.
Many of these poor fellows had their arms and legs com-
pletely shot off.  As quickly as they were dressed, we car-
ried them down to Dugny and then returned to Cabaret
again for another load. We kept running back and forth
steadily until eight o'clock, when we were relieved by
                        460 
SECTION EIGHT
Armour and Sortwell.1 As soon as I arrived at Dugny I
tumbled into bed and slept steadily until 2 p.m.

                                     Monday, August 7
At 1.30 a.m. I was pulled out of bed to go to Cabaret.
When I left Dugny the firing was very heavy. After I had
passed through the woods outside of Verdun, the shells
began landing all around the road. The French batteries
were roaring and the place was  certainly noisy. Just
before  I got to Cabaret, I was held up by a block of con-
voy wagons. I jumped out of the car and ran on ahead to
see what the trouble was. When I arrived at the cause of
the hold-up a sight met my eyes that I will not forget for
some time. Lying right in the middle of the road was a
wagon all smashed to bits, and beside it four men sim-
ply torn to pieces. One had his head just hanging by a
shred, while another had his two legs blown off, just be-
low his waist. The other two were just scattered all over
the road. I helped with the job of cleaning away the wreck-
age and carrying what was left of the bodies into our
poste de secours.  I then went back and got my car, and
went on up to the poste. The bombardment of the roads
kept up all the rest of the night. However, I made nine
trips back and forth. This kept me going until 11 A.M.
   It is now almost sure that we have to leave here  the
day after to-morrow for a poste in the Les Eparges district.

                                     Tuesday, August 8
To-day I  had my first real experience with mitrailleuse
fire. This morning at about eleven o'clock a call came in
for one car  up at an advanced  poste, to which we had
never been before. Fred Forbush was on call, but Mason
said that he wanted two men on the car just for safety's
sake, so I went along with him. The poste was situated
fully one  hundred and fifty yards  in front  of Fort

  1 Edward Carter Sortwell, of Cambridge, Massachusetts; Harvard; with
the Field Service from April 26, serving in Sections Eight and Three; killed
in Salonica in action, November, 1916.
                         46I 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
Tavannes, and was closer to the lines than any to which
we have ever been sent. Until we got up  to Tavannes,
things went along all right,  but as soon as we passed the
fort and started down  the  hill in front,  things immedi-
ately livened up. The whole side of the hill was covered
with puffs of white smoke, caused  by the breaking of
German shells. WTe got  down to our  poste and picked up
our wounded. Just as we were going  to start, all the men
around us began yelling at us to hurry out of the car and
get into a dugout. We did n't have any idea of what was
happening until we got into the dugout and heard the
rapid-fire guns  spattering. We could follow the course of
their curtain fire from the door of the  dugout. It extended
for very nearly a mile. From where we were, we could see
it coming  closer and closer until it passed right  over
the dugout, and for about five hundred yards beyond. It
looked as if a slight puff of wind was stirring the trees.
The steady rain of bullets shook the trees and completely
wiped out all the small bushes. Of course, these small
bullets could n't penetrate our dugouts, but when we
came out after  it was all over, we found that one of our
front tires had  been punctured. We fixed  it  right there
and then came back to  Dugny without having anything
more happen.

                                    Sunday, August 13
This was a "big day" for our Section.  To-night the
Medecin Divisionnaire (a Colonel), a Lieutenant from our
poste de secours, Walker {Chef of Section 2), and his
Lieutenant, all came over to our "Croix de Guerre  Din-
ner." We had our dining-room out in  a  big field. We
backed all the cars in, around the table. The dinner itself
was a big success. After dinner the old Medecin Division-
naire stood up and made a very nice little speech. He sur-
prised us all by decorating  MacMonagle with the Croix
de Guerre. His citation went in about two weeks ago, but
we had no idea  that he was to be decorated to-night.
  In his speech the Colonel thanked us all for coming
                        462 
•ASSIS" WAITING AT CABARET ROUGE
STRETCHER CASKS COMING INTO THE "FOSTE" AT
             CABARET, NEAR VERDUN 
 
SECTION EIGHT
over here.  He complimented us on  the  way we went
through our big rush at Verdun. He said that it was a
wonderful piece of work, and one to be remembered with
pride throughout our lifetime.
                                    Tuesday, August 15
This morning Section Two of the Field Service, which is
doing evacuation work at Petit Monthairon about five
miles from here, brought over a baseball team. As there
was n't much work  for us, nine of us went down and
played with them. We beat them 7 to 4.
  In the afternoon I  had to take a lieutenant to Benoite-
Vaux, a little town about six miles from here, and close
to the  lines. All the  roads leading up to it were heavily
screened because they were in plain sight of the Germans.
They were also being shelled when we were coming back
over them. Many shells landed very close to my car, but
none close enough to do any damage. One time the lieu-
tenant and I counted twenty-five puffs of smoke, caused
by breaking shells, in a radius of half a mile. I arrived
back at Belle Helene at about five o'clock and was imme-
diately sent up with  Armour to the poste at Les Eparges
to get  four men who had been very seriously wounded.
  We  went  up and nothing  extraordinary happened.
However, after we had been at the poste for several min-
utes waiting for our men to be prepared to leave,  the
Germans loosed a cloud of  poison gas. We put on  our
masks, got our car loaded, and started back, but owing
to the way our breath smoked up our goggles we could n't
drive.  We therefore stopped on the road and waited for
the gas to pass. When it was entirely gone we went on.
Between the point where we stopped and Belle Helene we
picked up four gas victims,  who had forgotten to bring
along their masks. We also saw three lying dead beside
the road, but did n't  stop, because there was nothing that
we could do.
                                    Tuesday, August 29
This morning I was called out at three to bring a lieuten-
ant of  the  Medical Corps up to the various batteries in
                         463 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
this vicinity. One of these trips is always most interesting,
because it is just a tour of inspection and you get a chance
to see a great deal more than you do when you go to get
wounded. We went to all the heavy artillery batteries
situated on the hills behind Les Eparges. They were all
firing unceasingly when we were there, because  it is al-
most always just at dawn that the attacking is done, and
an infantry attack is necessarily preceded by heavy bom-
barding from the heavy guns behind the  lines.
  We arrived back at  Belle Helene after a trip which
lasted for five hours. Mason was beginning to get worried
about us, and was just going to start out in  the staff car
to look for us.
  At about eleven o'clock this morning I  answered a
regular call to our poste de secours. These calls don't often
come in during the day, but a huge mine had exploded
right beside the poste and wounded about forty men and
killed fifteen. If it had gone off during the night it would
have wounded  some of our fellows,  because  there  are
always two or more cars there, whether there are blesses
or not.
  This afternoon there was nothing for  me to do, so I
took my car and went over  to Section Two's quarters and
had a swim.

                                         September 8
On the night of September 3  the French started a  big
offensive which lasted until late last night. During these
five days I  have had in all eight hours'  sleep. Our cars
have been running steadily back and forth to the various
postes de secours. We carried at least five hundred wounded
every night, and had to evacuate the same number of
wounded every day.
  This grand offensive extended over the entire Eparges
front, which is  about eight miles long. The roads have
been simply jammed with long, heavy convoys of ammu-
nition and food wagons. The offensive was very impor-
tant, inasmuch as the French wanted to drive the Germans
                        464 
SECTION EIGHT
out of the portion of the city of Les Eparges which they
occupied. This they succeeded in doing, but only at the
expense of hundreds and hundreds of men. There were
three extra divisions moved up here, just for the attack,
and  in each regiment there were twelve thousand men,
and  picked men at that; that is, they were picked men
for attacking. One regiment was of the Foreign Legion,
one of Senegals (negroes), and one of zouaves, or colo-
nials. Any one that has read of, or that knows anything
at all about these things, will be fully able to realize what
three divisions such as these can do. From the very start
the French had the whip hand. This was shown by the
hundreds  upon  hundreds of German prisoners taken
every day.
  The work was very hard, as well as very dangerous.
Roads which never before had been shelled were subject
to the most terrible bombardment. The reason for this
was  that the Germans knew very well that all the roads
were sure to be  filled with troops and convoys, so they
moved over a great deal  of their heavy artillery from
Verdun and simply showered the roads with high-explo-
sive shells. This, in one way, is what the French wanted,
because, when they saw the artillery being moved, they
immediately started another attack in the Verdun sector
and  retook all of Fleury.
  Of course all this shelling made our work just so much
more difficult. Many of our cars were hit, and one of our
men got a piece of shell casing in his leg.  However, it
did n't amount to  anything. Instead of getting some of
our wounded at the more protected postes, as we had been
doing, we had to get them all right up at the advanced
poste. You see, they could n't waste any time in bringing
the wounded back, so we simply had to go and get them.
Up at the poste we could plainly hear the shouting and
yelling of the men fighting. Of course, it was not always
continuous. There were times, however, for nearly hours
at a  time, when things were as quiet as the grave. It was
during these lapses that the wounded were carried back
                        465 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
by hand. None of the wounds had been dressed at all,
and were in a horrid condition. After about two days the
walls and sides and even roofs of our ambulances were
covered with blood. We did n't have any time to clean
them. It was about the worst four days, besides the ones
we put in at Tavannes, that I ever spent. We did n't have
any regular time for eating. There was hot coffee always
ready at our poste, and when we had a chance we would
grab a cup and be off again.  Besides this, in the office
there  were  always little bundles, containing a cake of
chocolate and some sandwiches,  which we would take
with us and  eat on the way up to the poste.
  This afternoon the General  of the Division here came
around to our camp and made a long speech congratulat-
ing us on our work. He said that it was a piece of work
which we might pride ourselves on, as few others could
do it as well. He also said that the poste at Les Eparges
was on no occasion overcrowded  with wounded. This in
itself meant a great deal, because more than fifty were
carried in every hour. He finished up by thanking us, not
only for himself, but also  for the men in his Division.
  We are all nearly crazy from loss of sleep and the roads
are in terrible condition from shelling.

                                  Sunday, September 17
These past four days have been very quiet in comparison
with the past two weeks and a half. There has been very
little or no attacking done by either side, although there
have been quite a number  of wounded. This was  due to
the fact that a great number of mines were exploded by
the Germans.
  On Friday a rumor started around our quarters that
we were to move within the next two or three days. We
did n't pay much attention to this, and were therefore
very much surprised on Saturday when an order came in
for us to pack up all our things and be ready to move at
four o'clock  on Sunday morning (this morning).
  Therefore at five o'clock our whole Section started off
                        466 
' SECTION EIGHT
for a little town just outside of Ligny for a short rest. The
entire Division moved with us. After this rest the Divi-
sion (the 18th) will very likely go up to the Somme or
down to the Vosges  Mountains, and unless  we change
divisions it naturally means that we shall go  along with
them. Everybody thinks that there is only one chance in
a hundred of this outfit returning to Verdun, because, as
they have been  in the Verdun district since February
without  a single  real  rest, they surely will now be let off.
It is a regiment composed entirely of old classes, and is
therefore used more for holding trenches than for taking
them. For this reason the majority of opinions seem to
point to  the Vosges.
  Our Section  is fixed up  very well here. We are quar-
tered in the classroom of the village school, and are look-
ing forward to four or five days, at least, with nothing at
all to do except to take care of the few men who are taken
ill during this repos. This usually amounts to one call a
day, so we shall have plenty of time to make up for the
sleep we lost during the past three weeks.
                              Grenville T.  Keogh *
  1 Of New Rochelle,  New York; served in Sections Eight and  Three in
1916 and 1917; subsequently a Sous-Lieutenant in French Aviation, on duty
in the Orient; these are extracts from Mr. Keogh's diary.
 
