IV

LA TERRE PROMISE

Of course I at once left my ambulance and ran to the square, knowing how rarely one ever saw quotation marks after the Généralissime's name. I was, however, too late to hear what he had to say, for, laconic as ever, he had finished speaking when I came within earshot. Opposite a gray brick church was a line of eight flag-bedecked automobiles, six for the Généralissime and his staff and two for emergencies which, I am told, is the way he always travels. General Joffre himself, standing on the ground and surrounded by officers ablaze with decorations, was listening to fifty little Alsatian girls singing the "Marseillaise." They were finishing the last verse when I arrived, and when their sweet childish voices no longer rang out in contrast to the brilliant but grim surroundings, General Joffre, stepping out from among his officers, held one of the prettiest of the little girls high in his powerful arms and kissed her twice. The next day driving through this town again I noticed the following sign:—

Le GénéralJoffre,Généralissime des Armées de la Républiquea déjeuné dans cette maison.Le 15èmeBataillon de Chasseurs Alpins occupant cette région.Délivrée par lui le 7 Août 1914.

Alsace has been for forty years German territory. For forty years young Alsatians have been forced to learn German in the schools, to serve in the German army, to be links in the civil and military chains which bound them to the Kaiser's empire. A few days ago I took the photograph of an Alsatian girl standing in the doorway of her home, which she said she was going to send through Switzerland to her brother in the German army "somewhere in Russia." But French hearts doubtless beat under many a German uniform, and those of us who have lived in Alsace are confident that re-annexation by France will not be a slow or a difficult process. Alsace has been tied to France by something which forty busy years have not found a way to change. The armies of the Republic have been received with an open hand and an open heart. I know of a fine field hospital organized and staffed entirely by Alsatian ladies happy to be nursing wounded French soldiers. I know of Alsatian boys, at the outbreak of the war not yet old enough to have commenced their German military training, who are to-day volunteer, and only volunteer, French soldiers.

We have drawn our impressions of Alsace chiefly from five or six towns in a commercial valley. They are subject to long-range shelling and bombs droppedfrom aeroplanes. Indeed, my first day in Alsace was spent in the yard of a hospital contrived out of a schoolhouse. Our cars were parked beneath the windows of one of its wings, and all day long one heard the pitiful moans of a mother and her two little daughters who had been wounded the night before when the Germans had dropped half a dozen shells into the town where they lived.

But these towns seem to be, on the whole, cheerful, prosperous places. Soldiers resting from the trenches flirt the time away with bilingual Alsatian girls. Horns, claxons, and the hum of motors make in the little mountain-smothered streets the noises of Broadway or Piccadilly. The cafés and stores are full from morning until eight o'clock, when all lights must be put out.

Nothing is taken by the soldiery without being paid for, a fact that was brought sharply home to me on one occasion. We needed wood for the kitchen-fire of a little dressing-station hidden on a tree-covered mountain-top. I picked up an axe and started to get some exercise and the wood for the fire at the same time; but the cook excitedly told me that not even in that out-of-the-way place, unless he had the proper military authorization, would he dare cut down a tree, because the commune must be paid for, every twig of it.

But, interesting as these towns are, it is beyond them that we do our most useful work. I am writing,as it happens, at a dressing-station between the artillery and the infantry lines where two of our cars are always on duty. The driver of the other car, eight months ago, was in charge of a cattle ranch in the Argentine, and last May, a passenger on the ill-fated Lusitania, was rescued after four hours in the water. He is on his back tightening bolts underneath his car, and a hole in the left sole of his projecting shoes tells of hours with the low speed jammed on, for this is the way we have to drive down as well as up hill.

We are at one end of a valley which, opening gradually, runs into the basin of the Rhine. Our two ambulances are backed up against a hay-loft dressing-station among a little group of houses frequently mentioned in thecommuniqués. At this minute the place is as peaceful as any Florida glade; it does not seem possible that war can be so near, so completely hushed. There is little military in the appearance of a few stretcher-bearers, dressed in the discarded clothes of peace, throwing stones into an apple tree; there is not a gun to be seen; there is not a sound to be heard unless you listen to catch the splash of a mountain stream or the tinkle of the bells tied around the necks of the cows grazing high up on a green but ladder-steep mountain-side. Coming down the road towards me is a little barefooted boy driving a half-dozen cows to where some girls are waiting in a pen to milk them. A little later, when my companion and I sit down to dinner with the youngmédecin auxiliairein charge of the post, there will be some of this milk on the table.

But long before dinner-time the whole surrounding aspect may change as if by black magic. Tree-hidden batteries, some only a hundred yards away and some on the tops of neighboring and surrounding mountains, may speak together with their "brutal lungs" until the echoes, rolling and accumulating, make a grand, persistent roar. Even trench-weary soldiers will unconsciously duck their heads and stand ready to run to the bomb-proofs if the answering German shells begin to fall close to them. After dark the wounded will arrive, carried on stretchers, rested on men's shoulders, or pushed in wheelbarrows, to the hay-loft where a doctor, working almost entirely without anæsthetics, treats such cases as the doctors in the trench dressing-stations passed without attention.

