Gop>TightN 



JO 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




Major Harold M. Hays, M.C, U.S. Army 



CHEERIO! 

by 
HAROLD M. HAYS 

Major, M. C. U. S. A. 




NEW YORK ALFRED • A • KNOPF 
MCMXIX 



COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY 
HAROLD M. HAYS 




13 ^>1^ 



J 



FEINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMBRICA 



m -9 1919 



©CI.A530491 



DEDICATED 

TO 

LIEUTENANT HAROLD SYDNEY MORGAN, M.R.C., U.S.A. 

WHO WAS "KILLED IN ACTION," APRIL 12th, 1918 
AND TO 

THE OFFICERS OF THE FIELD AMBULANCE 
AND THE BATTALION 

WITH WHOM I SERVED AT THE FRONT 

FROM NOVEMBER 23rd. 1917 

TO 

FEBRUARY 28ih. 1918 

IN GRATEFUL APPRECIATION OF THEIR MANY 

KINDNESSES TO ME 



ARMY ABBREVIATIONS 

C. Commanding Officer. 

M. P Military Police. 

R. T. Railway Transportation Officer. 

A. D. M. S Assistant Director of Medical Services. 

A. D. S Advanced Dressing Station. 

R. A. M. C. . . Royal Army Medical Corps. 

CCS Casualty Clearing Station. 

Ace. W'd Accidental Wound. 

G. S. W'd Gunshot Wound. 

M. Medical Officer. 

A. E. F American Expeditionary Force. 

B. E. F British Expeditionary Force. 

N. C Non-commissioned Officer. 

G. S. Wagon . . General Supply Wagon. 

D. S. C Divisional Supply Column. 

Coy Company. 

S. B Stretcher-bearer. 

I. C. T Inflammation of the Connective Tissue. 

M. D Medicine and Duty. 

R. A. P Regimental Aid Post. 

Hq Headquarters. 

R. C Roman Catholic. 

D. A. D. 0. S. . . Deputy Assistant Director of Ordnance 

Stores. 
R. E Royal Engineers. 



INTRODUCTION 

No other war in history has produced, before its 
finish, such a flood of articles, books, pamphlets 
and commentary of every nature as has this one. 
On the other hand, no other war has approached 
this one in size, and the proportion is doubtless 
fair. How valuable tliis mass of material will 
prove when time has sifted it is an open question. 
It will perhaps be somewhat difficult to separate 
the sincere from the calculated, to know just what 
is propaganda and what is not. The necessity for 
a rigid censorship has in a certain sense cast the 
odour of propaganda about the most innocent 
work, for it is plain enough that the censor can- 
not let pass that which will seem in effect danger- 
ous to the practical issue, even though he knows 
the statements made, whatever they may be, to be 
truth. The motto of the moment is, and must be, 
expediency, and history must wait, and possibly in 
the waiting suffer. 

But within the not very well defined limits thus 

[3] 



INTRODUCTION 



laid down "for information and future guidance," 
as the army phrase-book has it, much interesting 
and some valuable work has been, and is being, 
done. Also some pernicious documents have 
found their way into print, some decrying war and 
others glorifying it. It is difficult to know which 
is the more evil of the two. In the larger number 
of instances, however, the view taken has been im- 
personal, albeit a not dispassionate one. It is this 
type of work that men will turn to in the future. 
It seems to me that Major Hays has so written of 
his experiences with the British Expeditionary 
Force that his book comes well within this last 
category. It is not pretentious, it is frankly im- 
pressionistic but within its scope it is sincere. I 
hesitate somewhat to use the word "sincere" so 
often, for it has been the battle cry of the poseur 
until it has fallen a little into contempt or under 
suspicion but there is so much today that is in- 
sincere, so much that is deliberately false in 
burthen, that it seems wiser to be direct than to 
search for literary synonyms. There are two other 
more specific reasons why this particular book is 
worthy of attention. 
[4] 



INTRODUCTION 



The Medical Officers of the Reserve Corps who 
came to France in the spring, summer, and fall 
of 1917 from America were placed in a peculiar 
position. In nine cases out of ten they were not 
soldiers, either by temperament or by training. 
Of a sudden they found themselves called upon to 
take an active part in a war of great magnitude, 
and to maintain a position beside men who had 
proved themselves during four years of active 
service to be not only surgeons and doctors but 
soldiers as well, and good ones. The Americans 
were frankly green, and diey usually had the good 
sense to admit it, but the situation called for more 
than a little tact on both sides. Tliere were na- 
tional and temperamental differences to be met 
and coped with, and there were individual prob- 
lems without number to be adjusted, but one thing 
there was always, a strong racial bond that pro- 
vided at once a buffer, and a plane of understand- 
ing. Not all of the men called upon met the test, 
but of those who did meet and master it America 
and Britain have every reason to be proud. The 
American Medical Officers, and the nurses and men 
they brought with them were the vanguard of the 

[5] 



INTRODUCTION 



American Elxpeditionary Force. Before the troops 
of the line had their sailing orders the Medical 
Corps was active in the field and behind the lines. 
And as they are deprived in some measure from 
sharing in the full glory of their comrades in the 
fighting units let such credit as they have earned 
be theirs in all its fulness. 

Major Hays has not laid particular stress on 
either the dark or the light side of war. He 
has taken events and conditions as he found them, 
and in the sum total the fine has more than balanced 
the bitter. No doubt this is in some part due to 
the point of view he himself has brought to bear, 
and, if this be so, it seems to me that that point 
of view is essentially the normal one. I have 
served under Major Hays and, like the servant girl 
in the old story, I am ready to give him a recom- 
mendation. He can lead men — partly because of 
inherent ability, and partly because of the lessons 
taught him by his British brethren in the days of 
his apprenticeship. It is interesting, and typical 
of the war game, to note what has happened to the 
three M. O.'s who started out together to go up the 
line. Major Hays is in charge of a great camp hos- 
[6] 



INTRODUCTION 



pital in the south of France, far from the sound of 
guns. Lieutenant Cook is back at the Base Hos- 
pital he started from, still with the inevitable cigar 
sticking cockily out of his mouth. Lieutenant 
Morgan, "Syd," is dead, killed in action. Only 
one out of three in a year of war is not a bad 
average, but unfortunately the two who are left can- 
not make up for tlie one who goes. Lieutenant 
Morgan was our first casualty. 

If this war is to achieve tlie high aims and en- 
deavours ascribed to it by those who feel the need 
for justification, that achievement will take place 
only through the rewelding of the two great English 
speaking nations into one. We all know that now; 
it is trite to mention it. But that welding is not 
and cannot be an abstract thing. It must be per- 
sonal if it is to be effective. For this reason if 
for no other it has been highly significant and 
vitally important that the Briton and the American 
should serve side by side in the same trench, in 
the same dugout, in the same hospital. I do not 
know the personal reactions of the Tommies and 
of their officers towards our Yanks, but I do know 
well our reactions towards them, and I tliank 

[7] 



INTRODUCTION 



heaven that we were given the opportunity, even 
under such terrible circumstances, of appreciating 
and valuing them truly. Perhaps it takes a 
cataclysm to perform a miracle. As a record of 
one such personal experience I believe Major Hays' 
book to be of distinct value. And those who come 
to it in after times will find its importance less 
in its account of war, other and better books have 
been written on that theme, than in its story of the 
beginning of the great reunion of two nations. 
Pte. 1/c Edward Hale Bierstadt, 

M. D. N. A. A. E. F. 
U. S. Base Hospital No. 2. 
No. 1 (Presbyterian U. S. A.) 
General Hospital 
B. E. F. 



[8] 



CHEERIO!' 