IV
        The Famous Convoy that Did n't
                    Creveceeur, The Somme, December 4, 1916
Our first few days of convoy running were very amusing.
In fact, I think our Section must now be one of the best
jokes in the French Army. We left early one very foggy
morning, with our thirty-odd voitures all beautifully lined
up, and ready for a long spin the first day; but we had
scarcely turned our backs on the little village before the
entire convoy was lost in a fog and headed in thirty sepa-
rate directions — all  going like mad  to  "catch up."
Mason, our Chef, took the wrong turn in the middle of
the town and went up a terrific hill, while two cars that
tried to follow him broke down on the grade. A marching
company cut the rest of us off and every car following got
a different road.
  Two days later, when the majority of  us  had finally
been collected at a small town several hundred kilometres
distant, we  found a nice hotel and decided  to  eat  our
Thanksgiving dinner there,  although the date was a day
too early. On this occasion, in lieu of post-prandial ora-
tory, I produced some atrocious doggerel; but, after a good
turkey and mince-pie feast, the Section was in a mood to
laugh at anything, and some of the unpolished stuff I
wrote seemed to appeal to the fellows — a fine crowd of
rough,  good-hearted  boys, whose  performances have
been "a scream" from the start of the convoy. . . .
  We are not  far from one of the quaintest and oldest
towns in France, full  of houses and monuments dating
from 1000 to 1500, and offering endless material for little
sight-seeing expeditions. The name of  "American Tour-
ing Club,"  which has been given us, is not half the joke
that it would appear  to be. It is really astounding the
amount of  leisure and comfort that the French military
system allows  officers and men who are  in the convois
                        468 
SECTION EIGHT
autos. Of course, when they are in active operations they
are in a perfect hell for a period, but when they come out,
it is possible to forget now and then that France is at war.
  Wre are quartered temporarily over a cafe. I have a
very nice room with a big desk on which I work consider-
ably making cartoons as a record of our convoy experi-
ences. If we get into an interesting  sector, the boys want
to have these cartoons and these experiences put into a
book as a souvenir of the Section. They would only have
a personal, not a general interest; but I am going to make
the most of my last two  months over here and try to
bring together the material for a permanent keepsake of
the time I have spent here.
  Furthermore, I don't want to go away without feeling
that I have done a little for  France, which has certainly
given me innumerable lessons in the philosophy of living
and dying. It is too bad that every American cannot see
first-hand  what  this  indomitable  nation is now going
through, and  with what a fine spirit it faces crisis after
crisis. France is entitled to the reward of a  magnificent
future, and every American who has been here will be
bitterly disgusted if the United States does not  lend all
its aid to assuring such a future. We know nothing of true
Democracy. The innate courtesy, forbearance, and stead-
fastness of the "common people" here is something  that
never ceases to inspire one, day after day. I hope I can
return here often and never lose touch and sympathy
with these surroundings.
                           Charles Law Watkins 1
  1 Of Rye, New York; Yale, 'o8; served in Sections Three and Eight, from
August, 1916, to February, 1917; entered the French Artillery School at
Fontainebleau, and subsequently became  a Sous-Lieutenant in the French
Army. The above are extracts from home letters. 
V
        The Somme — and Cold Weather
                                     January 10, 1917
We were at Crevecoeur some two weeks  before we got
out. Finally, about the middle of December, after all the
troops had gone, we got our orders to go to Mailly Raine-
val, near Moreuil. We stayed there four or five days, and
were beginning to think we  had been side-tracked and
would not get up to the front at all, when  we got our or-
ders in the middle of the night to move the next morning
to Proyart. So we ploughed up there through the mud.
  There is  a long, straight road running  due  east from
Amiens along which were some of our postes, and Proyart
is only a mile  off it.  We landed there on  December 21,
parked our cars in a foot  of mud, and with great diffi-
culty found an old barn as cantonment.
  On  the 22d I went up with the French  Lieutenant to
see the postes.  We went  out along that  straight road
through Foucaucourt toward Estrees. At the latter town
we were to keep one car and another at Fay, just north of
it. Then at  a point called Bois de Satyr, in a little valley
behind Estrees, we were to hold three cars to replace the
others when they came in with a load.
  Foucaucourt was about the most demolished village I
had ever seen, not a house standing, just walls and ruins.
The street was one sea of mud.  The original lines used to
be just beyond Foucaucourt, and we  could see the old
trenches, pretty well broken  in  now, and the  fields
ploughed all to pieces and covered with shell-holes. They
looked more like a choppy  sea than fields. Then we came
to a little bois down in a gully, the Bois de Satyr, where
were old abris made by the Germans — and wonderfully
well made, very deep and nicely boarded in. Then we
went on and came to a cross-roads. We asked some one
470 
SECTION EIGHT
 where Estrees  was,  and he said simply,  "This is  Es-
 trees!" There was no sign of a house — only dugouts. In
 fact, of Estrees, that had been a thriving village, nothing
 remained — it  was razed to the ground. And Fay was
 nearly as bad.
   Next day we began work,  replacing two French sec-
 tions instead of one; but it was not hard, and later we
 took  over  a  third section's service of evacuating back
 from Proyart.  But even with tripled work we had no
 great difficulties.  We worked only four or five days,  fol-
 lowing  to  Bayonvillers, when our Division was moved
 back.
   A couple of  days before we left  Proyart the Boches
 bombarded the place with  an  eight-inch marine gun. It
 was quite a day.  We had gotten off three cars to relieve
 the night shift at the hospital — and the other two driv-
 ers were having a  time cranking  their  cars — when,
 Bang!  right  across  the  street came  a huge  explosion.
 Rocks began to fall all around. I did not know whether
 it was an avion bomb or a shell. Some one cried, "Gas,"
 but I knew it was not that. A wounded Frenchman came
 tearing into our quarters hanging onto  his arm, and Wat-
 kins took him up  to the hospital. We did not know what
 it was, but soon heard another one down in the village. I
 went across the street to see what  had happened. The
 shell had dropped through a barn and pretty well wrecked
 it, killing a man and a horse, and wounding other horses.
 It had dug a hole six or eight feet deep in the ground —
 and down in  it  stood a couple of horses shivering.
   I had just come  back into our  court,  when, Bang!
again,  right behind  me.  I knew it was awfully close,
much closer than the last one, and,  knowing that rocks
would begin to fall, ducked under d'Estes' car.  Usually
one ducks,  or dodges into an abri from common sense,
but this time I was  carried under the car without con-
scious effort on  my part.  I know now I was blown down
onto my hands and knees,  because my first recollection
was exerting every effort  to crawl under the nearest car.
                        471 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
I got up, and saw several fellows appear from behind the
radiator  of the car, among them Meadowcroft, with a
very white face and a gash on his head. He was a little
shaky, but said he was O.K., and  I saw it was only a cut,
though bleeding a little.
  It is hard to tell the sequence of events, but about the
same time that I saw Meadowcroft I looked around and
saw a great hole in the middle of our yard, and two cars
that had been standing there had disappeared.  Breed
told me afterwards that I said, "My God! I did n't know
it was  so close." I don't know just what I did then, but
Tower was hollering about abris, and we started down
into the cave,  though it would  not stop a shell. Some one
said there was a deeper one out back in our garden and a
lot  of us  ran out there to find  it;  but there was nothing,
so I came back to the cave. My last impression as I turned
back was of  half a dozen of our fellows climbing the
eight-foot garden wall with the greatest ease and agility,
and "Booze," our dog,  yelping after them.
  Several more shells fell  in town — about eighteen in
all — and fourteen Frenchmen were killed. They say it
was the first bombardment of  Proyart in five months.
  In our courtyard four cars had been lined up on each
side, and the shell, landing between two cars, blew one
twenty-five feet away  against the  wall, and  the other
fifteen  feet in the  opposite direction. The bodies of both
cars had  completely disappeared and the chassis were all
twisted up. One other car  was tipped up at an angle of
forty-five degrees against the wall with a bent wheel and
a window blown off. A fourth car was lifted sideways five
feet, its body all broken in, and a wheel smashed. Later
half of Breed's rear axle was found two hundred and fifty
yards away behind  the chateau, and  other parts  were
scattered about.
  I was  only eight  or  ten feet from the shell when it
dropped; my  reflex  action was so prompt that I don't
know whether it was the explosion or my muscles that
propelled me  under the car so quickly. My ears sang for
                        472 
SECTION EIGHT
some time. Why I was n't blown to atoms I don't know.
The ground was soft, of course, and the shell sank deep
and was somewhat muffled, but all the same I consider it
a miraculous escape.
                        Sainte-Menehould, February I, 1917
December 30 we  moved a short distance from Proyart
and did the old work of looking after the malades of the
Division. This lasted about four days, after which we had
four days of travel — going each day only thirty or forty
kilometres. We could have done the whole distance in one
day, but had to obey orders. It was a nuisance. Finally,
after stops of some days in a couple of places, we made
a long run of three days, beginning January 22, into the
Sainte-Menehould sector. The day of our start it got very
cold,  and has been ever since, ten to twenty-five degrees
Fahrenheit all the time. We have our troubles with cars
freezing up and have already ruined one motor that froze
up  solid.
                                      February 2, 1917
We live in a sort of house and barn combined. The car-
riage-room is our dining-hall. Only one  chamber we heat
with a stove. All the sleeping-rooms are frigid, the dining-
place dead cold, and everything is frozen solid all the
time. Even my ink-bottle down in the bottom of my
trunk froze and had  to be thawed out on the stove. My
toothbrush, sponge,   and  nailbrush are  always frozen
stiff, and one has to wash, if one must,  in water with ice
floating in it. They say it is the coldest spell they have
had in France for fifteen years.
                                Glorieux, March 18, 1917
In our Sainte-M6nehould sector the fellows had nice little
abris to live in up at the postes, dug into the back side of
the  hill, where they  had  a fire  and kept warm. They
were, in fact, much more comfortable than we were back
in town,  with  a heatless barn for eating-place, heatless
rooms and loft to sleep in, and a room with one lone stove
for  a sitting-room!  And we had continuous cold weather.
                        473 
THE AMERICAN  FIELD SERVICE
I don't think the thermometer ever rose above freezing
point while we were there, but ranged from zero to about
twenty-five degrees.  Our cars would freeze up in a jiffy
if we were not very careful, and we always ran the motors
in the morning before putting any water in the radiators,
otherwise the water  froze solid before the car was even
cranked.
  Shortly after this we moved over to the next army and
were attached to a new Division, then en repos. We made
a cold convoy  run to Erize-la-Petite, where we stayed
one night last June. We got as cantonment the same barn
we had before,  but whereas then we were much pleased
with it as airy quarters this winter it was terrific. It was
draughty and cold, and the weather was as cold as ever,
never above freezing. It was something fearful, as we had
no place we could even put up a stove, and no place to go
to get warm —except the cuisine roulante, which at best
could hold only three men  at a time. The village was
crowded  with 1300 troops, whereas it is figured to hold
only 800, and half the village was burned down at the
beginning of the war. I slept in the barn four nights and
nearly froze; slept in my clothes with a sweater around
my neck. My toes were numb when I went to bed and
did not get thoroughly thawed out by morning, with two
pairs  of socks on.
  Everything froze up. One fellow had a flask of brandy
which solidified. It broke the bottle and the chap had a
great hunk of frozen brandy. He would break off chunks
and treat every one to cognac glace.
  We moved up here into the caserne on March 5,  in the
snow. Our work is sufficient to keep us more than occu-
pied,  and, thank Heaven, we have comfortable barracks
and plenty of stoves!
                                Austin B. Mason x
  1 Of  Boston, Massachusetts; Harvard, '08;  Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, '10; joined the Field Service March 4, 1916, serving with Sec-
tion Four and as Chef of Section Eight; left in April, 1917, to enter Aviation,
where he became a First Lieutenant, U.S. Signal Corps. These are clippings
from home letters. 
____
S.S.U. 8
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THE FLAG OF SECTION EIGHT