By this time also, on a night when many wounded are arriving, six or eight more American ambulances will be summoned by telephone. There will be no headlights used; only a great swinging of lanterns and much shouting back and forth in French and English. Although the firing after dark will not be so general, one or two batteries will continue to break out sharply every few minutes. One of our squad leaders will be on hand as driver in charge of the situation. "Are you ready to roll?" he will call to somebody as the doctor comes up and speaks to him. A dark figure standing by a car will lean over andspin a crank, an engine will sputter and pour forth smoke, for we must use a double supply of oil on these grades. Then an ambulance will back up to the door of the barn and the driver, leaving his engine throttled down, will help in lifting the stretchers.

To go from this place to the sorting-point behind the lines to which the wounded are taken is the worst run we have. It means almost always wondering if your car will make the grades, if you acted properly in letting yourself be persuaded to take three wounded instead of the specified two. It means coming upon comradesen panneand lending a hand or hurrying on with the distress signal, stopping to pour water into your boiling radiator, halting to pass convoys, arguments, decisions, "noms-de-Dieu," backing to a wider place, wheels that nearly go over the edge, pot-bellied munition-wagons that scrape off your side boxes, getting into a ditch and having to be pulled out by mules or pushed out by men.

It is a journey fraught with worry, for there is always the danger of delay when delay may mean death and is sure to mean suffering for the wounded in your car. And sometimes when, with bad cases aboard, you are stuck and can't get out until somebody turns up to help you, it is unbearable to stay near your car and hear their pitiful groans.

But the down part of the journey is full of more acute dangers. You are at the mercy of your brakes. If they fail you, there is only the bank. A quick turnof the steering-wheel and you are all right; that is, there will be only a cruel shaking-up for the men you are carrying and a broken radius rod or perhaps a smashed radiator. But this is better than going over the bank and better than running amuck through a train of mules with their deadly loads of explosives.

Only during the last two months have we been able to use the first ten kilometres of this road at all. Even now for the climbing part of the journey we take none but the more seriously wounded, leaving the rest to be carried in light wagons pulled by mules, until they get to some mountain-top relay-point where our cars are stationed. Most of these relay-points are very close to one or several French batteries. Some of them are established in the midst of thriving cantonments buried in the woods and within sight of the German trenches on a sister mountain-top. Others, farther removed from the enemy lines and higher above the level of destruction, are on summits suitable only for the biggest of the French guns and reached in turn only by the very long-range German guns.

THE HARVARD CLUB OF ALSACE RECONQUISE

Such a place is a mountain-top at which we feel almost as much at home as at our base, for eight of our cars are always on duty at this place, each man serving for a week at a time, and one man being relieved every day. It is one of those plateau-shaped eminences which are mentioned in geographies as distinguishing the Vosges from the Alps and the Pyrenees. It is treeless through exposure to thewind, and its brow slopes gradually towards the French side, with a succession of cuplike hollows tenanted by brush-covered bomb-proofs and dug-outs and horse-sheds. Other than topographical concealments are also employed; gray horses are dyed brown and groups of road-builders when at work in some particularly exposed place carry, like the army that went against Macbeth, umbrellas of branches.

We are housed here in a long, low shack built against the side of the crest. Violent storms sometimes take the roof off this shack with the consequent drenching of the surgeon in charge, ourselves, a half-dozen stretcher-bearers and as many mule-drivers. Bunks are built crosswise against the side of the walls, and over some of these bunks the words "Pour Intransportables" are written. The rest, however, are occupied by people on duty here, for it is merely a relay-point, and the wounded, unless unable to stand a further journey or arriving by mules in numbers greater than we can handle, are merely changed from one mode of conveyance to another and given such attention in passing as they may need.

When one of the beds forintransportablesis occupied, it generally means that the man dies in a few days and is 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 marked with one of thosesimple wooden crosses from which no mile of northern France is free. Deaths of this sort are peculiarly sad. Anybody who has nursed in the wards of a military hospital will tell you how soldiers, seasoned in trenches that high explosives and mines and hand-grenades have turned into shambles, will grow gloomy when one man in their ward dies. It is the same way with these single deaths and lonely funerals at the front.

Generals, of course, stand for the "larger issues" of the war; it is their decisions that figure in to-morrow'scommuniqués. But at the front, doctors represent destiny in a much more picturesque way: it is no use putting theseblessésin an ambulance; death will close over them quite as gently here as twenty kilometres farther to the rear. This man's rheumatism demands that he be sent to Lyons or Marseilles; that one has five days in a base hospital and is in the trenches for the next death revel. A business-like surgeon pronounces his judgments in a ghastlyposte de secours,—it is nothing compared with "strategical necessities,"—it will have no place beside announcements of yards of trenches taken and yards of trenches lost,—and yet, it is life or death for some brave soldier and all in the world that counts for some family circle.