CHAPTER I 

THE much reverenced, dignified commanding 
officer of our Unit sent for Lieutenants Cook 
and Morgan and myself one morning of a bleak 
November day. The rain had turned to hail be- 
fore dawn, and the narrow streets of our village, 
nestling in the hills and opening on the Channel to 
the north, roared and shrieked as the wind came 
sharply round the comers. 

The three of us reached the C, O.'s office about the 
same time, our hats awry from the wind, our rain- 
coats clinging damply to us. Morgan, big, ruddy, 
cheery with his everlasting smile; Cookie, with his 
usual cheap American cigar drooping perilously 
from a corner of his mouth; and I, round-goggled 
and serious. 

^ Cheerio, sometimes spelled Cheero, means more than our 
"Good-bye." It signifies good luck and God bless you. 

[9] 



CHEERIO 



The C. 0. greeted us with a busy nod, and took 
up a paper from his overladen desk. 

"Orders from the front," he said solemnly. 
"You three men are detailed to join the 36th Divi- 
sion. Probably will be assigned to an ambulance. 
Better pack your things and be ready to start 
about four A. M." 

It was not a surprise, for the three of us had 
been sent to a gas school some days before. Be- 
ing gassed is the first signal that you will be moving 
frontward. 

I wish I had time to tell you about the gas 
school: how the sergeant instructor fits you up, 
pulls you into a chamber with your face-gear on, 
and lets off steam — gassy steam — enough to kill 
you ten times over. But this is another story that 
will have to wait until the war is over. 

It wasn't necessary for me to be awakened the 
next morning. I hadn't been asleep — ^just lay 
there all night long, wondering whether I should 
come back alive, wondering where a machine-gun 
bullet was going to hit me, wondering how my 
family would feel if I had the misfortune to be 
buried in six feet of France's rich, fertile soil. 
[10] 



CHEERIO 



I kept on making myself miserable until the zero 
hour of four A. M. 

Was I afraid? Oh, no. I was just a little bit 
creepy around my backbone, and my feet were 
awfully cold. 

The morning hadn't got out of bed yet — only 
Morgan, Cookie, and I, who, after hastily swallow- 
ing a cup of black coffee (without sugar) and 
some dark French bread (without butter or mar- 
garine) climbed into the waiting ambulance with 
a maximum of useless luggage. It was some 
merry party. The stars hid behind the clouds, 
the rain poured down viciously, the wind howled 
a dismal good-bye. 

We arrived at the railroad terminal about seven 
A. M. There was the usual bustle of a war-time 
crowd. Soldiers, soldiers everywhere, marching 
in from all directions from the rest and conva- 
lescent camps, now well and ready once more to 
travel to the battle area. Some were lined up in 
company formation, others were grouped about 
the ten-gallon, steaming, soup kettles, dipping in 
their mess tins and bringing out the boiling hot 
tea. 

[11] 



CHEERIO 



We were "on our own," and it was up to us to 
find the 36th Division that day, the next or any 
time before the war ended. 

An M. P. watched us curiously, and then came 
toward me. 

"When does this train start?" I asked. 

"Well," he answered slowly, "it is scheduled to 
start at nine o'clock, but no one can ever tell. 
Depends on how soon the troops get aboard. 
Shouldn't wonder if she started some time this 
morning." 

That was consoling. Already we were dog- 
tired. Morgan went to get the rations — cheese, 
hard-tack, bully-beef, apple and plum jam and 
"iron rations." He brought enough for a week, 
but he forgot a can-opener. Cookie went to look 
for a baggage car (we call it luggage over here), 
while I inspected every one of the fifty odd cars 
to see if I could find one suitable for three first- 
class Americans. 

Troops trains have a great way of moving. 
Forty men are packed into a "forty Hommes" 
cattle car which ordinarily is closed on "eight 
[12] 



CHEERIO 



chevaux." As soon as the men are packed in 
tight enough to keep warm, the officers jump into 
a side-door arrangement tliat has eight seats. We 
are all ready to start, and die boys say "hooray." 
But the conductor has forgotten his whistle or 
something. After a few minutes or a few hours a 
miniature steam whistle on the engine "toot-toots" 
in a high falsetto key, the dwarfed cars try to 
rend themselves asunder, the wheels go round one 
circumference, the brakes jam on suddenly — and 
there you are. The trainmaster jumps off and 
runs along from car to car, trying to find out who 
put the pebble on tlie track. 

By mid-morning the grimy, ugly station faded 
away, and we began our momentous journey to 
the Front, to the 36th Division, somewhere in 
France, but no one knew where. We were as- 
sured that we had been put on the right train, 
however. 

Cookie sings "In the Good Old Summer Time" 
in Chinese. Morgan stares out of the window. I 
try to get acquainted with the other officers in 
our compartment. They are talking in low tones 

[131 



CHEERIO 



about their experiences at the Front. They have 
been home on leave, been over to merry old Eng- 
land. 

I plunged into the confab. 

"Do any of you gentlemen know where the 36th 
Division is?" I asked. 

"When I was out here three weeks ago they 
were somewhere near Bapaume," said one, men- 
tioning a well-known town at the Front. "Better 
enquire from an R. T. 0. along the line farther. 
Ever been out before?" 

"Nope — been at the base. We're going out to 
see some of the fun." 

They all smiled. 

"You'll get all the fun you want before you're 
through. When's the war going to end?" 

Here let me state that every one asks that same 
question when they meet a stranger. All strangers 
are prophets — maybe. 

"When we lick the Germans, and no sooner," 
I answered tartly. 

After that we became well acquainted, and they 
talked loud enough for us to hear. One of them 
was a young cavalry officer, now in infantry. 
[14] 



CHEERIO 



"This is one grand old war. If anybody says 
it isn't, have them ask me," he said. "All I want 
is a nice little Blighty tliat will send me back to 
England for ever. I've got a friend who is the 
lucky dog for you. When the last push was on he 
and I were sitting in a little dugout in the front 
line. The Huns were having a merry party — 
shrapnel, bullets, gas and all that. We were talk- 
ing of Blighties, and wishing we could get one. 
One of my orderlies came for me. I hadn't gotten 
more than fifty feet away when a 5.9 came along, 
and a few bullets whizzed by the dugout door. I 
heard some one yelling to me. I turned round, 
and there was my friend laughing his jolly head 
off, holding up his right arm from which the blood 
was streaming. 'Got a Blighty, Sam; got a 
Blighty!' and the next day he started back. Lucky 
dog." 

The hairs on my neck began to rise again. 

For the rest of the day, we smoked a dozen 
packs of cigarettes, two cans of tobacco, and Cookie 
smoked many "tooth-picks." ^ We varied the 
monotony by playing bridge on our food box. 