Designed by Miss Theodora Larocque 
 
VI
       Last Months of the Field Service
                                 Glorieux, May 3, 1917
Cadman, Gwynn, Eckstein, and I (the California-Belgium
quartet)  arrived here day before yesterday and were at
once initiated into Section Eight. All of us were much im-
pressed by our proximity to Verdun, and by  the war-
scarred, veteran tradition which pervaded the atmosphere
of the little ambulancier group.
  Glorieux is three kilometres from Verdun. We send six
cars there every evening. They wait at Maison Nathan
for calls to go to the front or to the hospitals in the rear.
Our front postes are at Bras and Montgrignon, and the
hospitals to which we evacuate are at Dugny, Vadelain-
court, Fontaine Routon,  and Souhesme.
  The first trip I  made  was  to Bras, about three kilo-
metres from the German lines. The road is screened, but
we went up before dark and raised a good deal of dust.
We had just put the Ford in a shed near the poste when
shells began to whistle over and burst a hundred yards or
so behind us. Paden and  I watched them calmly enough,
until a poilu ran in and called for brancardiers, saying
that a sergeant had just been killed and several soldiers
wounded when one of the above-mentioned shells broke
in the room  in which they were sitting. They took  a
stretcher out and  brought the dead man in — his head
had been smashed. The incident made a great impression
on me. But Paden did not seem to think much about it.
The truth is, as I  soon found out, the Section  considers
this a rest sector, and is impatient to be moving out and
into something interesting.
                              Ferme  de Piemont, May 15
On May 12 we were succeeded at Glorieux by Section
Eighteen, and convoyed past the Argonne into the Cham-
                         475 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
pagne to our present headquarters.  "Doc" Dodge has
gone to Paris and Steve Munger is now our Chef.
  Here  we have three front postes and  three back, or
evacution, postes. The advanced postes are at Bois Carre,
Ferme des Wacques (which is on the position of the front-
line trenches of September, 1915), and Pont Suippes. The
latter is about three kilometres from  the front. One car
goes there and another  stays at Jonchery. When the car
comes down from Pont Suippes the car  from Jonchery
replaces it. Our back postes are  at Ambulance 2/60 at
Suippes, from which we evacuate to the Suippes hospitals,
to Nantivet, to Bussy, to Cuperly and Chalons.
  We are beginning to realize that our change of sectors
was not for the better.  It is even quieter in the Cham-
pagne than it was at Verdun. All we can do is to sit about
and listen to "Ken" Austin,  "Steve" Munger, and "Ap"
Miles tell of the glory that used to be Section Eight's, and
to speculate on the great things that we shall do if we are
ever given a chance. I rather think that the powers that
be have decided Section Eight has enough citations and
that this summer should be  one of repos for us.

           Details of the Daily Round
                                            May 27
I went to G.B.D. Headquarters yesterday, resigning my-
self to a day en reserve,  meaning a day of doing nothing.
When Sewall and I arrived,  Blake and Burton, whom we
were to replace, told us that four or five gentle obus had
dropped into camp during  the evening.  The first ones
landed quite a way from the cars, and Blake, who was
sitting in his voiture, had time to duck into an abri. The
next one landed in the road  and the eclat knocked a hole
in Burton's radiator, and splintered  the  top of Blake's
car.
  The Medecin Chef said that that was enough for him
and he  moved his quarters to the Ferme de  Piemont,
among a cluster of trees, back of Suippes, just off the
main road to  Chalons.
476 
SECTION EIGHT
                                             May 30
This afternoon's communique will probably read, "Artil-
lery activity on the Champagne front." The Germans
found a  battery of French "150's" near Saint-Hilaire
last night. They destroyed all four guns and broke up the
abris with penetration shells; then they completed the
job with gas-shells. Most of the artillerymen were killed,
but a call came in for three ambulances, and  Austin,
Lambert, and Boardman answered it.  Only one blessS
was still  alive when they arrived.

                                              June 5
Blake arrived back from permission yesterday, bringing
a large  strawberry shortcake. We had  been talking of
such a delicacy for the past two weeks, and to have it
appear so suddenly was too good.
  The Boches located a French battery near the Ferme
des Wacques 'last night.  Burton brought one of the vic-
tims down. The poor fellow had both legs shot off, and
died in the ambulance.
  " Booze," the Section dog, was hit by a camion on the
Chalons  road yesterday. After dinner Austin, Hall, Sew-
all, Lieutenant Bollaert,1 Pohlman, and I went up and
buried him.

                                   Pont Suippes, June 9
The wagon des morts  has just come up  the road and is
waiting for dark, so that it can continue up to La Rose.
It comes every night  about this time, goes up to get the
dead, and takes them  down to Jonchery,  where the grave-
diggers bury them in the divisional cemetery. An average
of four or five are  taken down every night.

                                             June 14
There was a successful  French coup de main yesterday
morning in the sector on our right. I could see the artillery
  1 Lieutenant Bollaert, the French officer of Section Eighl, was killed by a
shell at a dressing-station in the region of Montdidier on August 11, 1918.
                         477 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
preparation from Jonchery. It sounded like a regular bat-
tle, but only seven Germans were taken, and no French
were killed or wounded.
                                            June 17
Bill Gwynn's car was  almost converted into kindling
wood yesterday, but luckily Bill was not in it when the
shell landed. The same shell hit a general's chauffeur who
was standing near. Bill rushed out and brought the man
in, and then went out and found that though the body of
the ambulance had been knocked out, the engine would
still run as well as ever. So he took the wounded chauffeur
down to Suippes.
                              Ferme des Wacques, June 21
I have just seen  my first dead German. A brancardier
came in a few minutes ago and said that a Boche had been
killed with a hand-grenade near one of the petites postes.
We went down the road to see him. He was a young fellow,
with a light mustache. The brancardiers stopped  laugh-
ing and looked at  him. One  said, "He is very young";
another, "That is what is happening to all the  young
men"; "And the old ones too, and it is not over yet,"
said a third.
  A lively bombardment in the direction of Mont  Cor-
nillet started about an hour ago and is still going strong.
It sounds as though one side had attacked and the other
were now  getting ready  a counter-attack. I can see the
star-shells over the trenches and occasional  gun flashes.

                                            July 11
We were replaced at Ferme de Piemont by Section Twelve
and  are now at St. Martin-sur-le-Pre, encamped  in a
barnyard.  Our Division is en repos.
  Most of us celebrated  the 4th of July in Paris (thanks
to a forty-eight-hour permission) and saw  a contingent
of the American First Division, which had just  landed
at Saint-Nazaire, march down the Boulevards. It was a
great inspiration, both for us and for the French.
                        478 
SECTION EIGHT
                                 Ville-Sur-Terre, July 18
We left Saint-Martin July 13 and convoyed here, pass-
ing through very beautiful country on the way. Our Divi-
sion  is completely en repos. We  are ninety kilometres
from the nearest point on the Saint-Mihiel front.
  This is a wonderful  place for the  Division to rest in.
The land is rolling and green and highly cultivated,  ex-
cept for occasional woods. We are on the southern edge
of the Champagne, near where Bungundy begins.
  There is very little to do. Every day two cars go out to
visit all the  villages where the  Division is  billeted. If
there are any sick we carry them  to the hospital at Bar-
sur-Aube.

    Anticipated Action and a Disappointment
                                Camp Dilleman
                    . (near Les Petites Loges in the Champagne)
                                   August 6
We arrived Saturday and relieved the English section
which was on duty here. At last it looks as if we were in
for some action. We are serving the Moronvilliers Massifs
Sector, composed of Monts Cornillet, Blanc, and Haut.
Since April, when the crests of the heights were taken by
the French, this has been one of the liveliest sectors on the
Western Front. The position on the hills is a command-
ing one for either side. The hills rise almost directly from
the plain and offer excellent observation postes for about
twenty  kilometres. The last fight here was  about three
weeks ago. The division which we replaced took the first
line of German trenches.  The Germans recovered them
the next night; the French retook them the next, and
after dark the following day kept such a heavy barrage on
the German  lines that the Boches could not get out to
attack. The French division lost  about 1600 in the two
weeks that it was here.
  Our front postes are at  Prosnes and L'Esplanade. We
do not keep cars continually at the latter, but two cars
are always at Prosnes. We take the blesses from there to
                         479 
THE AMERICAN  FIELD SERVICE
La Plaine, where they are numbered and examined, and
then sent on.
                                             August 7
We have been here three days, and now, just as an inter-
esting time seems to loom up ahead of us, we are leaving
for what I know is a quiet sector. We are swapping places,
and divisions, with Section Thirteen. We are going to
Sainte-Menehould this afternoon.

                  A Repos Sector
                                             August 9
Arrived at Sainte-Menehould Tuesday afternoon. We
have fairly good quarters in an alley and a couple of barns
and a schoolhouse, right in the middle of the town. It is a
prosperous little city, and we will be able to get anything
we want, even baths.
   Our postes are a long way from Sainte-Menehould, but
near the lines. Because of the many hills and  the thick
woods fighting on a large  scale is very difficult in this
sector, and both sides have settled down as if they in-
tend to stay where they are for the duration of the war.
Though in some places the trenches are but  fifty feet
apart, concrete dugouts, with electric lights, have been
built. The roads run up to within less than a kilometre of
the lines.
   This is a repos sector. The French division now here
(the 169th) was in the first attack  at Mont Cornillet. In
the German trenches is a  part of the  Prussian Guard,
which was also at Cornillet.
   Besides this poste (Saint-Thomas) our  only other one is
at La Narazee, in one of the ravines to the right of here.
We have one car at each of these postes  and three at the
triage to which we evacuate. But the work is very light.
                                 Harry L. Dunn *

  1 Of  Santa Barbara, California; University of California; in Section
Eight from April to October,  1917; subsequently an officer in the U.S.
Field Artillery; these are extracts from an unpublished diary. 
VII
  Summary of the Section's History under the
                United States Army