These mountain-tops are often for weeks on end bathed in a heavy mist varied by rainstorms. Atsuch times when there is no work to do,—and very frequently there are no wounded to carry for twenty-four hours or more,—the surgeon, ourselves, thebrancardiers, and the mule-drivers, close in around the stove. One of thesebrancardiers, or stretcher-carriers, 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 are endless and interesting, and, after listening to them for a week, we all go back to our base calling soldiers nothing butpoilus; coffee,jus; wine,pinard; canned beef,singe; army organization,système D. There is also a good deal of reading done by many of the Section on the rainy days of no work. It is part of the daily relieving man's unofficial but well-understood duties to bring along any magazines and newspapers that he can get hold of, and generally, too, books gradually accumulate and grow to be considered as a sort of library that must not be taken away. Indeed, at oneposte de secoursour library consists at present of two or three French novels and plays, "The Newcomes," a two-volume "Life of Ruskin," "Tess of the D'Urbervilles," and "Les Misérables."

When a group of men are on duty at an isolatedposte de secourslike this, 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 towards 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 cheery and soldierlike they were! Not one of them, like you, is sleeping in blankets. They won't, like you, go back to-morrow to a pleasant dinner, with pleasant friends, in a pleasant hotel, and out of sound, too, of those awful guns. 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 isen pannehalfway down the mountain."

And you begin to take things in with one of the Section'ssous-chefsleaning over your cot with the news that the first man on the list has a load of wounded and has met with 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 ambulance; 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.

The arrival of the relieving car at one of those posts on a rainy day, when every one of us is to be found within twenty feet of the stove, means a demand in chorus for mail and after that for news, especially Section gossip from Headquarters, which means who has had to wash cars and who has broken downen route.

"Number 52 runs like a breeze now. I drove it yesterday and it climbed thecolon high with two wounded," the newcomer will say, producing some contribution to the mess.

"And last night, there was a call for three cars at midnight. Didn't any of the wounded come this way?So-and-So had magneto trouble bringing back his first load. He said Henry Ford himself could not have started the boat. So the repair car went out at four o'clock this morning."

"That boy certainly has his troubles. Do you remember the time he had two blow-outs and four punctures in twenty-four hours and then had all his brake-bands go at once? It was two miles he ran to get another car to take his wounded."

"He looked low when he came in about breakfast time," somebody else will put in.

"I tell you hewilluse too much oil. It goes through these old cars like a dose of salts," a third will add.

On bad days the discussion will go on this way until time for the next meal. But on clear days during summer and early autumn weather, we have stayed indoors very little. The air is champagne-like and the view on all sides magnificent. It is possible, also, from a number of these eminences to follow in a fascinating fashion the progress of artillery duels, and, with a good pair of glasses, even to see infantry 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 the general greenness. Thesky, too, is generally dotted with these same little flaky clouds when aeroplanes are abroad. And aeroplanes are abroad every fair day, for they are seldom or never hit and brought down, although the anti-aircraft guns, especially when hedging them in with "barrier fire," seem to limit their activities.

Soldiers, as I have said, march by these posts on their way to and from the trenches. Whenever they are allowed to break ranks near our cars they crowd around us with little bottles in their hands asking for gasoline to put in cigarette lighters which they make out of German bullets. Most of these men belong to battalions of Chasseurs Alpins, and I do not suppose there are any finer soldiers in the world than those stocky, merry-eyed men from the mountain provinces of France, with their picturesque caps and their dark-blue coats set off by their horison-blue trousers. They are called, indeed, the "blue devils," and when thecommuniquéssay, "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 country especially, make the "meaning of a mile" so terrible.

One of our Section who was compelled to return to America the other day took with him as his single keepsake a crumpled photograph with a signaturescrawled in one corner. It was of asous-officierof a famous battalion of Chasseurs Alpins. His heavy pack was jauntily thrown over his shoulders; hisberretwas rakishly tilted to one side; and on his breast gleamed the green and red ribbon of theCroix de Guerre, the crimson of theLégion d'Honneur, and the yellow of theMédaille Militaire.

You could find no better symbol of the laughing gallantry, the sturdy strength, and the indomitable courage of France.

Preston Lockwood

Chasseur Alpin 1915.

Chasseur Alpin 1915

LAST DAYS IN ALSACE

ByDecember 20, the approximate date of the beginning of the French attack upon the German positions on Hartmannsweilerkopf, the headquarters of Section 3 of the American Ambulance had been moved temporarily to a place called Moosch. Here was located a large modern hospital to which the wounded were brought from the dressing-stations in the mountains, two or three kilometres behind the lines of advance trenches. From this hospital theblesséswere moved into the interior as fast as their condition would permit. It was the duty of the small American Ford ambulances to bring the wounded from these mountain stations down to the hospital at Moosch.