1 Long, thin cigars. 

[15] 



CHEERIO 



Some one suggested grub, so we hungrily dove into 
the cheese, and cursed Morgan for not providing a 
can-opener. What's the use of bully-beef when it 
is wrapped up in good American solder? 

Darkness comes on early in these climes, and by 
five o'clock we were hugging ourselves to keep 
warm. At 5.30 we stopped in a No-Man's Land — 
flat, empty earth on either side. At seven o'clock 
we crawled into a station much alive with the 
chatter of French, Portuguese and English troops. 
The blue, faded uniforms of the French poilu con- 
trasted with the dull khaki of the English. 

Somehow we dumped our luggage out on to 
the platform, found another train, and settled our- 
selves, baggage and all, on the hard seats of a 
third-class carriage. Some one was singing 
"There'll be a hot time in the old town tonight." 
Strange how paradoxical some men are. 

We rode and rode and rode. I think we bumped 
along at, at least, twelve miles an hour. Mirth 
had ceased. We and the night were glum. We 
were silent, but the heavens poured on. The dis- 
tance between stations was minutes apart; the stops 
at the stations lasted an hour or so. At every 
[16] 



C H E K K I ( ) 



stop I would enquire for the whereabouts of the 
36th Division. 

At midnight we were at a railroad siding, where 
we were ordered to change cars. Men, officers, 
baggage were again dumped out on to the almost 
submerged tracks. The downpour and mist were 
so heavy that I could just see the glare of tlie 
engine light some distance away. Flashes of thin 
lightning streaked the sky in the distance — the flash 
of our guns. 

Thus far I had travelled in war-time luxury. 
But now I encountered that dignified being who 
wears a red band on his hat, and is called an R. T. 
0. He usually sits in a nice warm hut while you 
freeze outside. He tells you where you are to go, 
if he knows where you are to go. 

Again for the hundreth time that day I asked 
meekly, "Can you tell me where the 36th Division 

''Somewhere up the line," he obligingly an- 
swered, and pointed to the train, the headlight of 
whose engine I had seen. 

After much trouble, and with the help of a few 
Tommies standing round. Cookie, Morgan and I 

[17] 



CHEERIO 



were deposited with our well-soaked bedding rolls 
into a nice, comfortable cattle car. Onward we 
rode, by jumps and starts — onward, onward, on- 
ward. At every station men got off, but our divi- 
sion was onward. Once I fell asleep and dreamed, 
I was getting into the Grand Central Station. But 
I was rudely awakened by a shout, "The 36th Di- 
vision here. All out for the 36th Division." 

Morgan, Cookie and I began to roll our baggage 
toward the sliding door. A miserable sound as- 
sailed our ears — the train was moving on. 

A few miles farther on we came to a halt once 
more. We had missed our division, we knew, but 
we dumped ourselves out before the train could 
make up its mind to move again. 

I made enquiries at a signal station, where I 
was informed that we might get back sometime in 
the morning, by seven o'clock perhaps. That was 
encouraging, considering that we had been up 
twenty-four hours, were soaked to the skin, and 
hadn't had anything to eat but cheese and biscuit. 

"Some merry war," I said to Cook, who was 
still chewing viciously on a wet, ragged cigar. 
"Can you hear the guns?" 
[18] 



CHEERIO 



"Don't care a damn about guns. Give me a 
floor to sit on, a nice soft little floor, where I can 
sit and roll my head to sleep, and I won't care if 
the war never ends." 

I saw a small light shining through a half-open 
door of a hut a short distance away. It looked 
inviting, and so I approached the owner, another 
R. T. 0. — but this time a non-commissioned officer 
who, apparently, didn't like my looks. 

I explained the situation. 

"Sorry, can't let you in. Have a lot of work 
to do, and you will disturb me." 

Now, wouldn't that get you? Weary officers; 
heroes who felt they hadn't had any sleep for twenty 
years, were refused a measly wooden floor. I al- 
most lost my temper. 

"Say, look here!" I yelled, "you dirty scoundrel. 
If I had you in the American Army, first I'd smash 
your face, and then I'd have you court-martialed. 

Who do you think you are, you blankety, 

blank fool? Keep your old floor." 

Fortunately there was a British officer with us, 
who, when he heard my story, tore his hair. Al- 
though he had never been up to the Front, he was 

[19] 



CHEERIO 



one brave man, and flattened that miserable speci- 
men with two stripes on his sleeves until he crawled 
in the mud apologizing — and then he let us use his 
floor. Nice of him, wasn't it? 

My last impression was of four weary-worn 
individuals sprawled out on the floor of a little 
shanty. Morgan was propped against the wall, 
with a bench for a pillow. Cookie was snoring 
ponderously with open mouth, and a stub of a cigar 
in his left hand, by which he supported himself. 
The English officer, I don't recollect very clearly. 
I remember trying to feel comfortable with my 
back up against the door and my feet straight out 
in front of me. My head dropped toward my left 
shoulder — and I slept until moniing. 



[20] 



CHAPTER II 

I: WAS suddenly awakened by a cold draught. 
Our host had opened the door. The dreary, 
cold day was beginning to break. 

I arose awkwardly from the floor. I felt sore 
all over. My left foot had gone to sleep. With- 
out any preliminaries, I aroused my companions. 
They drowsily opened their eyes. 

"Gee," said Cook, as he rubbed his eyes, 
"Thought I was in the Waldorf-Astoria. Where's 
that stump I was smoking last night?" 

Morgan woke with a grin, as usual; while the 
British officer cursed the powers that be who had 
ordered him from a comfortable berth. 

We went over to consult the signallers. It was 
now light enough to see the country around us, 
through the rising mist. A few huts — low, flat, ir- 
regular structures — stretched along the railroad 
tracks. Duck-boards, deeply submerged in mud, 

[21] 



CHEERIO 



and so slippery that it was almost a gymnastic feat 
to walk on them, ran from one end of the hut out to 
the other toward the signaller's shack — an enclosed 
sentry-box, large enough for a telephone, two men 
and a stove. As far as the eye could see was mud, 
mud, mud — no sign of vegetation, not a single 
tree. The surrounding field presented a freckly 
surface — hundreds and thousands of shell-holes, 
outlines of trenches, once deep and well built, in 
wavy lines; showing that but recently this ground 
had been occupied, whether by enemy troops or our 
own, I didn't know. In the awakening dawn could 
be seen flash on flash of yellow-white flames, fol- 
lowed by far-off" detonations. It was war! 

I enquired of our train from the signaller. 

"It will be along about seven o'clock," he said. 
"Not much of a train — a flat car — but you haven't 
far to go." 

Ever ride on one of these animals? Remember 
it was cold and raining hard. Four officers, new 
to the front, were allowed to climb on to a plat- 
form somewhere behind the engine. Our baggage 
was deposited on the coal in the tender, which 
didn't improve its appearance. The engine, tender 
[22] 



CHEERIO 



and one lonely flat car started slowly, but quickly 
gained in momentum until two legs weren't enough 
to stand on. The cold brought the thermometer 
down to forty below zero, the wind pierced through 
my backbone to the skin on my abdomen, the rain 
pelted down like hail-stones, and reddened the back 
of my neck. The four of us linked ourselves 
closely together, arm in arm, leg against leg, so 
that we should have eight supports instead of two. 
We had only five miles of it, but it seemed like 
twenty! We never went more than fifteen miles 
an hour, but it seemed like a hundred. Never did 
aeroplane seem to go faster. 