After it was enlisted in  the  United States Army, Section
Eight, now 628, remained in the Argonne, with front-line postes
at La Haraz6e, Saint-Thomas, and Le Four de Paris until Feb-
ruary 28, 1918, having during this time very little work.
  From February 28 until March 28, it was en repos at Saint-
Ouen, Corbeil,  and Herpont, small towns in the vicinity of
Vitry-le-Francois. From April 2 until June 9, it was in the Oise
and Somme sectors in Picardy. It was cantoned at Coivrel, a
small town south of Montdidier, and had postes at Dompierre,
Domfront,  Godenvillers, and Le Ployron. It sustained a  gas
attack April 17 and 18, for which the Section was cited to  the
order of the Division.  The work was very heavy. Jack Keogh
was wounded by a shell at Coivrel, and was in a hospital for
two months.
  From June 9 until August  19 it remained in the Oise sector,
being cantoned at Ravenel, south of Montdidier. The French
offensive here began on the 9th of August. The 169th Division,
to which the Section was attached, advanced from Le Ployron
to Fescamps,  approximately twenty  kilometres. The front
postes during the attack were  at Domfront,  Rubescourt, Le
Ployron, Assainvillers, Fescamps,  and  Bus.  The  Section's
French Lieutenant, Lieutenant  Bollaert, was killed, and Henri
Werlemman, his French driver, was very gravely wounded in
the leg at the poste at Rubescourt. The Section was cited for its
work here.
  From August 19 until September 7, the Section was en repos
at Froissy,  near Beauvais. It went back to the front again on
September  7, and from this  time until October 16 had some
of its hardest work. It went into line  just behind Ham at a
town called Vilette. Its Division attacked and advanced from
Ham to Saint-Quentin, and beyond to Mont Origny — a  dis-
tance of over thirty-five kilometres. In this advance the Divi-
sion broke the Hindenburg line just in front of Saint-Quentin.
The Section was here again cited for its work. During the ad-
vance from Ham to Mont Origny, it  worked postes at Ham,
Ollezy, Saint-Simon, Avesne, Clastres, Lizerolles, Essigny-le-
Grand, Urvillers, Itancourt, Mesnil-Saint-Laurent, and Regny.
                          481 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
  From October 16 until November  I, it  was en repos at
Crevecceur-le-Grand, near Beauvais. On November II, at the
signing of the Armistice, the Section was at Guise. After the
Armistice it  proceeded with the French Army of Occupation
into Belgium, passing through Le Nouvion, La Capelle, Trelon,
Chimay, as far as Mariembourg. The Division was demobilized
at La Nouvion  January 22, 1919, and the Section went to
Crepy-en-Valois, outside of  Paris until it was ordered to Base
Camp in February.
 
    Section Nine

 THE STORY TOLD BY
  I. George R. Cogswell
 II. Carleton Burr
III. William Carey Sanger, Jr.
IV. Harvey Cass Evans 
SUMMARY
Section Nine came into existence on August 14, 1916, and
left Versailles for the Vosges Mountains. It worked over prac-
tically the same ground that Section Three had worked over
before it, serving in the valley of the Thur, in the region of the
Ballon de  Guebwiller, Hartmannsweilerkopf, and  around
Mollau and Mittlach. The Section left this region of Alsace on
December 14, 1916, going to Bar-le-Duc and later to Vadelain-
court and  Glorieux, where they worked the Verdun front in
the region of the Meuse River and around Montgrignon. On
January 15, 1917, the Section was moved again, this time going
to Toul. On January 24,  1917, it moved to Royaumeix, and
worked postes at Saint-Jacques and La Carriere de Flirey. On
February 5,1917, it again moved to Rupt, close to Saint-Mihiel.
Another move took place in April to Ligny-en-Barrois, Vau-
couleurs, and filoyes-sur-Moselle. On April 19 it went to Van-
dceuvre, near Nancy. On  June 15 it worked about Pont-a-
Mousson. On October 6 the Section changed once again, going
to Saint-Max, just outside of Nancy, where, two weeks later,
it was taken over by the United States Army as Section Six-
Twenty-Nine. 


'/sK/
y/S
                 Section  Nine

           O friends, in your fortunate present ease . . .
           If you would see how a race can soar
           That has no love, but no fear, of war,
           How each can turn from  his private r61e
           That all may act as a perfect whole,
           How men can live up to the place they claim
           And a nation, jealous of its good name,
           Be true to its proud inheritance,
           Oh, look over here and learn from France.
                                       Alan Seeger

                           I

   Forming the Section — First Experiences
                        Alsace

In June of 1916, two generous Americans made possible
a new Field Service section. Living in Paris from the be-
ginning of the war, they had  observed  and  recognized
how greatly  the French Army appreciated the five sec-
tions already in the field, and they offered to provide cars
and equipment, and all expenses incident to the formation
and maintenance of a sixth section. They made this great
gift anonymously, only asking that each of the twenty-five

                         4«5 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
cars composing the section should  bear upon its name-
plate this inscription:

                 "Aux Soldats de France,
             Deux Americains Reconnaissants,}

The names of the donors were only known at the time to
the officers of the Field Service, but the nameless bene-
factors maintained throughout the war deep interest in
the work of the Section, and in the welfare and achieve-
ments of its  members, sending them continually articles
for their comfort and convenience. We  believe it only
appropriate to-day to state that the donors of this Section
were Mr. and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss.
  Section Nine came into existence August 14, 1916, and
left Versailles for  the Vosges. Carleton  Burr was the
American Chef and Lieutenant J. Ostheimer, the French
Commander. Three days and  two  nights of  convoy
brought us to Rupt-sur-Moselle, where we waited a week,
and on August 25 the Section moved and took up its real
work at Mollau, a little town in Alsace Reconquise, where
all the natives speak a mixture of German and French —
mostly German.
  Our  troubles in  maintaining the service  were caused
by mountains and  poor  roads. The first day, Walter
Chrystie's car was assisted to the top of the Ballon de
Guebwiller by horses, while my car, going  to the poste
near Hartmannsweilerkopf, simply expired  three times,
on each of which occasions a total change of water in the
radiator was necessary. An hour in low gear seemed too
much.  However,  practice and  removing  carbon from
cylinders told in our favor to such an extent that finally
we could make the grades unassisted.
  We had six postes that required mountain-climbing.
There was one car at Camp Hoche, near  Hartmanns-
weilerkopf; one at Camp Duchet, near the Sudel; another
at Hoog on the Ballon de Guebwiller; a fourth at Nenette,
in the  valley of the Lauchensee; a  fifth at Treh, the
mountain of Trehkopf; and a sixth at Mittlach in the
                         486 
ONE  OF OUR CAHS IN TROUBLE
COFFINS IN THE COIKTVARD OF A BASE HOSPITAL  IN ALSACE 
 
SECTION NINE
valley of the Fecht. In the same valley as Mollau we had
two cars at Villers, and one each at Moosch, Wesserling,
Kruth,  and Urbes.  Later  Kriith was taken off and the
car at  Moosch  transferred to Camp Larchey on the
Trehkopf. For such a widespread service, drivers had to
go to poste for forty-eight hours and then had twenty-four
hours' repos at Mollau. During our four months' stay in
Alsace our only excitements were a few near-accidents.
  The roads had sheer walls on one side and a drop-off
abruptly on the other. On the outer side there was occa-
sionally a one-foot-high bank,  as a gentle reminder that
you might drop  a  long way to the  nearest tree  down
the mountain-side.  Several cars temporarily tight-rope-
walked these little embankments in the dark. One expert
at this game was Judd Farley,  who on a certain occasion
had to be pulled back onto the road by three artillery
horses and about fifteen men.
  Our relations with the French Army were most cordial.
The Section was reviewed by General Boyer, command-
ing the Division, who congratulated and thanked the
men for the work done, and when, on December 12, the
Division left, the General sent us his felicitations. On
December 14 we, too, left Alsace. A prettier sight I have
never seen. Two days before, the  country had  been
clothed  in a blanket of snow  three feet deep. The day
was clear and there was a real zip in the air. Passing
through the little town of Urbes, the Section was  infor-
mally reviewed by the natives who waved us good-bye.
Then came the long climb over the famous Col de Bus-
sang,  a  passage through the tunnel, and we were out of
Alsace. Riding at the end and watching the long convoy
file out ahead was wonderful.

              Great Days at Verdun
Two days later  found  us  at Bar-le-Duc.  We spent the
night at Joinville. The next day an urgent telephone mes-
sage ordered us to the H.O.E.  of Vadelaincourt, and by
2.30 in the afternoon we were there — our  blanket rolls,
                        487 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
section belongings, and all dumped out in the mud. Real
mud it was; mud that was like a ten-pound weight on
your feet when you walked, and like the most exquisite
auto grease if  you were  on an incline. The  French had
just taken the  Cote du Poivre and everything was going
full blast. We set to work helping Section Fifteen evacu-
ate men  from Fontaine Routon to the H.O.E., which
continued till 2 A.m.,  when the whole Section was given
a load for Bar-le-Duc. This finished our rush wrork, but
for two weeks more  we had plenty to do,  as we  were
attached to the hospital.
  On January  I we were attached to the 123d Division,
and our headquarters changed to Glorieux, just outside
the city of Verdun. Our poste was on the Meuse River at
Montgrignon, just across from Thierville, and we evacu-
ated to Fontaine Routon, a distance of about eighteen
kilometres. Then  commenced two  weeks of about the
stiff est labor possible  — not that we had any "red-hot"
corners to round, but  because it was an everlasting grind.
Theoretically half  the Section would go on  duty for
twenty-four  hours, when the other half would  relieve
them. As a matter of fact the work became so heavy that
the squad en repos would commence about 2.30 p.m., and
then officially go on duty at 7 p.m., when we could always
count on  keeping the motors humming  steadily  until
5 a.m. Between then  and 11 a.m. there were  many  calls,
though not enough to keep the whole squad on the go
continually. After that the grind began again and lasted
until evening.
  Bed was a welcome place after such a turn  on duty. In
fact, for two weeks we thought of nothing  but  eating,
sleeping,  and  driving. Any  great amount of washing,
either of the men or  the cars, went by the  board. The
number of wounded carried cannot be told at this  writ-
ing, but suffice it  to  say that in two  weeks  the Section
covered more  than 34,000 kilometres over  abominable
roads. The amount of work, coupled with the fact that
we had low-spring hangers and were constantly banging
                        488 
SECTION NINE
flat on the axles, caused crystallization of all the axles so
that most of them soon broke as a result, which neither
lightened our labor nor our spirits.
  On January 15 the Section was moved again, this time
going to Toul, where Carleton Burr left the  Section for
home. Every one, I may add, was mighty sorry to see him
leave, for he was a fine leader and always well liked by
the men. Walter Jepson then became chef "par interim."
  On January 24  we moved to Royaumeix, and were
attached to the 130th  Division. Our postes were Saint-
Jacques and La Carriere de Flirey. Cars went out every
night. A cold streak of weather made the Fords extremely
balky. With the temperature below zero, Fahrenheit, a
half-hour's steady cranking, often with a torch on  the
manifold, was the usual procedure. While running,  the
lower half of the  radiator on  every  Ford was always
blocked to prevent freezing.

                Saint-Mihiel, 1917
On February 5 the Section again lived up to its reputa-
tion as the "Wanderer" of the Field Service by moving
again. After packing up in a great hurry and thawing out
a few radiators, we got under way about noon, and eleven
o'clock that night saw us installed at Rupt right by Saint-
Mihiel, where we relieved  the same French sanitary sec-
tion that we relieved in the Vosges. Our Division was the
63d. For a fixed poste we had Pierrefitte, which was sup-
posed to keep three cars busy.
  The Section  shifted its cantonment, March 10,  to
Villotte,  but maintained the same service at the front.
On the 15th the Boches shot at the hospital of Bellevallee
which had to be evacuated in a hurry.
  On the evening  of April 4, General Andlauer and the
Staff of the 63d Division, with which Section Nine served
during many months, dined with us in our Headquarters,
when the General presented each "American volunteer"
with a copy of a letter, which was really his speech at the
dinner, signed by him (see plate).
                         489 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
  We all felt very proud and  happy, especially as the
General shook hands and spoke with each of us.
  April 3 the Section again moved, and this was the
beginning of its famous tour with the 63d Division. Three
nights were spent at Ligny-en-Barrois. Then commenced
the real tour. We spent nights  in Vaucouleurs, Coussey,
Valaincourt, Remoncourt,  Dompaire, Darnieulles,  and
finally a week in Eloyes-sur-Moselle. During this tour the
Section maintained a flying squadron of four to six  cars
which made the evacuations of sick and foot-weary sol-
diers. There was also "Hutchinson's Walking Club." A
half-hour after arriving in a place the club would set out
to see the sights, and in  this way many kilometres were
covered in the few spare hours before supper-time. As the
country passed through  was where Jeanne d'Arc spent
her youth, it was doubly interesting.