Moosch, a typical Alsatian town, consisting of a few large buildings, the "Mairie," the church, a hotel or two, and perhaps a weaving mill, about which are clustered the homes and stores and cafés or combination of these latter, is situated in the valley of the river Thur. This valley runs up, and west or slightly north of west, to the divide, between the Moselle River and the Thur, this divide making the old boundary between French and German territory; and down in a south of east direction until the mountains end and we enter the plain that forms part of the drainage basin of the Rhine. Moosch is abouthalfway down this valley and about twelve kilometres from the front, which was on the last row of hills before the beginning of this plain.

The valley itself ranges from one to two kilometres in width and the green forest-clad mountains rise on each side to a height of three hundred to four hundred metres. In the floor of the valley were orchards, open fields, and small towns. Down the centre of it was the broad road which continued up and over the divide into France. It formed, aside from an aerial tramway that the French constructed over the divide especially for this war, the only avenue of traffic for the supplies of ammunition, guns, food, etc., for the armies that were situated in this district. As a consequence it was night and day a scene of activity throughout its entire length. Down the valley this road had two important branches, one at a point six kilometres from Moosch and another at eight. Both these branches followed the course of small creeks that feed the river Thur, up and up the small valleys through which the streams flowed, then turned up the mountain-side and climbed to the top of one of the larger hills. One route was used for traffic ascending, the other for all descending, except for any that was required by Red Cross Stations or artillery posts along the way. In this manner much passing of the up and down streams of wagons, mules, motor trucks, etc., which would have been well-nigh impossible on these steep, narrow roads, was avoided.

On the mountain-top was a small space, somewhat cleared of the forest growth, where three roads met, two that have already been mentioned and another that went over one shoulder of the mountains and down to an advanceposte de secours, practically under Hartmannsweilerkopf itself. In one angle of the "Y" formed by these roads were a few roughly constructed buildings for taking care of the wounded, cooking, etc., and in another nothing but the steep slope of the mountain with a cabin or two tucked close against it amid the pine woods. In the last angle was a small graveyard where lay the men who had died from wounds there at the station or had been killed during the bombardment of some local artillery post or of the road. Next to this graveyard was a limited parking-space for the ambulances, and beyond this the cosy little building, theposte de secours, where the French stretcher-bearers and American drivers ate and slept together when not at work.

This place was popular among the Americans, at first, at least, before the Germans captured a colonel with telltale maps upon his person, and their guns began to find and make uninhabitable a spot that had once seemed a secure retreat. Up in the fresh air and ozone of the pine woods, it was hard, in spite of the graveyard near by and the ever-passing stream of ammunition wagons or pack trains, not to think of this place as a pleasant vacation ground. The Frenchmen, too, were wonderful companions, playful as boys of ten, and kind and generous to a fault.After a snowstorm, unless there was a great deal of work, there was sure to be a tremendous snow battle in progress, and the Frenchmen, old territorials some of them, forty to fifty to sixty years of age, would be as hard after one another as boys in their mimic wars. Their generosity went so far as surrendering their bunks to the Americans while they slept out in the ambulances. At times the littleposte de secourswould be a scene of revelry, the professional entertainer taking part in the programme of the evening with the country songster. More often, however, the Frenchmen were busy and the Americans would amuse themselves with some deep, protracted argument or read the latest book on the war that some kind friend had sent to a member of the Section. At night the little hut had its bunks filled to overflowing, but sleeping was generally good, unless your bedfellow happened to be a soldier dreaming of battle or a mule-driver dreaming of swearing at his mules. At night there were always one or two interruptions, especially whenever an ambulance-driver was wanted. Those who were sent to call him always succeeded in waking the whole lot of sleepers before finding the man whose turn it was to "roll."

WINTER DAYS IN ALSACE

This "night rolling," as it is called, is not the easiest thing to do by any means. The road, steep and narrow and rough at any time, would in snowy or rainy weather cause an occasional sinking of the heart to the best of drivers. To these difficulties was added the necessity of passing the slowly descending trainsof ammunition wagons and mules. On one stretch of road no lights were permitted, as they would have disclosed its location to the Germans. On nights when there was no moonlight and heavy mists enshrouded the mountains, it was a trying nerve strain to come down this bit of road. The history of every car would be full of stories of narrow escapes from running into wagons, mules, or men, or running over the edge of the road or against the side of the hill. These difficulties and trials, however, weren't what would occupy the mind when the German shells began breaking near; they lose their importance entirely. One can get used to the blind driving on a dark night, but never to the high-explosive shells. Even on the floor of the valley where the road is level, the thrills might not cease, for here it has been a common experience to run into an unlighted wagon or to be smashed by a heavy, ponderous motor truck. Perhaps it would be a mere matter of getting ditched in the effort to get out of the way of the latter. But with the Ford this was never a serious trouble, as eight or ten men, and they were always to be had in a few moments on any part of the road, could quickly lift it out and put it on the road again. Out of the most severe smash-ups the Fords have emerged supreme and in every case proved the statement that a "Ford car can be bent but not broken."