The train stopped; we untwined ourselves and 
laboriously and awkwardly descended. Our mud- 
soaked and soggy baggage was thrown on to the 
adjacent track. Poor baggage! 

We immediately began our enquiries for the 36th 
Division, and the A. D. M. S., to whom we were 
to report. We met many who did not know, but 
were finally directed to the orderly officer in the 
near-by camp. Here we found a real soldier — a 
portly gentleman of fifty, who looked as though he 
had just come out of a bandbox. His hair was 

[23] 



CHEERIO 



neatly parted, his face and hands were clean, his 
clothes were spotless. His leggings, belt and 
boots were highly polished. Moreover, he had a 
clean, healthy smile of welcome. 

"Hungry?" he asked. 

"Not so you could notice it," I said to myself. 
But my stomach was so empty my belt wouldn't 
hold my trousers up. 

Cook groaned. 

"Alright," he went on. "Go over to the mess, 
and after you've had a cup of coffee, some bacon 
and a slice of bread, I'll talk to you." 

It sounded good to me. We made a bee-line 
for the place he indicated, and sat down to a slimy 
mess called food. Our appetites were equal to the 
occasion. 

Our new friend, the orderly officer, took pains 
to explain to us on the map just where we were, 
and directed us to the A. D. M. S. in a near-by 
village. He offered to look after our baggage until 
we located ourselves. 

"This village is only a few kilometres away," 
he said with a smile. "It's a nice muddy morning, 
good for walking. So take the first road to the 
[24] 



CHEERIO 



right, and follow the sign-posts. Any one there 
will direct you to the A. D. M. S. Cheeri-0!" 

Morgan, Cook and I slid out on the duck-boards 
to the road, which was jammed with passing lorries, 
ammunition wagons, limbers, ambulances. The 
din was terrific. The rumble of the heavy wheels 
on the square-stoned pavemented roads, which have 
stood the supreme test of time since the days when 
Napoleon's army passed over them, mingled with 
the crashing sounds of shells in the skies above. 
After walking about two kilometres, we hailed 
a passing three-ton truck, and jumping in over 
the high tail-board, were driven to our destina- 
tion. 

It may seem a simple thing to find an A. D. M. S., 
who is a big bug in the division, but it isn't always. 
Big bugs have a way of hiding themselves in all 
sorts of out-of-the-way places, particularly when 
they are near the front line. They don't want to 
seem conspicuous when the enemy is loosening up. 
We had some problem to find our man. We wound 
in and out of country roads, now crowded with 
troops, passing through the streets of what was once 
a village. Here and there stood a straight wall 

[25] 



CHEERIO 



of brick, irregularly clipped off at the top; a thatch 
of straw between rafters told of a bam that was no 
more. Piles of debris — wood and dirt and stone 
and brick — were all that was left of former habita- 
tions. A dilapidated church steeple swayed pre- 
cariously in the air. Most of the foundation had 
disappeared, and irregular, jagged holes in its 
slate covering showed that it had stood in the path 
of the enemy. 

We found the A. D. M. S.'s office after consider- 
able difficulty. He was hidden away at the rear 
of a jumbled court-yard, in a one-story affair, con- 
sisting of two rooms, of what had once been a 
house, the walls of which remained. The roof 
was made of corrugated iron, covered with sand- 
bags. Along one side, up against the brick wall 
of the court-yard, were two or three wooden huts, 
which I found out later were the officers' sleeping 
quarters and mess. 

The A. D. M. S. — a colonel of the old school, 
grey-haired, grey-moustached and very soldierly — 
shook our hands in good old American style. Af- 
ter taking our particulars, he assigned Cook to one 
ambulance, Morgan and myself to another. Cook 
[26] 



CHEERIO 



was a little crestfallen. It was quite some time 
before I saw him again. 

The A. D. M. S., in his kindly way, explained the 
war maps to us in detail, so that we could locate 
ourselves. 

"It is very important," he said, "for every officer 
to know just where he is. Later on you will be sup- 
plied with trench maps. But for the present I'll 
have to point things out to you. Mr. Cook is to go 
to the 108th Field Ambulance at a slag heap on the 
side of the canal. Mr. Morgan will go to an ad- 
vanced dressing station about two kilometres be- 
hind the line. I think you'll like it there, Mr. 
Morgan. Captain Hays will go to Windy Comer, 
another A. D. S., where we attend to the walking 
wounded. So far our casualties have been very 
slight — but there's no telling. Got your tin hats? 
No? Well, you'll get them up the line, and if 
you*re fortunate you won't be nipped before you 
get there." 

You must remember that none of us had been at 
war before. We weren't soldiers — only ordinary 
doctors who had nerve enough for civilian practice 
but had yet to be shown whether they could stand the 

[27] 



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gaff. Within one hour we were to be shown war 
as it really was; real grim war, with all its humour 
and all its horrors; for we were in the midst of a 
big push — something that occurs only once in so 
often. I must confess I wasn't at all frightened, 
only intensely excited, but I couldn't keep the little 
hairs on my back in place, and my hands were 
rather clammy. 

We were dumped into a Ford ambulance. Be- 
fore I got in I stopped to say "hello" to tlie radiator. 
I patted its warm nose! It's the American's real 
friend out there. 

The shriek of the shells overhead; the flashing 
tongues of flame from a thousand cannon ; the awful 
din of the passing wagons; the constant whir of the 
aeroplanes in the leaden sky; the tramp, tramp of 
tens of thousands of feet; the clatter of the cavalry 
horses; the whiz of the motorcycles; the rumble of 
ammunition wagons, lent a picturesqueness to the 
scene that is indescribable. 

We passed a large wire enclosure just off the 
roadside, in which hundreds of men in grey-green 
overcoats and sharp round hats were standing; 
many of them, with their gaunt faces pressed close 
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against the imprisoning wire, looked like a lot of 
curious pigs snouting for food. 

"German prisoners," the driver said, as he 
pointed to them. "Got them in yesterday, and 
haven't had time to move them back farther. I 
ain't wishin' them any hard luck, but I'd like to see 
one of their own shells land in there. Would scare 
them up a bit! Sad looking lot, ain't they?" 

Farther on we came upon a huge wire netting 
strung on twenty-foot poles, and irregularly cov- 
ered with a fantastic pattern of leaves. 

"What's that?" I asked. 

"German camouflage," he answered. "In the 
distance you can't make out troops behind it. It's 
only four days ago that we routed out the Johnnies 
behind there. 'Tain't much protection against bul- 
lets or shrapnel." 

We now passed off the main road into a side 
cut, where we bumped along a shell-torn way. 
Deserted trenches ran into the near-by fields on 
both sides, wavy lines of cut earth. A huge crater 
showed where a large shell had recently found its 
way. A temporary bridge for traffic wound along 
one side. We rode over a waterless canal, which 

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was filled in at one point to make a roadway, and 
finally stopped in front of my new home to be. 