               Work about Nancy
We moved on April 19, 1917, to Vandceuvre, near Nancy,
and served as reserve for the Army. June 15 the Section
became attached to the nth  Division of Infantry — a
welcome change after two months of repos, and we cov-
ered the evacuation of  this Division, which held the
Lorraine sector,  and also the  evacuations of the 67th
Division, which held the  Pont-a-Mousson sector.
  On July  1 the Boches launched a  gas attack  on the
region around  Beaumont, when we hauled out over  four
hundred asphyxiated men in twenty-four hours,  and on
July 22 General Vuillemot, commanding  the  nth Divi-
sion, cited, to the Order of the Division, Jepson, our Chef,
and the whole Section, for work done on July 1.
  July 5 Chef Jepson went on permission, and while in
Paris, he entered the French Aviation Service. On August
31, George R. Cogswell was officially made Chef to replace
him. On September 1 the Section lost its French Com-
mander, Lieutenant Binoche, who was called to special
work at the Paris War Office.  A tribute to him, which
shows how well he was loved, is found in a remark of one
490 
SECTION NINE
of the men who said, "When Binoche went I felt as blue
as when I left my family in the States, to come over to
France."
  On October 6 the Section changed once again. A slow
convoy  took us to Saint-Max,  just outside  of Nancy,
where we were cantoned in the chalet adjoining the cha-
teau of  M. Noel, where hardwood floors, open fireplaces,
electric  lights, fine wallpaper, and a landlord  who  spoke
perfect English, helped to make our stay  as pleasant as
possible.
  On October 16 and 17 Nancy suffered severely from a
hail of  aeroplane  bombs,  when the  Section evacuated
about a hundred  people  from the Hospital Bon Pasteur
and at the same time searched out and evacuated  many
civilians who  were  wounded or killed by the bombard-
ment. For this work, part of which was voluntary, the
Section received the warm thanks of the  officials of the
Prefecture. This was our last work before being taken over
by the American Army.
                             George R. Cogswell 1
  1 Of Cambridge, Massachusetts; Harvard, '18; entered the Service in
June, 1916, and became, later, a Lieutenant in the Ambulance Service of
the American Army in France.
 
II
            Life as a Section Leader
                                       August 18, 1916
Here we are, as a Section, in a beautiful little town in the
Vosges Mountains. With a section of new cars and  an
eager, willing bunch of men,  the life as a section leader
for a while, at least, should not be a difficult one. Besides,
as an officer, I have thus far been billeted in a private
room with all  the comforts of home. It has its distinct
advantages over sleeping in one's ambulance or in a filthy
barn, I assure  you!

                                         September 11
We left the "pare" of this army, where we had remained
eight days, on August 25, and took up our position and
duties in this town of Alsace on  the same day. A lovelier
trip than this across the frontier  pass could not have been
sought for anywhere, especially in the clear, dewy light of
that early morning. That same afternoon, accompanied
by the Lieutenant of the French section which we were
replacing, our  Lieutenant and I sallied forth  to visit as
many as possible of the postes we were to serve. These are
divided into six mountain and six valley postes, at each of
which we must maintain one car all the time. To handle
this  work, therefore, we have divided the Section into
three squads of six men each, maintaining, at the same
time, a reserve of two cars here at the base, in case of
break-down or as a relief if any one of the postes should
be overworked.  Every afternoon the squad  which has
been off duty  for twenty-four hours replaces  one of the
other two,  thus  affording each  individual  forty-eight
hours of duty and twenty-four hours off. Under this sys-
tem the work becomes in no way monotonous.
  The mountain postes are, of course, the more interest-
ing, as they are situated just behind the first line trenches
                        492 
             Qener&l  ASDLAUKR
To Anerioan Sanitary  3eotlon Hine.
                                     Uy dear friends

        Until yesterday,  you were  our friends; to-day you

are our allies.

        Is friends,  you have Drovnd  your friendship In

many ways, the best  of which is  your presence her* amongst
S3
 Ah,
        As Allies,  we are sure  that we  shall soon feel the

powerful and efflolont  oooperatIon of a country like yours,

so young, so mighty and so noble.

        fhe satisfactory way In whioh 3eotion nine has ac-

complished all  the  work I have  given It, to this day, makes

me oonfldent that the most difficult task will not prove

too muoh for your oourage and your good will.

        I drink to  the health of President Wilson, the United

States People,  Army and Havy, our Allies of the War of In-

dependence and  our  Allies of the far for the Liberty of Ha-

tIons.
%
I
GENERAL ANDLAVER'S  LETTER TO SECTION  NINE  WHEN
               AMERICA  JOINED THE ALLIES 
 
SECTION NINE
and one must surmount prodigious grades to reach them.
In some places, especially along the crests of  the moun-
tains, the road is cut out of the cliff with nothing but
open air between the outside edge and the valley bottom,
several hundred feet below. I foresee that, with the ad-
vent of winter snows, driving Fords in the Vosges is going
to become an amusing form of sport, to say the least! If
no car goes over the edge during the winter on any of the
bad corners which we encounter daily, I shall consider
we are very lucky. It has been done several times by our
predecessors with varying degrees of damage  to car and
driver. However, "c'est la guerre!"
  We have been received wonderfully by every one since
our arrival here in the valley, due largely to the excellent
name Section Three made for itself here during the last
December attacks. The sector is so quiet now, however,
that even the men in the trenches (as I have already seen
for myself) are enjoying a peaceful  "vacation," which,
unfortunately, is a cause of impatience among our men
as they  are  naturally  eager to prove themselves  as
worthy as our American predecessors.  For me, at least,
this life is a delightful contrast to that of Verdun. This
country is  teeming with  tradition, and the associations
now  forming in Alsace Reconquise will  lend themselves
to many pleasant recollections in later years. Of course
my opportunities are unlimited, as I am received by all
French officers as  a fellow-officer. Only to-day,  for ex-
ample, I lunched with a colonel, a captain, and two lieu-
tenants who, collectively, form the group of "les Officiers
de rAdministration" of French Alsace.  You can imagine
the interesting bits I gleaned from their conversation.
  A good example of the Alsatian feelings toward Ameri-
cans was shown to me the other day  when visiting Rich-
ard Hall's grave. In the beautiful little military cemetery
in which he is buried I found his grave with its simple
wooden cross bearing his name and the legend,  "mort pour
la patrie." But also the touch of some devoted caretaker
was present, for, on  the grave itself,  were growing some
                         493 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
freshly watered little flowering plants. Upon questioning
a doctor of the near-by hospital, I found that ever since
Section Three had left in January, two girls of the only
cafe in  town had voluntarily assumed the role of care-
takers. Of course I paid them a call and found them just
as nice  as they were plain. They seemed  to consider it
only natural, in view of the fact that Hall, several times
before his death, had taken his meals in their establish-
ment and that he had left no immediate friends in this
neighborhood, they should do this little bit in his behalf.
This is typical of the sympathetic attention we encounter
at every turn (not that we  have selected our grave-
tenders as yet!), and which feeling,  I am convinced, is
mothered  only by intense suffering. The peoples of Eu-
rope should,  therefore, gain something, if  only morally,
out of this miserable war.

                                           October 24
You would be amazed, I am sure, at the seeming ease in
which war is carried on, which fact,  however,  is not so
noticeable in busier  sectors. Every one goes  about  his
business in his own quiet  way, the element of glamour
being almost entirely lacking. Very little sentiment is
manifested over either  the wounded or the dead,  for
these are part of the day's routine. If you went into the
trenches, you would find a group of normal, healthy men
leading an apparently normal existence. You would no-
tice  much more confusion and annoyance if something
went wrong with the cook's stove, than if a large German
marmite suddenly wiped out two or three poilus. Man be-
comes accustomed to his  surroundings so rapidly that
even war loses many of its terrors for him after he has
been thoroughly initiated. The phase which would trou-
ble you most, as it does almost every participant in a
quiet sector,  is the seeming inactivity. Patience,  in such
times as these, is the hardest virtue to acquire. Both the
sentinel at his loop-hole and the ambulance driver on  his
car wish that events could be produced more rapidly in
                         494 
SECTION NINE
order that something definite might be determined. To
be held in constant suspense becomes almost unbearable.
It is for this reason that the roles played by the British
navy and the French cavalry at this time are not enviable
ones. But, to pass the time more quickly we are lucky
here in having many diversions. When not occupied by
regular duty (which for me is the majority of time), there
are many beautiful walks which always reveal something
new of interest. Also we play association football and re-
sort frequently to boxing gloves.
  Luckily, nothing but solitary confinement can prevent
the forming of friendships,  and we have not reached  that
stage yet! These friendships and associations, welded to-
gether by a spirit of comradeship which could not be as
strong if we were not all working for one common cause,
are what make this life such an enviable one.

                                           December I
This sector remains as quiet as ever, but this does not
mean that the maintenance of our service is  always an
easy task. The bitter cold and icy roads are two elements
which, at times,  are difficult to combat. The wounded
men we carry are actually few, but the number of those
with frozen feet is daily augmenting. In this sector, na-
ture is man's greatest enemy, especially when campaign-
ing settles down to trench  warfare.
                                  Carleton Burr l
  1 Of Boston, Massachusetts; Harvard, '13; joined the Field Service in
February, 1916, serving with Section Two, and as Chef'of Section Nine until
January, 1917; later a Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps; killed in ac-
tion, July 29, 1918. These extracts are from home letters. 
Ill
       Leaves from a Section Nine Diary
                     The Bordeaux Station, December 6, 1916
The station platform and the trains were  crowded with
soldiers, either coming from the front on their seven days'
leave or else starting out again after their brief week of
rest  was ended. Now and then in the crowd one could
distinguish the uniform  of a colonel or a captain. There
were several  lieutenants, and many sergeants and  cor-
porals. But the great majority were the plain, everyday
soldiers,  the  mainstay  and backbone of the army, les
poilus. Most of them were short and stocky,  all  with
mustaches. The gray-blue uniform of the soldier is almost
invariably faded by reason of long  and hard usage, his
casque  shows signs of age and  wear;  he bears a rather
formidable number of little brown musettes, which are
slung over his shoulders and hang at the hips and back,
and  which are always stuffed full and bulging out with
odds and ends which he carries. Some militaires had their
full equipment with them, rifles, knapsack, and all, while
others  who were just back for permission had evidently
been allowed to leave their arms and packs with  their
divisions at the front. I  watched them there on the sta-
tion platform,  as they  stood about in groups talking,
sometimes  solemnly and gravely, sometimes smilingly
and^laughing. Here and there a soldier's wife, or mother,
or fiancee would be standing talking with him. Most of
the women were dressed in black, though now and then a
touch of color would lend a pathetic note of gaiety to. the
scene. The officers on the  platform  usually walk up and
down in twos or threes, their uniforms spick-and-span, the
little gold bars on their  sleeves and caps flashing in the
light; but le pauvre poilu, with his faded uniform and his
great collection of bags,  knapsacks, and so on, usually se-
lects some place on the platform and then stays there. He
                        496 
SECTION NINE
has too many things to carry to walk up and down for
pleasure, and besides, when he gets to the muddy roads
at the front, he has to do more than enough walking
heavy-loaded with equipment. But, although the officers
looked so formidable, I noticed that when they had occa-
sion to speak to any soldier, or when the latter asked an
officer any question,  the officer always replied with the
greatest kindness and spirit of comradeship. They seemed
like brothers talking to each other.