At the hospital the wounded would be taken out, new blankets and stretchers put in, the gas tank filled, and the car sent up the mountain again to waitfor moreblessésunless it was time for the driver to turn in and get a bit of sleep.

During the day a call would very often mean a trip down the other side of the mountain to the advance posts nearer Hartmannsweilerkopf. While day driving hasn't the terrors of night driving, yet the road near these two posts and the posts themselves were more often the object for German fire, and it was with a little feeling of dread that one went there. The road down to it was exceedingly steep in places and few cars could make the return trip with a full load. There never was any anxiety about stalling, however, for a little assistance from eight or ten soldiers would send the car on its way again. Many a time a driver would unconsciously arrive at the posts at a time of bombardment and be told to leave his machine and hurry to anabri. Anabriis a cave or dug-out in the side of the mountain offering protection against the German shells. All along the mountain roads these little places of refuge began to appear after the Germans had learned how to drop shells consistently near these routes, and to see them thus was a real comfort to the mind whenever the whistle of a shell sounded unpleasantly loud and near. These caves were not always in a finished state, as a big broad-shouldered driver learned to his discomfort and the vexation of his two comrades. They were taking a look at Hartmanns from a portion of the road whence it can be seen, when the portentous sound of the flying shells began which kept comingnearer and nearer. The Americans turned and ran up the road to one of theseabris, the big man leading. He darted for the cave entrance, but his body was just too big and he was wedged tightly between the stone sides, while his two comrades pounded on his back clamoring for admittance. He decided it was more comfortable and safe flat against the rocks in front of the car, and safer, too, than in a hole the entrance to which might so easily be closed.

One was not always compelled to be conscious of such unpleasant things as bursting shells. At slack periods when neither side was firing, and the traffic was not too heavy up and down the roads, the trip up and over the mountains could be one of the pleasantest of rides. Sometimes after a snowstorm the mountain forest scenes were magnificent, and there was the occasional wonderful expanse of view over valley and plain below. Away off on the German side could be seen the town of M—— which was brightly illuminated at night. The Germans seemed indifferent to the fact that these lights were a great temptation to the French gunners. As far as known, the latter seldom yield to this temptation to bombard civilians despite the fact that the Germans were shelling towns, needlessly it seemed, in the territory held by France. Many pleasant rides after the attack, in the warm sunshine of the spring days that came in January, will stay in the minds of the drivers, a contrast to the rushing trips taken in slush and mud and snow during the height of the attack.

EFFECT OF GERMAN SHELLS IN ALSACE (THANN)

ON THE ROAD TO HARTMANNSWEILERKOPF, DECEMBER, 1915

The time spent in Moosch at the hospital was nearly always a period of activity and interest. There were sure to be minor repairs needing attention, tire-changing to be done, and often more difficult matters to attend to, such as eliminating the knock in an engine, changing brake-bands, or putting in a new rear axle. The hospital itself looked across the valley to the hills beyond, upon one of which was anchored a small sausage-shaped balloon, such as is used all along the French line for observation purposes. One hundred metres back of the hospital rose the hills forming the other side of the valley. On the slope of one of these was the rapidly growing graveyard where the bodies of the soldiers who had died at the hospitals were laid. Among them was the body of Richard Hall, the young American ambulance driver who lost his life during the attack, when his machine was struck by a shell on the road up the mountain. On the east side of the hospital passed a small road that led up to the graveyard, and beyond this was an open field where an aero bomb fell with disastrous results to one fowl and to the windows of the hospital on that side. In the hospital yard on this side were put the ambulances needing repairing, and in rush times part of the other side of the yard was also required. Here was rather a good-sized building, the front end of which was the morgue and the other end the laundry. Behind it was a small shelter where the bloody stretchers were cleaned. It was in these surroundings, with the rowsof coffins on one side and the stretcher-cleaning on the other, that much of the repair work was done during the height of the attack. Here, too, would form the military funeral processions that went with the bodies to the graveyard on the hill. Two funerals a day of one to five coffins was the regular schedule in the busy days of the attack. One of the most intensely interesting sights was the gathering of the whole regiment, of those who were left after the attack, about this graveyard to give a last formal salute to their departed comrades.

Hardly a day passed during the period of the attack when the village was not shelled, and when it was clear, the German aeroplanes would appear and drop their bombs or smoke signals, or seek to destroy the observation balloon of the French, descending as near to it as they dared. One of the prettiest sights of the war is to see the little tufts of cloud appear near the course of the speeding machine whenever the shrapnel bombs burst. The cloudlets formed by the French shells are white, by those of the Germans, black. It was surprising how difficult it seemed for gunners to get anywhere near the aeroplanes. They would pepper the sky in every direction except near the moving spot they were trying to hit. At rare intervals both German and French machines were up, and their manœuvring for an advantage was always interesting. The interest, however, in this sort of thing changes after a few bombs have been dropped and their terrific effect seen.