The A. D. S. was a well-constructed dug-out, the 
receiving room of which was above ground. This 
was a long, corridor-like arrangement with walls 
of brick and sand-bags, and a roof of iron, over 
which irregular piles of dirt had been thrown. 
Even near at hand it was hard to distinguish it as 
a habitation, for it merged into a large hill. A 
half dozen motor ambulances were ranged along 
the road, and opposite it were three or four well- 
camouflaged tents, protected from flying shrapnel 
by surrounding bags of sand. The door of the 
A. D. S. was made of two hanging blankets, well 
soaked in chemicals to keep out the vapour from 
deadly gas shells. 

I stepped inside. The place was lighted by two 
portable, smelly, acetylene lanterns, which made me 
think of garlic. In the dim light could be seen 
rows of stretchers in the centre of the room, on 
some of which lay cheerful, wounded Tommies. 
On one side of the room was a bench made of 
boards, supported on cracker boxes and covered 
with blankets, on which were sitting the walking 
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wounded. They were sipping tea, or eating choco- 
late and biscuits. On the opposite side was a stove 
with kettles of tea, a table filled with medical com- 
forts (mostly eatables), and another table holding 
the equipment for first aid to the wounded — band- 
ages, gauze, splints, adhesive plaster, iodine, safety 
pins and aromatic ammonia. Busy R. A. M. C. 
orderlies were rushing round handing out tea, 
bandaging up a wound, or filling out a field card, 
and tying it on to the top button of the patienl's 
coat. 

I had heard of the horrors of war. I expected 
to see suffering. I had pictured the groaning, 
wounded Tommies. But my first impression was 
of the general air of cheerfulness on the dirty, 
mud-stained, almost happy faces, of the mystic 
light of victory in the men's eyes. Particularly I 
noted that every wounded man was smoking a cig- 
arette — a sufficient demonstration of the soothing 
effect of tobacco. Could these be men just returned 
from battle? — those gentle, half-timid individuals 
who already had forgotten their morning's lust 
and now were afraidly polite? 

I noticed a tall, heavily black-bearded indi- 

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vidual near the clerk's desk as I came up to inquire 
for the C. 0. 

"What you want?" I heard the clerk say to him. 

"Come to bury the wounded," he answered in 
broken English. 

The clerk laughed. 

"Come to bury the wounded? Well, you old 
sour-faced son of Africa, you just beat it over 
No-Man's Land till you come to the Boche trenches. 
You can bury all their wounded you want, over 
there." 

The African walked away, shaking his head. 

The clerk turned to me politely. 

"Queer ones, we get here. That man belongs 
to a burying company. They don't understand 
English very well." 

"The Colonel is doAvn below, sir, in his dug- 
out. Be careful of your head on the steps." 

I had seen pictures of dug-outs, and had always 
imagined them to be cold, clammy holes, in the 
ground, that leaked like poorly built cellars. Some 
of them are that way, but this one was well con- 
structed. The low ceilinged passage-way brought 
me down into the bowels of the earth by thirty odd 
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steps. I emerged into a large wide room, well 
heated and dry, and lighted by a single candle. 
It was the servants' quarters and kitchen. On one 
side opened a hole in the wall, in which bunks 
were built for the men. A short passage-way, high 
enough to stand in upright, brought me to the C. O.'s 
room, where I reported. This room, measuring six 
by eight feet, was bright and clean. In one comer 
was a miniature French stove, on the table were 
books and papers and two candles, and alongside 
was a large bed made of four uprights of wood, 
over which canvas was tightly spread. 

I was warmly greeted by the C. 0., and his second 
in command. Lunch was soon brought in, and we 
sat down to a good meal of "camouflaged" bully- 
beef, American cheese and hot tea. 

"Anything you particularly want. Hays?" asked 
the Colonel. 

I explained that I hadn't had any sleep in forty- 
eight hours, and was dog-tired. 

"Well," he resumed, "we won't ask you to do 
any work for us today. Just pile into my bed 
after grub. You'll have plenty to do when you 
wake up." 

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I unstrapped my bedding roll and got out two 
blankets. I think I took off my shoes. And so, 
while our dug-out trembled from the bursting of 
large calibre shells near by, and little pieces of 
dirt crumbled down from the walls, I gathered the 
blankets around me and fell into a dreamless sleep, 
from which I did not awaken for six hours. 



[34] 



CHAPTER III 

IT was perhaps fortunate that we had very few 
casualties that first night, for it took all my 
time, and a great deal of moral persuasion, for me 
to get acquainted with my new home. The second 
in command. Captain Christie, a Scotchman with 
a sense of humour, acted as my guide. I was taken 
through a narrow passage, and down a pathway 
of some forty feet into a large underground room 
where the orderlies slept. A dozen of them who 
had been on day-duty were asleep, rolled up in 
their blankets on the floor. Then I was shown the 
various exits of the dug-out. 

"The Huns have a bad habit of smashing in our 
dug-outs," said my guide. "So we make them with 
a number of exits. If one is smashed in we can 
get out of another." 

We walked up out into the open. I was sur- 
prised to find that the air down below had not been 
foul or stale. The numerous passage-ways gave 

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ample ventilation. It was still raining, the light- 
ning of the guns flashed and the Verilights of the 
enemy lit up the sky. The thunder of the guns 
hammered my ear drums until they ached. The 
mud ploughed over the tops of my ankle-boots as 
I followed my guide along the dark road. 

"Guess we had better go in and see what's 
doing," he said. And so, much to my relief, we 
entered the receiving room again. 

It was filled with patients, and so for the next 
two hours we were silently busy, putting on a 
dressing here, a splint there. 

Again I was impressed with the general air of 
cheerfulness. No one complained; there was the 
hope of Blighty in the eyes of most of the men. 

"Where are you hit?" I heard one of the men ask 
another. 

"Got pecked in the arm. Hopes it's a Blighty," 
he answered as he looked at it anxiously. 

"Aw, it ain't bleeding enough. Bo," his neigh- 
bour answered. 

A venerable padre was talking to another man. 

"Are you much hurt, my man?" the Padre in- 
quired. 
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The man pointed to the bandaged arm, 

"Are you married?" the padre asked. 

"Not as bad as that, sir," was the reply. 

Here I saw my first shell-shock cases — brave 
men, some of whom have seen service for three 
years, never flinching, never wavering. Then — a 
shell bursts near them, burying them alive. Their 
companions are killed or fearfully maimed. They 
escape unhurt — except their brains — and they come 
in to us pitiable, nervous wrecks; hands shaking 
with palsy, knees trembling, head lolling from side 
to side; and, try as they will, they can't stammer 
out a word. Many of these cases recover — but 
there is an indelible black mark on the brain. 

I had heard of one sad case. The man had been 
fighting valiantly in France for nearly tliree years 
and one day he was buried by a shell. 

They dug him out, well and sound, but he 
couldn't say a word without stammering. They 
sent him in to tlie field ambulance — diagnosis, shell 
shock. They sent him in to tlie C. C. S. where they 
kept him for a week or so — diagnosis, shell shock. 
He travelled from the C. C. S., to a base hospital 
and finally got to England, where the venerable 

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authorities put a question mark after the diagnosis. 
In due course of time he was sent out to the front 
again with a new draft. In his first tour of the 
trenches he funked, and the next morning he was 
led up to a stone wall, grim and resolute. All 
fear had left him. And when the crack of the rifles 
died away, an unheralded hero lay upon the ground. 
He had done his duty valiantly, until something in 
his brain had snapped. 