        Hospital Work at Vadelaincourt
                                     December 22, 1916
The evening we arrived at  Vadelaincourt,  the  Section
began its work of helping in the evacuation of the wounded
from the H.O.E. Throughout the evening  and the night
the wounded  kept arriving  in  great numbers. French,
British, and American ambulances brought them  in.
Railroad trains and American ambulances took them out.
The wounded were all first classified as assis or couches
and they  arrived at separate entrances.  One does not
easily forget the scenes at  a large evacuation hospital as
the wounded from a big attack  come in. The sights, the
sounds, the smells — the never-ending stream of incoming
ambulances, the mud everywhere. Each big ambulance
that pulled up at the door brought with it a peculiar and
ghastly odor — rather hard to describe — strange, sweet-
ish, sickening, pungent, utterly  revolting — a combina-
tion of gasoline fumes, mud, unwashed filth, sweat, surgi-
cal dressings, and the hot, heavy air from the closely
crowded ambulance cars; for the weather was cold, and
while en route the doors and canvas flaps of the ambu-
lances were closed. Throughout the evening and the night
that stream of ambulances kept coming in. As each car
arrived the tired brancardiers unloaded the wounded un-
der the rays of light from one  or two lanterns  by the
wooden portal of the entrance. The blood-soaked ban-
dages  gave ghastly  testimony of the severity  of the
wounds. The blood often dripped upon the stretchers and
                         497 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
the floor of the car. Many of the wounded were zouaves,
Moroccans,  and Algerians,  being  extensively  used in
forming  attacking divisions.  These Moroccan  and Al-
gerian troops  wear yellowish khaki uniforms, their steel
helmets are of the same color, and their fatigue caps are
a sort of  red fez, in marked contrast to the  blue fatigue
caps of various shapes which the native French soldiers
wear while en  repos.
  Sad — picturesque — depressing — inspiring — that
was Vadelaincourt. The general tone color of the place
was brown—muddy brown. The rain-washed earth in the
fields, the rain-soaked board hospital buildings, the rain-
drenched roads — all  brown and sad  and dreary. The
region around Vadelaincourt consists of low, gently slop-
ing plains, for the most part unwooded, and, as I saw it in
December, 1916,muddy and brown and forlorn. Wounded
German prisoners were kept in hospital buildings close to
the centre of the French group. Unwounded German pris-
oners were used for road repair work in and  about the
region. Within sight of the  hospital  buildings was  the
military cemetery. We were told that eight months before
there were seven graves; now there were hundreds, and
every day the cemetery was growing. Sometimes a pro-
cession of officers and soldiers would accompany the plain
pine-box coffin to its last resting-place, indicating that an
officer had died. Sometimes there would be no one but
the priest and  the grave-diggers. The graves of the Mo-
hammedan troops were all at an  angle facing  Mecca,
and strange Mohammedan crescents and signs were in-
scribed on the name boards over their graves. The French
dead all received plain wooden coffins. Often, when sev-
eral were buried at a time, a large trench would  be dug,
each coffin being placed practically touching the next one.
The  colored Mohammedans were wrapped in a  white
sheet — the  blood from the wounds of which  they died
sometimes darkening and clotting on the winding-sheet
— and were laid on  their  sides with  their feet  toward
Mecca, so very far away.
                        498 
SECTION NINE
  New Year's Eve on the Roads about Verdun
Ox one occasion my car was blocked by a long artillery
convoy which got stuck in the mud on a narrow road near
Vadelaincourt. The night was cloudy and misty and dark,
and as the road was very narrow it was impossible to
keep the twro- and three-team guns and caissons from
now and then  getting one wheel over  into the mud at
the roadside. Whenever this happened it meant a long
delay for the convoy.
  From somewhere in the darkness ahead could be heard
the shouts of men tugging and hauling at the wheels and
helping the horses that strained at the traces, while the
harness clanked and snapped and jingled. There were one
or two lanterns up ahead where the soldiers were grouped
about the mud-embedded wheels. As the convoy did not
seem to be making any progress, I decided to walk up
ahead and investigate the situation. Perhaps I could see
the officer in charge and find out from him how long the
delay would last. I accordingly took a lantern and set
out on foot through  the deep mud toward the head of
the convoy. As I went forward,  I passed several heavily
loaded wagons and then came upon two or three cannon,
and then more artillery, and again some more. The tired
French soldiers, standing beside the trucks and wagons
and gun caissons, looked curiously at me as I hurried for-
ward. I  stopped now and then to ask  for the officer in
charge. The answer was always the same, "En avant";
and they pointed up ahead to where one or two lanterns
and the struggling horses told of the efforts to free the big
guns from the grip of the mud. The soldiers, as always,
were anxious to do all they could to help the Americans
with their ambulances, and after I had gone about half-
way down the line one of them, when I had explained my
difficulties, came with me to find the officer in charge. Hot
and tired, and troubled as I was, I could not help seeing
the picturesque side of it all as I and my friend hurried
forward, and the glow of my lantern lit up the muddy,
                        499 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
rain-soaked men and horses and guns. At last I came to
the officer who was directing the work of extricating the
wheels of a large gun from the mud. Eight or ten horses,
hitched two  abreast, were straining at the traces, while
scores of men tugged at the wheels to move them forward.
What delayed them was the fact that no sooner had they
got one gun or wagon onto the road than another, a little
way in front  or behind, would get into the ditch, and they
would have to take the extra horses and men forward or
back to their new job. And so it went. The officer in charge
was very courteous and kindly, and said that the  convoy
was destined for Deux Nouds, where they were to spend
the night, but that from the looks of things he did not
expect they  would cover the remaining three kilometres
till dawn! There was only one thing for me to do, so I
hurried back in the direction of my ambulance. It  seemed
to take forever to get back to the point in the  convoy
where my car was stationed. When I had first come to the
convoy it was moving forward a little — stopping and
then starting again. The road was at that point broad
enough to pass, and  not knowing the  road, I had hoped
that it would continue so.  Accordingly I went forward,
now and then — where there was a vacant place in the
convoy taking it, especially if there was a narrow place on
the road. The convoy, as I have said, was at that time
making  slight headway. After  holding my place in the
convoy for a little while, as we went ahead foot by foot, I
noticed that the road had become so narrow that it was
impossible to turn out of the line. Then the convoy got
stopped — unable to move forward a single step. That
was when I went forward on foot, as I have described, and,
upon learning that there was no hope of moving forward
before morning, I came back and, with the aid of ten or a
dozen soldiers from the artillery train, got my ambulance
turned around and managed to get it back through the
mud at the sides of the road till I reached the rear of the
convoy again. But by this time the low-speed clutch band
on my car had been worn out by the friction, and so I was
                        500 
BREAKFAST, SECTION NINE —AT AN  AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
         KITCHEN, IN THE LIGNY-EN-BARROIS  REGION
WOODEN-BARRACK HOSPITAL-THE ''TRIAGE' 
 
SECTION NINE
stalled. I ran back to the nearest village and telephoned
to S.S.U. Nine for another car. This arrived soon with
Johnson at the wheel. The wounded were transferred to
his car and I went with him by another and a somewhat
longer road to Deux Nouds, where we left the wounded.
In the morning I and the mechanics came back and towed
my car to Vadelaincourt.

              "Quelle Existence"
Whenever  I  think of that convoy,  in addition  to the
above-described scenes there comes to my mind the pic-
ture  of an old mounted artilleryman. He and his horse
were muddy, and rain-soaked, and tired out. He was just
in front of my car when I got in the jam and I asked him
whether he thought there would be a long delay. He did
not know. He added that the convoy had left Verdun
that morning at 4 a.m. and was scheduled to reach Deux
Nouds by late afternoon. They had had only a bite to eat
during the whole day. I afterwards heard that owing to
the difficulties with the mud, they did not reach Deux
Nouds till the following dawn. When he learned that I was
of the Field Service he asked how long I had been at the
front. I told him I had only just arrived a week before.
He seemed half asleep as he sat there on his tired horse.
His head was bent forward. He roused himself, and, indi-
cating with a  gesture of his hand himself and his com-
rades in the convoy,  said, "Pour nous, trente mois de la
guerre, trente mois. Quelle existence, quelle existence!"
  As I came to our canal boat by the banks of the Meuse
canal, on my return, a company or two of French soldiers
in single file were silently moving along the towpath on
their  way to the  front-line trenches. In the cold night
mist they looked like shadowy, muffled  ghosts moving
slowly onward to  some strange doom. Possibly some of
them were  thinking at that time, "What an existence,
what an existence!"  Perhaps in the early  hours  of the
night, before they had been ordered to the lines, they had
been  sleeping — fully dressed, with guns and  bayonets
                        501 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
close by — below some shattered caserne near the front.
Let us hope that they slept well. And if they dreamt, let
us trust they dreamt of home and rest and peacefulness.
But more than likely their sleep was troubled by weird
and ghastly dreams. Perhaps now and again they were
awakened by the crash of a shell in the great deserted bar-
racks above-ground — for the guns  are always  restless
at Verdun. At all events, like tired ghosts in blue-gray
shrouds, now they moved onward in silence to disappear
into  the  shadows of the night. Perhaps  the following
night some of them, clothes muddy and torn, and cov-
ered with blood, would  be  carried back  in American
ambulances to the under-ground operating-rooms in the
city of Verdun or to the distant  hospital at Fontaine
Routon.  And  others would find that quiet and  un-
troubled  rest which had so  long been denied them, and
their soul-refreshing sleep would be untroubled by the
fitfulness and  wakefulness of the night before. For the
tumult of the  shells above their heads would be no tu-
mult, and their torn and tired bodies would feel no pain.