Such is the general story of the activity and life of the Section's last months in Alsace. Its details would include many stories of tight squeezes, of break-downs and troubles in hot places, of the carrying of soldiers driven mad under the strain of war, of having men die in your car on the way to the hospital, of short side trips right up amidst the French artillery stations, and always of the patient, quiet suffering of the French soldier. There would be stories of the days when the car would have "moods," and refuse to make the grades as it ought, and then again of times when nothing was too much for the engine to do.

After the attack we were moved from Alsace farther inland, and after some wandering from place to place through a country that had been the scene of much fighting in the earlier part of the war, and through villages almost completely destroyed by the Germans, we were sent to a town near Nancy—Tantonville—to do ambulance work for the hospitals situated within a twenty-five-kilometre radius and to wait until our cars could be overhauled and repaired.[3]

Everett Jackson

[3]This Section subsequently rendered heroic service in the great battle of Verdun, and has since been sent to Salonica to serve with the French army of the Orient. (November, 1918).

THE SECTION IN LORRAINE

Though desolation stain their foiled advance,In ashen ruins hearth-stones linger whole:Do what they may they cannot master France,Do what they can, they cannot quell the soul.

Though desolation stain their foiled advance,

In ashen ruins hearth-stones linger whole:

Do what they may they cannot master France,

Do what they can, they cannot quell the soul.

Barrett Wendell

AN INTRODUCTION BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT[4]

I verycordially call attention to this account of the work of one of the field sections of the American Ambulance in France, told out of his own experience by a young man, a graduate of the University of Virginia, who has been driving an ambulance at the front. The article came through Hon. A. Piatt Andrew, formerly Assistant Secretary of the United States Treasury, and for two years treasurer of the American Red Cross. Mr. Andrew has taken an active part in the organization of the work. He writes that many American college graduates are engaged in the field sections, and that they and others "have been working for months with a devotion and courage which have commanded glowing tributes of gratitude and admiration from many French officers." In a second letter Mr. Andrew states that the faithful Mignot (spoken of in this article) was killed when the Germans bombarded the headquarters of the field section.Every young man just leaving college—from Harvard, from Yale, from Princeton, from Michigan, Wisconsin, or California, from Virginia or Sewanee, in short, from every college in the country—ought to feel it incumbent on him at this time either to try to render some assistance to those who are battling for the right on behalf of Belgium, or else to try to fit himself to help hisown country if in the future she is attacked as wantonly as Belgium has been attacked. The United States has played a most ignoble part for the last thirteen months. Our Government has declined to keep its plighted faith, has declined to take action for justice and right, as it was pledged to take action under the Hague Conventions. At the same time, it has refused to protect its own citizens; and it has refused even to prepare for its own defence. It has treated empty rhetoric and adroit phrase-making as a substitute for deeds. In spite of our solemn covenant to see that the neutrality of unoffending nations like Belgium was not violated; our solemn covenant to see that undefended towns were not bombarded, as they have been again and again bombarded in France, England, and Belgium, and hundreds of women and children killed; our solemn covenant to see that inhuman and cruel methods of warfare—such as the use of poisonous gas—were not used, we have, in a spirit of cold, selfish, and timid disregard of our obligations for others, refused even to protest against such wrongdoing, and, with abject indifference to right, the professional pacifists have spent their time merely in clamoring for a peace that should consecrate successful wrong. What is even more serious, we have wholly failed to act effectively when our own men, women, and children were murdered on the high seas by the order of the German Government. Moreover, we have declined to take any effective steps when our men have been murdered and our women raped in Mexico—and of all ineffective steps the last proposal to get Bolivia and Guatemala to do what we have not the manliness to do was the most ineffective.But there have been a few individuals who, acting as individuals or in organizations, have to a limited extent by their private efforts made partially good our governmental shortcomings. The body of men and women for whom Mr. Andrew speaks is one of these organizations. I earnestly hope that his appeal will be heeded and that everything possible will be done to continue to make the work effective.Theodore Roosevelt

Every young man just leaving college—from Harvard, from Yale, from Princeton, from Michigan, Wisconsin, or California, from Virginia or Sewanee, in short, from every college in the country—ought to feel it incumbent on him at this time either to try to render some assistance to those who are battling for the right on behalf of Belgium, or else to try to fit himself to help hisown country if in the future she is attacked as wantonly as Belgium has been attacked. The United States has played a most ignoble part for the last thirteen months. Our Government has declined to keep its plighted faith, has declined to take action for justice and right, as it was pledged to take action under the Hague Conventions. At the same time, it has refused to protect its own citizens; and it has refused even to prepare for its own defence. It has treated empty rhetoric and adroit phrase-making as a substitute for deeds. In spite of our solemn covenant to see that the neutrality of unoffending nations like Belgium was not violated; our solemn covenant to see that undefended towns were not bombarded, as they have been again and again bombarded in France, England, and Belgium, and hundreds of women and children killed; our solemn covenant to see that inhuman and cruel methods of warfare—such as the use of poisonous gas—were not used, we have, in a spirit of cold, selfish, and timid disregard of our obligations for others, refused even to protest against such wrongdoing, and, with abject indifference to right, the professional pacifists have spent their time merely in clamoring for a peace that should consecrate successful wrong. What is even more serious, we have wholly failed to act effectively when our own men, women, and children were murdered on the high seas by the order of the German Government. Moreover, we have declined to take any effective steps when our men have been murdered and our women raped in Mexico—and of all ineffective steps the last proposal to get Bolivia and Guatemala to do what we have not the manliness to do was the most ineffective.