Christie and I were relieved at midnight 
and so sleepily bumped our heads down the stairs 
again. Our sleeping rooms consisted of the narrow 
passage-way which connected the main dug-out with 
the one farther down into the bowels of the earth. 
Our batmen had opened up our bedding rolls and 
placed the blankets on "biscuits," a term applied 
to a stretcher when it is used for sleeping pur- 
poses. Nails or pegs were driven into the muddy 
walls to hang our clothes upon. A sputtering can- 
dle, draughtily flickering, cast weird shadows. A 
hanging blanket separated our quarters. 

I hastily removed my shoes. It was too cold and 
damp to take off anything else. I set the candle be- 
side my bunk, slid in between two folds of blanket, 
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donned a knitted sleeping helmet, blew up my air 
pillow and, after looking around for rats, lice and 
a few other animals, covered myself up cozily and 
drifted off into dreamland. 

For three days I lived in my underground home, 
three days of thunderous noise, wounded and dying 
men; tliree days of cold, wintry rain which pene- 
trated through to my bones; three days of bully- 
beef, cheese, canned soup and tea; three nights 
busily employed tending to the wounded and occu- 
pying my spare time by standing on a little hillock 
across the road in the pouring rain, trying to learn 
the difference between the Boche guns and ours. 
The scene was dismal, mysterious but awe-inspiring. 
The heavens were lit up by a thousand flashes — 
blue, red and white; rockets lingered in the air, 
broke and sprayed the darkness with starry sun- 
shine; Verilights rose above the trenches, hanging 
in nothingness for a moment and tlien as suddenly 
going out. The wail of the guns was ceaseless. 
Our howitzers and big 9-4's kept up an incessant, 
sharp tattoo, to which I had become so accustomed 
tliat they made little impression on my conscious- 
ness. 

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All of this sounds very creepy, very frightful. 
It might have been, but every one was so cheer- 
ful, almost happy; there was such a spirit of opti- 
mism in the air, the wounded were so brave, especi- 
ally after you had given them cigarettes; the offi- 
cers were so obliging and courteous to me and so 
kind to the men, that no one tliought of the horrors 
of war. Even wounded Tommies can swear as well 
as usual, and a German prisoner who had been 
brought in to us with a slight injury, a most happy 
youngster, was treated with tlie usual courtesy and 
more consideration than he deserved. 

"We're soft guys," I heard one of the men re- 
mark. "I swears if I'd see another Johnnie I'd 
spike him. I goes up wid my platoon to a pill- 
box where two Germans is wid der 'ands over 
their 'eads, saying, 'Komerad,' and when we gets 
near enough, they lets go wid their machine-guns 
and kills most of us. That's where I got this 
Blighty. Then I comes in 'ere and gets so soft and 
glad to be 'ere that I looks at this little cast-ofT-two- 
for-nothing and never even gets mad. Ain't it 
'ell?" 

Just as we were getting ready to stand another 
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day of this racket, our orders came in to move, and 
by ten o'clock in the morning, the officers of tlie 
ambulance who were to "take over" arrived. 
Within an hour, we were on the move to a 
rest area, wagons trimly packed with ambulance 
stores, limbers, motor-ambulances and so on, 
carrying everything from a tin cup to a coal 
shovel. 

The complete outfit of an ambulance moves 
with it, and to get an idea of the equipment, 
one must reckon tliat an ambulance consists 
of over two hundred officers and men, over forty 
horses and mules, over fifteen ambulances, wheeled 
stretchers and motorcycles. Wlien in marching 
order, with proper intervals between sections and 
transports, the line extends over six hundred yards. 
In moving to a new place, one or two officers are 
sent ahead to do the billeting. They usually go 
by motor ambulance to the village stated in orders, 
find the town mayor or area commandant, are told 
by him what section is assigned to them for mess, 
billets, officers' mess, officers' quarters, transport, 
etc. The men either march or go by train, depend- 
ing on the distance; and the transport moves on 

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under its own officers, arriving there with, or some- 
times after, the men. 

Our billets this first night were in Nissen huts 
at one end of a long row of similar quarters capa- 
ble of accommodating thousands of men. A Nis- 
sen hut is a knock-down affair, consisting of a 
rounded, corrugated iron roof which reaches on 
either side below the floor. There is a door and two 
windows at each end, and the ceiling is supposed to 
be boarded over. So it is when tlie huts are first 
put together. But fuel is scarce, and these board- 
ings make excellent firewood, so they are ripped off 
by an amateur Raffles when no one is looking. 
The result of numerous robberies of this kind is that 
the original comfort is gone and in its place is a 
draughty enclosure to which a barn heaped with 
manure is preferable. 

The space between the men's and officers' quar- 
ters was covered with knee-deep mud. A few shell- 
holes, filled with yellow brown water, made walk- 
ing precarious, particularly after sundown which, 
in the late fall, comes on shortly after four o'clock 
in the afternoon. But as it was necessary to get 
to the men and as we had no desire to swim in the 
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mud or drown in a shell-hole, we laid a row of 
duck-boards from one end of the field to the other. 

I have often wondered what the origin of the 
word "duck-board" is. I have never heard of a 
duck walking on a particular board, nor do I think 
a sensible duck would walk on any of these if he 
could help it. The nearest I could get to the mean- 
ing was to think that one had to walk like a duck 
when on them — flap, flap along in duck-foot fash- 
ion. They must be a German invention, for they 
are just made for a broad, flat-footed person. 

A duck-board is a ladder with the steps close to- 
gether, put flat on the ground. If the ground is 
hard enough they remain on top, and safe walking 
is possible. But they soon sink deeper and deeper 
into the mire until they are submerged. If you 
get on them after they have been tramped over by 
a dozen men in muddy boots who have scraped 
off" their dirty feet on them, you have to do a Span- 
ish glide. 

Once in a while some erstwhile individual takes 
out a slat and then your foot becomes firmly wedged 
in between tlie slat's neighbour. If the other does 
likewise, you have a fine pair of skis ready to hand. 

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To maintain your balance it is often wiser to limp 
with one foot on the duck-board and the other on 
the "terra mudda" beside it. French duck-boards 
differ from English ones in having rounded instead 
of flat slabs and so require a certain degree of 
French training to walk upon them. It is very 
disconcerting to glide along a duck-board on a dark, 
drizzly night, confident that you are safe, and then 
step on a slippery slat that lands you in a foot of 
mud. Some of the trenches are duck-boarded, but 
you'd never know it. The signs say so, but tliey 
are comfortably buried in the gurgling mud. 

We spent two days in our wooden village be- 
hind the line and then received our orders to entrain 
to a rest area. Every one was overjoyed. For 
the men had been in the trenches ten days, fighting 
almost superhumanly. They were completely 
fagged out and needed a rest. 

Morgan and I still held together. We had not 
seen or heard of Cook. Both of us were feeling 
fine, were much excited and wouldn't have cared 
a rap about a rest if it hadn't been that the next day 
was Thanksgiving. 