                   At Villotte
                                         March, 1917
One night,  while sleeping  in the big attic hay-loft, I
gradually became aware of a far-away sound as though a
deep-toned bell were ringing. As I awoke, the sound seemed
nearer and nearer until at last I realized it was the church
bell of Villotte. The church  was not  a hundred yards
away. The sound was not the ordinary slow peals of a
church bell on Sunday,  but was as  though some giant
with a large hammer was striking a  quick  succession of
blows on the bell, making it sound almost like the ringing
of a great gong. The hammer blows  would continue for
about half a minute and then stop for a few seconds, and
then commence again. I  also heard  in the distance the
roll of a drum. The other ambulance men in the loft were
waking too. "Le tocsin et  le tambour! "  It was the signal
for gas. We had our orders, and in a moment were dressed,
                        502 
SECTION NINE
gas-masks slung about our necks in the position of readi-
ness. We were soon out, each in front of his car. We cranked
our cars and let the engines run for a little to see that they
were warmed up and working properly. We adjusted our
masks and then put them in readiness, awaiting orders.
As yet no gas-clouds had reached Villotte. I shall never
forget the weirdness of the  scene that night. The  wild
church bell clanged out its notes of warning into the dark-
ness, and up and down the village street walked a French
soldier with drum and gas-mask. His warning drumbeats
rolled out and  echoed back from the stone and plaster
walls of the little houses along the way. The streets  were
deserted. Doors and windows were shut and except for
the Americans, the French drummer, and some French
sentries at the crossroads, not a soul was in sight.  Sud-
denly out of the darkness down the street came a woman
dressed in black. She wore a gas-mask. In her arms she
carried a baby, with a mask over its face, and a little  child
about five years old, also with a mask, ran along beside
her crying and  clinging to her skirts as she half-walked,
half-ran up the street. They were going to the schoolhouse
or to the home of some friend who had a room specially
arranged for just such an  emergency.  The little group
were soon lost to view in the gloomy shadows. As we stood
there by our ambulances, we  wondered if even at  that
moment the deadly gas-clouds were drifting slowly across
the dreary plain and would soon  reach Villotte and the
neighboring towns. In the intervals when the Villotte bell
was not ringing we could hear the warning bell in one of
the near-by towns. There was a light wind blowing  from
the direction of the German lines. For about half or three
quarters of an hour the warning bells continued to  ring;
then they stopped as suddenly as  they had begun. After
a time we were given orders to return to quarters. We
learned afterwards that there had been a small gas attack
somewhere along the lines in the general region of Saint-
Mihiel, but that the wind had not carried the deadly fumes
to Rupt or Villotte.
                        503 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
                      Epilogue
In my imagination I often go back again into the past.
Again I think of those tumultuous times when the soldiers
of France fought to save their country and all civilization
from the tyranny of autocracy and militarism which the
German hordes were striving to impose upon the world.
During the war the splendid valor and courage of the
French people has been gloriously  proved to all, and es-
pecially to those of us who were privileged to serve with
the French Army in the field; for we can fully appreciate
the hardships and agony which France has undergone,
and can bear witness to her indomitable courage and her
heroic sacrifices in the cause of world liberty and freedom.
But in addition to her superb fighting qualities, France's
character is richly endowed with love, and with a sympa-
thetic kindliness and a gentleness  and tenderness which
endear her to all who come to know her. As  I  have said
my thoughts often turn  back again into the past. I see
them yet, those armies of the French Republic, marching
forward in the mist and snow at Verdun. How many of
those brave soldiers are now at rest, and those who live —
what weird and troubled scenes their memories can con-
jure up before them — they who have passed through the
horror and agony of those long and bitter years!
                       William Carey Sanger, Jr.1

  1 Of Sangerfield, New York; Harvard, 1916; joined Section Nine in De-
cember, 1916; he left the Service in May to become a First Lieutenant in
the U.S. Infantry. These are excerpts from Mr. Sanger's  new book, With
the Soldiers of the French Republic.
 
IV
  Summary of the Section's History under the
                United States Army

It was at Menil-la-Tour, in the Woevre sector, that the re-
cruiting officers first came to Section Nine. Chef Cogswell, John
Machado, Alexander Greene, and Harvey Evans enlisted  on
September 29, 1917, the others deciding to enter other services.
The first contingent of army ambulance men as replacements
came late in October, followed a few days later by ten members
of old Section Seventy-Two, which had been broken up.
  The Section entered the Lorraine front, north of Luneville,
January 1, 1918 and moved out on April 20, after having won a
second divisional citation for its part in a raid on Washington's
birthday. The Section carried 2428 evacues there.
  From Toul, the  Section embarked on trains and went  up
behind the Amiens front in  Picardy and then up to Belgium,
where it entered the lines in front of Mont Kemmel on May 5,
1918. There seventeen nights without much sleep or rest from
continuous work were spent, and 3367 wounded were carried in
that time.
  After a short repos, we entered the lines again, in Belgium
this time, for twelve days' easy work, leaving on July 9, bound
south in  convoy, after handling only ninety-eight blesses. The
Delage repair car was lost on this trip, the White and kitchen
trailer having been lost coming up.
  Following a speedy convoy of two days, the Section pulled
into Betz, near Villers-Cotterets to assist Section 585, which
was in dire need of assistance, and then entered the lines on the
night of  July 17, 1918, at Faverolles. The Section continued
steadily forward for twenty-one days without relief, and made
very long evacuations. We had passed through Chouy, Oulchy
le-Chateau, Arcy, and up to Jouaignes before relief came. The
Section did exceptionally good  work in this sector and was
awarded  an army citation.
  Repos, beginning August  8, followed. August 23, the Section
entered the lines left of Soissons, remaining until September 6,
and then went to the Chemin des Dames, on the other side of
Soissons, from September 9 until the 15th; then once again the
convoy  was  headed north, after carrying a total of 1221
wounded.
505 
THE  AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
  This was "some" convoy to Bergues, Flanders, and meant
second-line duty back of Ypres, at Woesten, for us, before going
into the swamps of Flanders at Langemarck. On October 2 we
pushed ahead with the Division until firm ground was reached
at Roulers, and repos was declared on October 17. The final
attack of  the war in Belgium began on October 30, and the
Section  was heavily at  work at Spriete, Desselghem,  and
Audenarde on the Scheldt River until the Armistice was signed.
Then  came the fun, the triumphal march to the Rhine through
Belgium, up through Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany, and then to
the Rhine at Grevenbroich, arriving there on December 12.
  The happy day came on January 29, 1919, when orders came
to move south. This was the best  of all — down the] Rhine
to Belfort, France, and up to  Remiremont, where relief came
the middle of February. After  that, Brest — and home.
                                 Harvey Cass Evans 1
  1 Of Joplin, Missouri; University of Missouri; served two months in the
Field Service, and continued under the Army in Section Nine until the
Armistice.
 
Vosges Detachment
 THE STORY TOLD BY
 I. Joseph R. Greenwood 
SUMMARY
To continue in Alsace the work of Sections Three and Nine
in December, 1916, the Vosges Detachment of six ambulances
went  to Wilier. There the Detachment remained for eight
months attached to the 52d French Division, and serving the
mountain  postes of Mittlach,  Larchey, Thann, Hartmanns-
weilerkopf, etc. In August,  1917, the men and  cars were re-
turned to Paris, and the Vosges Detachment as a separate unit
was disbanded. 
             Vosges Detachment

          Most sane, most spiritual, because most sane,
          Upon her bitter road she steadfast shows
          The sacrifice majestic, while again
          Freedom's own everlasting altar flows
          With France's blood; in that most sacred stain
          Once more her own immortal genius glows.
                                    Eden Phillpotts
                          I

                  Mountain Work

The Vosges Detachment of the American Field Service
was formed in December, 1916, at the direct request of
Commandant Doumenc,  Director of the French Army
Automobile Service, to carry on the work of evacuating
the wounded in  that  mountainous  sector of the front
which had  been  so  well  served by Section Three and
Section Nine. For a clear understanding of the work done
by the light Field Service ambulances in this sector, it
is really  necessary  to have a mental  picture of  the
country itself and the position of the opposing battle-
lines.
  The Vosges Mountains, rising grandly  from the plains
of Alsace, presented a natural barrier to the advance into
France of any invader from the east. Many of the peaks
attain a height of well over three thousand feet above the
plains, and  the sheer, rugged summits, snow-capped till
late in  June, offer a wonderful sight for the  lover  of
mountain scenery. Roughly speaking, the French, after
August, 1914, held the western slopes and most of the
crests of  these mountains, and the Germans held the
509 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
plains stretching away eastward to the Rhine. The city
of Thann, regained for France by her army in the first
month of the war, lies at the point where the valley of
the Thur River opens out to the southward into the plains,
and it was along this valley, which stretched away for
thirty kilometres to the north of Thann, that the French
brought up their supplies and ammunition for the troops
holding this sector. In order to reach the lines from this
valley, it was necessary to climb over the mountains inter-
vening between it and the German-held plains, and this
was done by pack-mules on narrow military roads which
sometimes  averaged fourteen  per cent  grade through-
out their entire length of twelve  to fifteen kilometres.
Endless cables and buckets were also used  to transport
the supplies and wounded up and down these mountains.
  Such, then,  was, in general, the sector in which Sec-
tions Three and Nine had worked for twenty months, and
for which,  upon their departure in the late autumn of
1916,  Commandant Doumenc called  on the Field Serv-
ice to supply other ambulances. After the departure of
Section Nine, the French had endeavored to do this work
with one of their own sections, using their usual heavy
ambulances; but the effort had proved unsatisfactory,
and the  arrangement was finally  made that six Fords
should be sent out, to be attached to this same French
section — the Fords to do the evacuation work from the
postes to the valley, and the French section to take up the
work  from the valley to the rear. Such was the birth of
the Vosges Detachment.
  In December, 1916, Louis Hall  left Paris with  a  ca-
mionnette and  six  ambulances driven  by  Hamersley,
Ward, Nordhoff, Miller,  Howe, and du Bouchet.1 The
convoy pushed through to Rupt-sur-Moselle where the
automobile pare of the Seventh French Army was located,
  1 Vivian du Bouchet of Paris, France; worked in American Hospital at
Neuilly from the beginning of the war; joined the American Field Service
September, 1915; served in Section Two and in the Vosges Detachment;
subsequently enlisted in the U.S. Infantry as a private; killed in action
May io, 1918.
                         510 
VOSGES DETACHMENT
and a stop of about a week was made at this place. Hall
reported to Commandant Arboux, the Chef of the Auto-
mobile Service of the Seventh Army, and received orders
to take his detachment to Wilier for billeting and to re-
port to the Medecin Divisionnaire of the 52d Division of
French Infantry for duty. The  Detachment  began its
service the next day. Comfortable quarters were found
for the men  in Wilier, and Hall  lived and messed with
the Medecin Chef of the G.B.D. of the  Division.  One
ambulance was assigned to duty  at  the  "Ambulance
Alpine"  at  Mittlach,  near Metzeral, thirty-six kilo-
metres from the cantonment; one at Larchey, at  the
"Ambulance Nenette,"  and  one at  Hoche, another
branch of the "Ambulance Alpine,"  with call postes at
"Bains Douches" and "Colardelle," two regimental  aid
stations at the foot of Hartmannsweilerkopf. Call postes
were also established at Thann, Vieux Thann, Goldbach,
Haag, and Markstein. Most of these latter were artillery
postes and required little attention. The wounded were
taken to hospitals at Moosch,  Saint-Amarin, Urbes, and
some few  back over the Col de Bussang into  France to
Le Thillot.
  The trips  in this sector were unusually long and  the
grades up and down the mountains very severe. On both
the climbs up to Hoche and over  to Mittlach, the  lit-
tle Fords would be in  low gear  for half  an hour at a
stretch, and it was frequently necessary  to change  the
water in the radiator two or three  times on one trip. In
order to keep the gasoline consumption as low as possible,
the needle valves of the carburetors would be closed at
the top of each descent and the car allowed to coast
down against the engine as a brake. Naturally the wear
on the transmission bands was tremendous, and in order
to equalize it the following method was employed: The
low-speed band was worn during the climbs; the reverse
band was used very lightly as a  brake during the straight-
away descents; the  foot-brake  was used only at corners
and on the steepest portions of the hills;  and  the emer-
                        5H 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
gency brake was strictly reserved for real  emergencies.
In this way the bands were made to last for as much as
ten days or two weeks, but naturally the wear on the cars
under such conditions was excessive, and it was  found
necessary at different times to replace the ambulances.