But there have been a few individuals who, acting as individuals or in organizations, have to a limited extent by their private efforts made partially good our governmental shortcomings. The body of men and women for whom Mr. Andrew speaks is one of these organizations. I earnestly hope that his appeal will be heeded and that everything possible will be done to continue to make the work effective.

Theodore Roosevelt

[4]The account of the American Ambulance in Lorraine by Mr. J. R. McConnell was printed in theOutlookfor September 15, 1915, and is reprinted here by kind permission of the editors of that journal. The introduction by Theodore Roosevelt and the drawing by M. Bils also originally appeared in theOutlookand are republished here. (Editor's Note.)

A smallfield ambulance with a large red cross on each of its gray canvas sides slips quickly down the curving cobblestone street of a quaint old French frontier town, and turns on to the road leading tothepostes de secours(dressing-stations) behind the trenches, which are about two kilometres distant. The driver is uniformed in khaki, and is in striking contrast to the hundreds of blue-gray-clad soldiers loitering on the streets. A group of little children cry out, "Américain," and, with beaming smiles, one of them executes a rigid though not very correct salute as the car goes by. A soldier yells, "Good-morning, sir!" another, "Hello, Charley!" and waves his hand, while others not gifted with such an extensive command of English content themselves with "Bonjour!" and "Camarade!" The little car spins on past companies of tired, dusty soldiers returning from the trenches, and toots to one side the fresher-looking sections that are going up for their turn. A sentinel stands out in the middle of the road and makes frantic motions with his hand to indicate that shrapnel is bursting over the road ahead. "I should worry," comes from the driver, and the car speeds serenely along the way.

It is an ambulance of the Section Sanitaire Américaine, Y, the squad that has just beencité à l'ordre de l'armée(honorably mentioned in despatches).

The drivers of these cars are all American volunteers: young men who, for the most part, come from prominent families in the States. All parts of the Union seem to be represented. The Sections are composed of from fifteen to twenty-five cars each, and are under the direction of a Section commander. While the cars are allotted to the Sections by the AmericanAmbulance Hospital, directed by its officers, and in part supported by the organization, they nevertheless become an integral part of the Sanitary Service of the French army, to which they are assigned as soon as they enter the war zone. The cars andconducteurs, as the drivers are called, are militarized, and all general orders come from the French medical officers. The French Government supplies the gasoline, oil, and tires, and thepersonnelof the Sections are housed and fed by the army. They are given the same good food and generous ration that the French soldier receives. Attached to each Section is a French non-commissioned officer who attends to various details and acts as interpreter. Section Y is favored by the addition of an armychef, and the Section commander's orderly has been put in the general service of all the members.

It is forbidden to give the location of any of the active units of the French army, and as this restriction holds good for Section Y, which is at the very front, I cannot give any details that would indicate the point in the line where the Section is stationed. I believe it is allowable to say that the town is very old and possesses a rare beauty. I have never seen a place that could boast of such a number of exquisite gardens or such a lovely encircling boulevard. The surrounding hilly country is charming and pregnant with the most romantic historical associations. Its reputation as a history-making region is certainly not suffering at the present.

The Americans are quartered in a large buildingthat had not been occupied since the mobilization in August, 1914. There are countless rooms already furnished, and those on the first floor have been cleaned up so that now the Section, which consists of twenty-four men, has "all the comforts of home." There is a large mess-hall, kitchen, writing-room, library, general office, dormitory, and a good, generous vaulted cellar of easy access. This last adjunct is important, for the town is one of the most frequently bombarded places in the line, and very often big shells that wreck a house at one shot make it advisable to take to the cave. Theatelierof thearmurier(armorer's work-shop), with its collection of tools and fixtures, now serves as a perfect automobile repair shop. There is also running water, and at first we had both gas and electric lights; but shells have eventually put both systems out of commission. Naturally the telephone line gets clipped every few days, but that is essential, and so it is quickly repaired. Behind the headquarters is a gem of a garden containing several species of roses, and, as fortune would have it, new wicker chairs. At first it all seemed too good to be true. It did not seem possible that such an amazing combination of comforts could exist in the war zone, and still less so when one 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 are seen. To Section Y, that had hibernated and drudged along at Beauvais some thirty-five kilometres behind the line until April, it was a realizationof hopes beyond belief. Of course, as far as the comforts are concerned, all may change. Any minute orders may arrive that will shift us, and then it may mean sleeping on straw, occupying barns or any available shelter; but while the present conditions obtain we beg to differ with Sherman!