Before Morgan left the base hospital, one of his 
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female nursing friends had given him a shoe-box 
full of goodies, "not to-be-opened before Thanks- 
giving." Morgan wouldn't have parted with it for 
a million dollars, and often when we were eating 
bully-beef and biscuits (hard-tack), I could see 
him eye the box. We hoped there was something 
looking like a turkey in it. 

The men marched to the railroad station, about 
five miles away, early in the morning. I was de- 
tailed with one of the ambulances to remain at the 
station, until the afternoon, to take care of any 
casualties that might occur there. This station was 
merely a railroad siding in a sizable town 
(Bapaume), which no doubt had been beautiful 
but now was a shell-torn village of irregular, brick 
walls, unwindowed and roofless houses and impro- 
vised billets for men. It boasted of a Y. M. C. A., 
a large British expeditionary force canteen, a cin- 
ema in what was probably once the town hall, and 
an officers' club. On the streets was one continuous 
line of horse-drawn vehicles of all kinds, motor 
trucks, ambulances, staff" cars; and men, hundreds 
and hundreds of them — as far as the eye could see. 

Speaking of staff^ cars reminds me of the story 

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about the remark of a certain general when he was 
asked his opinion as to the advisability of the men 
wearing steel chest protectors. He replied to the 
inquiring individual: 

"The chest protectors are excellent things. The 
front of them will protect our men along the road 
from the flying mud of our staff" cars; the back of 
them will protect our men in the trenches from being 
hit by our own shrapnel." 

Bapaume had been the scene of remarkable Ger- 
man viciousness and barbarity. The Huns had 
occupied it for a long time and when they were 
forced to retreat they dynamited most of the houses. 
In the large ones in which they were sure men and 
officers would be billeted, they set time-fuse bombs 
which would explode some days later. Consider- 
able damage to property was done when they did go 
off", but fortunately very few men were injured. 

As this village was on the main road, the Ger- 
mans took particular delight in shelling it even at 
this time, and their aeroplanes, heavily laden with 
bombs, came over on little joy rides. 

The scene at the station was a rather interesting 
one. Hundreds of joyful troops were there, and 
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more were coming all the time. The men in their 
proper companies were put into the cars, forty to 
a car; while the officers packed themselves into 
the cozy, third-class carriages. Men were running 
helter-skelter for rations, water for tea, and so on. 
The little train of fifty cars waited and waited until 
the two thousand odd men were aboard and then 
slowly toot-tooted out of the station. 

In the afternoon a similar scene took place, and 
as I had no casuahies I jumped on to the front seat 
of the ambulance and rode through a devastated 
country, thirty odd miles to the rest area, which 
every one was longing for so much. 



[47] 



CHAPTER IV 

IT was miserably cold sitting with the driver on 
the front seat of the ambulance, but as the sur- 
rounding country had been the scene of recent bat- 
tles there was enough to interest one. All signs 
of the cruelty of war had disappeared, except the 
cruelty to nature. Few trees could be seen, and 
those that were standing were stark and dead. The 
Boche had seen to that by cutting them through to 
the heart. Once in a while, high up between two 
branches, one could see a crude, wooden seat, the 
rest of a sniper or artillery observer. There were 
no birds, no flowers, no anything but vast wastes 
of mud, sharply outlined by innumerable trenches 
which waved endlessly, broken sharply and evenly 
by their traverses. Between the trenches rose rows 
of barbed wire, crossed and criss-crossed for a 
depth of twenty feet, wound round wooden or spiral 
iron stakes. 

We at last approached Arras, one of the large, 
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war-ruined towns of which I had heard so much. 
It had been particularly noted for its ancient cathe- 
dral, which is now but a broken front of stone with 
nothing behind. The wondrous stained-glass win- 
dows, presenting scenes from the peaceful life of 
Christ, are no more. In the town square I stopped 
to inquire the way of the military police. It was 
good I did so; for as we rounded the corner, a 
deafening crash destroyed the pavement less than 
a hundred yard away from us. 

An invisible Boche aviator from his plane had 
dropped a gentle reminder that he wasn't sleeping. 
We had to turn round and take another road. 

It was my first real experience with bombs. At 
the time I was so surprised to see tlie solid pave- 
ment suddenly go up in the air that I didn't have 
time to be frightened. But I must confess that I 
never have gotten used to bombs and I've never 
found any one who has. 

After innumerable difficulties which were added 
to by the ignorance of the military police along the 
way, I reached the village in which our ambulance 
was billeted well after dark, and reported to the 
commanding officer. 

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I had often heard of rest billets. Our quarter- 
master Lieutenant Pamell who, I fear, was a bit of 
a wag, had kept up my waning spirits by telling 
me of the wondrous comforts we were coming to. 

"Wait till you get back to rest, old man," he 
repeatedly said to me. "No more hard floors to 
sleep on, but real downy French beds with fresh 
clean sheets in nice warm rooms. Perhaps you'll 
be billeted with some old French lady with 
daughters, who will make a fire for you in the 
morning and bring you a cup of hot tea before you 
get out of bed. I've been in places almost as good 
as home." 

Naturally such visions made one long for the 
comforts that were not. 

But there must have been a jinx on this village. 
It consisted of one street, on either side of which 
were four or five draughty barns. These bams 
were once built for cattle, but now, on the muddy 
floor, were ranged wire bunks for the men, in tiers 
of three. As each man had one blanket, you can 
imagine how much comfort he enjoyed. As a rule 
a man wrapped himself in his blanket in Indian 
fashion and used his overcoat for a covering. The 
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only trouble was that wire, separating two-inch- 
wide holes, isn't much protection underneath. In 
these bams, one hundred men could be uncomfort- 
ably housed; but for some reason or other, there 
were three times as many troops in the village as 
it could accommodate. Most of the men had to sit 
up all night or lie in the open fields. 

The officers' quarters were all that the Q.-M. said 
they weren't. One waded through a manure-laden 
court-yard and churned through ankle-deep mud, 
imtil he came to something that resembled a one- 
story house. I went to investigate the place picked 
out for Morgan and myself. It was a stone-floored 
room, having one or two glass panes in the windows 
and a large quantity of oiled paper stuck in the 
frame. It had a peculiar smell — a musty smell 
of long decay. It might have been cleaned out 
once, but I don't believe it. There really was a 
bed in the room — a big double bed with two mat- 
tresses and a bolster. 

I gave it the once over, picked off a few peculiar 
looking animals and decided that the floor was safer 
and cleaner. 

After cleaning off^ a part of the floor to put my 

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bedding roll upon and spreading my toilet articles 
on the worm-eaten, mirrorless mantel, I went over 
to the officers' mess where the Q.-M. was hugging 
his feet before a fireless grate. He smiled at me 
weakly. 

"How do you like it. Hays?" he asked. "I 
picked out the best quarters for you and Morgan. 
Pretty comfortable, aren't they?" 

"Huh, huh," I replied. "Never saw anything 
finer. I'm going to telephone to Paris for a grand 
piano and lace curtains. Next time we move, let 
me do the billeting and I'll reciprocate." I wasn't 
going to let him know that I cared. 