                 Work in Winter
Much snow fell during the winter and the weather was
verv cold, so that some of the mountain roads became
quite impassable and certain postes had to be given up.
Mittlach, Haag, and Goldbach were not visited from the
end of  January till the beginning of April. The poste at
Hoche, however, was attended  all through the winter.
Sometimes not more than two  blessSs could be carried
at one time,  and  frequently, even  with this light load,
the ambulances had to be assisted over icy portions of
the grades by friendly poilus. By April, matters became
better and the regular service was resumed.
  In May the original Detachment began to break up as
the engagements of the men ran out, and by the middle
of June an entire new personnel  was in the Detachment
consisting of Greenwood, in charge, and Richards, Colie,
Lindsey,  Harrington, Wilson, and  Phinney, as drivers.
These men carried on the work until the  beginning of
August, when orders were received to take the Detach-
ment to Rupt, where it was to be joined by new men and
cars from Paris and organized into a full twenty-car Sec-
tion, which  was to take over from the French Section
Eighty-Four the  entire work of the sector.  At  Rupt,
however, the orders were amended; the ambulances and
touring-car were loaded on freight cars, and the  entire
body returned to Paris, where it was officially disbanded
on August 9, 1917, after eight months' service.
  The work had not been hard, but the driving had been
far from easy, the sector being certainly the most difficult
as regards driving of any along the whole front, and any
conducteur who could successfully bring a loaded  ambu-
lance over the  mountain from Mittlach to Urbes on a
512 
LE SERVICE QUI  NE S'ARRETE JAMAIS
AT A MOUNTAIN  -POSTE" IN ALSACE RECONQCISE 
 
VOSGES DETACHMENT
dark, rainy night was surely entitled to a niche in the
automobilists' hall of fame.
  The work of the Detachment also varied considerably.
Ordinarily the sector was quiet, and the car at Hoche
wras  then  relieved every forty-eight hours and the one
at Mittlach every three days. The drivers were, of course,
always supposed to be  within call  of their cars, but it
was easy for them to obtain permission from the Medecin
Chef of the poste to be away for an hour or two at a time,
and they could then make  interesting excursions out on
the slopes of Hartmannsweilerkopf or into the village
of Metzeral and up its surrounding hills. Some of the
fiercest battles during the French advance into Alsace took
place at these two points, and it was intensely interesting
to visit the scenes of these struggles and discover un-
expectedly gun  emplacements and trenches hidden in
the woods. Boche and French aeroplanes were  overhead
daily, as each side kept a close watch on his adversary,
and air battles were of frequent occurrence. One German
airman fell in flames in a field close to the poste at Mitt-
lach, and shortly after a Hun machine gun, pieces of a
propeller, an iron cross, and other souvenirs made their
appearance  in the American cantonment at Mollau.

               Spells of Hard Work
The service was not  all play, however, by any means,
and  when a French or Boche coup de main occurred, the
Vosges Detachment had plenty of hard work.  Picture a
perfect summer  evening, the sun an hour set behind the
mountains and  the beautiful  afterglow lighting up the
few clouds in the sky. The peaceful little village of Mollau
is just preparing to turn in for the night. In the distance
one  begins to hear the rumbling of thunder, and before
darkness has finally settled, a terrific summer  storm is
sweeping  up the valley. It  passes over, leaving behind a
steady downpour of rain, but as the thunder gradually
dies away a new sound  takes its place — the rolling, re-
verberating, reechoing roar of a barrage up in the moun-
                         513 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
tains.  Everybody is  up and  about, for something is
evidently doing up toward "Hartmanns." Then is heard
the telephone bell in the office at Mollau, and an order
comes to send all available cars to the poste at Hoche,
whereupon the Chef sets out in his staff car followed by
the ambulances. The run along  the valley  to Wilier is
quickly made, but then begins  the  fourteen-kilometre
climb up the mountain. A steady rain, wet, narrow, steep,
curving,  slippery  roads, long convoys of  pack-mules,
artillery  caissons,  and ravitaillement  wagons make  the
trip up a difficult one, indeed, especially as after a certain
point is  reached  no  lights of  any description may be
used. Arrived finally at the poste, the first word is obtained
as to what has happened, and we learn that the Boches
have taken advantage of the storm to lay over a heavy
barrage and try a  coup de main, with a net result for the
French of two killed, seven wounded, and no prisoners.
Four of  the blesses are at Hoche itself, and  these are
loaded into an ambulance and started on their way down
to the  hospital at  Moosch. The three others  are down at
Colardelle in an ambulance that cannot pull the grade
to come back  to Hoche. Two of the men afoot push on
the two kilometres to the regimental poste,  where they
find the Medecin Chef raving crazy because he has
loaded three couches into an ambulance that cannot move,
the low-speed band having burned out.  So there is nothing
else to do but for the two Americans, two brancardiers,
and the Medecin Chef to join forces and push the loaded
ambulance all the way up the muddy road to Hoche,
whence it can coast down the other side of the mountain
to the  triage at Wilier.  Nor is it an easy task to push a
loaded Ford  ambulance up a steep hill  on a slippery,
muddy road, at 2 a.m. on a rainy night! At Hoche no
more blesses have  come in, so the chef serves a round of
hot tea and rum to every one, two ambulances are left
at the  poste  in case any more  work develops, and the
staff car rolls its way back down  to Mollau  to close the
night's work at 4 a.m.  Punctuate and illumine this de-
                        5H 
VOSGES DETACHMENT
scription with a fairly heavy bombardment, plenty of
star-shells, and roads which have a sheer drop of several
hundred feet from the outside edge, and a fair idea of an
active night in this sector will be obtained.
  The  Americans made many friends among both the
soldiers and the civilians in the sector, and many are the
stories that could be told, some sad and others amusing,
to show how warmly the ambulanciers were regarded by
both the French and Alsatians. Richard Hall, a member
of Section Three, and brother of  Louis Hall,  the Chef of
the Detachment, had been killed on Christmas Eve, 1915,
by a German shell on the road to Hoche and had been
buried  in the little military cemetery at Moosch. When
the Vosges Detachment arrived a year later,  they found
two young Alsatian girls of a well-to-do family of Moosch
carefully tending the grave and seeing that it  was always
well kept and covered with fresh  flowers.

            Good  Times at the Front
The sector was a quiet one during 1917, and many "con-
certs"  and entertainments were  given  by the soldiery.
Always "les americains" were invited and  good  seats
reserved for them. Whenever the  Chefs visited the differ-
ent postes, they were always pressed to stay for dejeuner
or dinner by the Medecin Chef, and the meal was invaria-
bly turned into a small fete. At Mittlach the drivers were
frequently asked to eat at the Medecin Chefs  popote, and
at the different  popoles at Wilier, at Saint-Amarin, at
Nenette, the Americans were always welcome. On the
4th of July, Commandant Arboux sent a message of
felicitation to the Detachment, and that night the Ameri-
cans gave a dinner to which they invited the officers of
S.S. Eighty-Four, and at which the citizens  of Mollau
presented them with a huge formal bouquet. The  pres-
entation was made  by an Alsatian girl in full national
costume, and all the Americans insisted on thanking her
in person on both cheeks. The  Detachment was also host
on the 4th to all the men of  the French section at an
                        515 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
afternoon party, at which wine, cakes, and cigarettes were
served.  One of the drivers in the  French section was
Charliez, the leader of the orchestra at the Cafe de Paris
in Paris, and he supplied music on his violin for many of
these festivities, the musical selections ranging all  the
way from Chopin to  "Annie  Rooney." On the 14th of
July, S.S. Eighty-Four had  a wonderful  party which
lasted almost continuously from 11.30  a.m. till 10 p.m.,
and the Americans were enthusiastic guests. On this
occasion all the citizens of the valley were in the  full
national Alsatian costume; American, French, and Allied
flags were seen everywhere; band concerts were given in
many of the towns; and wherever the Americans appeared;
they were greeted with cheers. In fact, this friendly feel-
ing between French and Americans is one of the pleasant-
est souvenirs of our sojourn in Alsace.
   The Vosges Detachment made no records for "num-
ber of blesses carried,"  nor for the "number of kilometres
run," but it played its part in the game all the same. It
kept  alive in the minds of  the Alsatians the knowledge
that  America was with them in spirit even before we
entered the war; it maintained the good feeling that all
the French officers and poilus had for the American vol-
unteers; and it did  its work in the true spirit  of  the
American Field Service — that of helping France no mat-
ter what the work or where it led.
                            Joseph R. Greenwood 1
  1 Of New York City, Princeton, '05; served in Section Eight of the
Field Service, February to June, 1917, the Vosges Detachment, June to
August, and Section Fifteen, from October to November, 1917; became a
First Lieutenant and subsequently Captain, U.S.A. Ambulance Service,
commanding first a Section, then a Pare. 
END OF VOLUME I 
 
 
 
 
THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE IN  THE BALKANS
Miles  48 = 1  In. 
MAP  OF  THE  AMERICAN   FIELD  SERVICE  IN  FRANCE  DURING  1915,  1916, 1917

Bakyanjrt

Bar-le-Doe
                                                                                       GEOGRAPHICAL  INDEX

: — Names followed by a single letter and a figure wUl be found in the squares on the large map.  Those followed by two letters and a figure will be found in the squares^ the three ins
                                     the large map, " V " standing for the Verdun or uppermost inset, " R " for the  Reims inset, and " S " for the lower inset of the Soissons region
i the upper right and lower left corners (
Bayoovtlkn       C-6
BcauraU         E-9
B«*uri««              R-c-6

Bdkvuc(FcniK)         V-I-a
Bdnipt          J-«   V-i-a


Bcthctai&viUc        .   V-d-a
BAbui*          C-j
Bixu Saint Gcnaaio  E-8
Billancourt        B-9
BUItmoot (Chateaa)       V-*-3

Btaaay           E-8   S-<H
                    R-c-j
                    V-d-a
WaaayJia-FiM
B^PrtU*
Bra»(PttiD
Br«y-«utsr
K-«	V-*,
l-»	
r-t	
	
	V-b-3
1-9	
	
	S-i-J
	V-*-J
	
	
	
K-€	
l-«	
	V-p,
	
CabamRoup
Caiaia

Cappy

Canibre dHaudranooi
V-M
c-s
Carlarube
      HaudrotDOoi

Cauroy           F-7   R-*-l
Centuil          E-«
Cnainttu-Bi«fgc*    Oo
CUloaa-tur.MaRM   Og
cau-Thierry     E-9
Chavigny         D-«   S-C-4
Cbetka           C-9
Cbonis-dca-Damea   F-7   R-b-«

Cotbdl
Couriandos

Couniaola
Cmiaaaj					ElvndtBcbe	D-a	
							
					Epioal		
					Eri»frU-PetiU		
							
fw££			isr*		Evr*		
							
Cusny							
							
Cuia^				j-e v-«-3	FcrU-Mlloo Oa)		
Copedy	G-9		Dunkoqa.	C-I	Fertc-aoua-Jouam Fay-«n-Haya	K-fl	
				E		F-6	
[ >ampicTre-k-Caata»				E~l S-d-3	Flavifny		
	J>ia			0-9	FUvy-fe-Martel		
	H-9	\-t-4	Ekya				
Fkury-aur-Aire      ..   V-c-j

Foataine~Mir-Coote   G-10
                    S-b-i
        *e          V-c-a
               J-9
                    V-e-*

 
-mi


UH 500 H673 1920




14310130R
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