A French Motor Ambulance Section had been handling the wounded of the division to which our squad was attached, and we at first supplemented their work. To start with, French orderlies went out with the American drivers on calls to show them the working of the system, but after two or three days the Americans fell into the work as if it had been a life's practice, and, in spite of a lack of conversational ability, managed to evacuate the wounded without a hitch. The Americans did their work so well that they obtained the entire confidence of the authorities, and in a few weeks the French Section was transferred to another post. It speaks very well for Section Y that all of the work of one of the most important points in the line was entrusted to it alone.

In addition to the actual carrying of wounded, there is a remarkable amount of detail office work; for every report, request, or order has to be made in triplicate, and it keeps the commander of the Section, his assistant, and themaréchaux des logis, supplemented by a corporal and telephonist, very busy running the business and executive end. Then, in addition to the proper despatching of the regular and special services, there are hundreds of delicate situations to handle:requests of the authorities, the satisfying of numerous officers, and the reception of the various dignitaries who come to visit the much-heralded American Section. It is only on account of the exceptional ability and capacity of our diplomatic commander, "Ned" Salisbury, of Chicago, that the Section has been entrusted with such vital responsibilities and that it has been able to perform them with such success.

All the men in the Section had been billeted at houses in a town eight kilometres below, where they slept when not on night duty; but when the French Section was ordered away, a number of the men elected to move up to the advance point, and were given excellent quarters in the various vacated residences of the town. Why, instead of just rooms they had suites, and the commander has an apartment in the show place of the town! It is surrounded by extensive walled grounds which have been made into a ravishing garden of flowering shrubs and trees; little lily-covered, iris-bordered lakes, masses of roses, beds of poppies, and in one sylvan nook is a flower-covered fountain fashioned of great rough stones whose tinkling waters tumble in glittering cascades between riots of vivid-colored plants and dense walls of variegated verdure. To see our commander sitting in his Louis XV furnished rooms, which, by the way, have an excellent trench exposure, reminds me strongly of those paintings which depict generals of 1871 disporting themselves in the splendor of a commandeered château.

From all the foregoing it must not be imagined that Section Y has a sinecure, or that strolling around gardens is a habit. Far from it. The regular daily service is arduous enough in itself, for one is either on duty or on call all of the time; but there are times following an attack when the men rest neither night nor day, when one gets food only in snatches, and frequently days at a time will pass when one is on such continuous service that there is never a chance to undress. Then there is the other aspect, the ever-present danger of being killed or wounded that one is under at the front, for Section Y works and lives in a heavily shelled area. But we will not talk of that, for it is unwise to think of such a thing when facing it. There are times, however, when one is forcibly reminded, and when it takes a great amount of will power to remain calm and perform one's duty.

The mention of shell fire to one who has never experienced it brings to mind, in a vague sort of way, an association with danger, but that is all. To us who have seen its effects—the hideously mangled killed and wounded, the agonized expressions and streams of fast-flowing blood, the crumbling of solid houses into clouds of smoke and dust; to us who hear the terrible tearing, snarling, deep roar of great shells as they hurtle down the air-lanes towards us to detonate with a murderous, ear-splitting crash, flinging their jaggedéclatsfor a half-mile in all directions, and sometimes killing French comrades near us; tous who live and work within shell range, not knowing when we too may be annihilated or maimed for life, it seems a very real and terrible menace, and for that reason to be banished from our thoughts.

In spite of the danger, the Americans render their service with fidelity at any and all times. A French captain once remarked that, no matter how much the town was being shelled, the little field ambulances could be seen slipping down the streets, past corners, or across the square on their way to and frompostes de secoursback 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 the headquarters, and the shells were not falling by 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. He held his order card in front of him as he ran. 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 earthto pat off his shoulders when he came inside. There were several entrances of this sort during the afternoon, and one shell, landing just in front of us and nearly on top of a passing motor lorry, resulted in the addition of the French driver and his aid to our little wall-protected group. It was a day when the shelling seemed to be general, for shrapnel and small 77 shells were also bursting at intervals over and in a little town one passes through in order to avoid a more heavily bombarded outer route on the way to thepostes de secours. It was magnificent descending the hill from thepostesthat afternoon. To the left French 75 shells were in rapid action; and one could see the explosion of the German shells just over the crest of the long ridge where the batteries were firing. It was a clear, sparkling day, and against the vivid green of the hills, across the winding river, the little white puffs of shrapnel exploding over the road below were in perfect relief, while from the red-tiled roofs of the town, nestling in the valley below, tall columns of black smoke spurted up where the large shells struck. Little groups of soldiers, the color of whose uniforms added greatly to the picture, were crowded against the low stone walls lining the road to observe the firing; and one sensed the action and felt the real excitement of the sort of war one imagines instead of the uninteresting horror of the cave-dweller combats that are the rule in this war.

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