It was Thanksgiving Day, so after dinner, which 
had to be cooked on a primus stove — one of those 
little "petrol" affairs with a single burner — Mor- 
gan got out the shoe-box of goodies. We were both 
so tired that we didn't care if there wasn't a twelve- 
pound turkey inside. Morgan opened it up hastily. 
Inside were numerous little packages done up in 
tissue paper, containing dates, walnuts, candy and 
crackers. The dates were mouldy, the walnuts died 
during the journey, the candy — the regular taffy 
kind of all sorts of colours — stuck together, and die 
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crackers were soggy. Otherwise everything was all 
right. Morgan and I ate a rotten nut for senti- 
ment's sake and we fed the rest to a stray mongrel 
who was used to French cooking. I never saw him 
again. 

By the time we had slept in that room one night, 
and had waded through the mud a dozen times, 
and had shaved in a brown murky fluid from the 
well, called water, and had sat around in a cold 
mess waiting for a cold breakfast, Morgan and I 
decided there was much more comfort in a dug- 
out. Not having anything else to do, we wandered 
around to keep warm until the sun came out and 
shone into a room where we could sit. 

We had eaten our midday meal and were sitting 
round the mess table censoring letters and writing 
home. I had just finished with a sentence, "We 
are comfortably billeted" (one always lies about 
such things when writing home) "in a beautiful, 
little French village where we shall stay for some 
time," when I heard the sharp notes of a bugle and 
an orderly came rushing in with a message for the 
C. 0. He read it, jumped up excitedly and said, 
"Damn!" 

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"Back we go, men. Order here for all troops 
to proceed to the front in battle formation at once. 
Christie, you get the men together; Pamell, see that 
your stores are in the wagon; Emerson, you go 
ahead billeting at Courcelle-le-Grand" (a village 
about twenty miles away). "Morgan will stay 
with the ambulance and collect the sick; Hays will 
march with me, and Crosbie will take care of the 
transport." 

The quiet, care-free scene of the morning had 
changed. Hundreds of troops were already stand- 
ing at attention in the muddy main street, seventy- 
pound packs on their backs, steel helmets on their 
heads, shining rifles at their sides. Before I 
reached my billet, some of the companies were 
marching down the road to the singing tune of 
"Tipperary." Horses and mules were being 
brought up from the horse lines at a trot. Some 
were already hitched to their wagons and marching 
off, while others kicked, snorted and neighed as 
if they were much put out at this sudden change. 
Staff cars wormed their way at a furious rate 
through irregular lines of men, equipment, supply 
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wagons, half-lumbers, water carts, ambulances, 
horses and hospital supplies. 

By four o'clock our field ambulance was on the 
march. Night was already settling down, and a 
penetrating chill in the air marked the drop in tem- 
perature. The men started off smartly to the ac- 
companiment of a jumpy accordion, keeping in ex- 
cellent formation in columns of fours, with the C. 0. 
at the head of the column and other officers placed 
between the three sections. The transport trailed 
along behind. 

This was my first long march, and I don't sup- 
pose I shall forget it as long as I live. I reckoned 
if we marched three miles an hour, fifty minutes 
of marching and ten minutes of rest, we would get 
to our destination in five or six hours. I felt fresh 
and full of pep for the first hour and even managed 
to be cheerful during the second. By this time, it 
was pitch dark and the poor accordion player had 
petered out. I noticed during the tliird hour that 
I leaned rather heavily on my cane and that my 
Canadian mackinaw felt like a ton of lead. Dur- 
ing the fourth hour my left heel began to rub, and 

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I felt as though I were walking on a ball of fire. 
I certainly did think of my happy home. By this 
time the men were beginning to straggle along the 
road and the horses were foaming at the mouth. 

We stopped for our ten minutes. The men 
threw themselves in the roadside ditch, using their 
packs for pillows. In a second a long line of fire- 
flies seemed dimly to light the place — two hundred 
cigarettes held loosely between the lips of the Tom- 
mies, two hundred stems of tonic which would make 
the next go a little easier. I walked or rather 
limped up to the C. 0. 

"Anywhere near yet?" I asked. 

"As far as I can judge, we're well on the way." 

"What time do you think we'll pull in?" 

"Sometime or other — no telling. I'm not quite 
sure of the road from here on." 

He held a fast-fading, lighted flash-lamp over 
his map and studied it carefully. 

"Attention!" he shouted when the ten minutes 
were up, and the men wearily formed themselves 
into line again. 

"Carry on!" he ordered. 

It is sad to relate but in this memorable fifth 
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hour the C. 0. took the wrong turn where there 
was a sign marked to the "Airdrome," and after 
slopping over two miles of filthy country road we 
came to a blind. Oh, the misery of my tortured 
feet! oh, the disheartening agony of feeling you had 
walked two long miles for nothing and had to walk 
back over them again! Oh, the fiery, aching blis- 
ter under my left heel! 

There was nothing to be done but to turn round. 
This wasn't difficult for the men, but the heavy 
laden transports were on a narrow country road 
with banked, muddy fields on either side. I don't 
know how they were turned, but I heard the vigorous 
cussing of the drivers, the heavy breathing of the 
straining horses and the creaking of the wagon 
wheels as they churned the muddy road. 

I had to admit to myself tliat I was all in. I was 
so bad that I didn't care whether I died on the spot 
or were taken prisoner. I couldn't hold out any 
longer with that heel of mine burning a hole into 
me that reached to my neck. The C. 0. noticed my 
distress. 

"Better get on a horse, old man," he called as 
he passed by. 

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I was that grateful that I ahnost smiled and got 
hold of the transport officer. 

"Got a horse I can get on?" I limply called. 

"Ever ridden one?" 

"Almost twenty years ago," I answered. "But 
I don't care. Give me a gentle horse that I can 
go to sleep upon, not too high because I can't climb 
very far." 

He led me to a dapple -grey named Kaiser 
(wouldn't that get you?). Kaiser gave me a look 
and laughed at me in horsey fashion. 

I patted him on the nose for good luck and then 
got the left stirrup ready. But to save my neck I 
couldn't lift my leg up high enough. I don't know 
just how I got on, but I think I held on to Kaiser's 
mane with one hand and on to his tail with the 
other and some one boosted me. 

I felt great on that horse, way up in the air. 
Having to walk behind the soldiers didn't give 
Kaiser a chance to go very fast, and that suited me 
exactly. In a short time my perspiration dried 
and my feet forgot to bother me. Then the air 
got colder and colder, until my hands were icy cold, 
my nose was dripping and my legs were stiff. We 
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jogged on for the sixth hour and the seventh hour 
and the eighth hour, until I was frozen so stiff that 
the horse and I were one. I never sat so solidly on 
a horse before, and I was so frozen that I'm sure 
if Kaiser had galloped I'd have broken in two. 

After eight hours of marching through the inky 
black night, we found ourselves after midnight 
in a broken-down village which fortunately still 
had an old German army hospital standing. With- 
out delay the men were piled into the long huts, 
the horses were unhitched and watered and the 
officers found their billets which were havens of 
peace. The cooks had come by ambulance some 
hours before and so they had a steaming hot din- 
ner ready for us in a room well warmed by a large 
wood fire. 



[59] 



CHAPTER V 

COURCELLE-LE-GRAND was only halfway to 
tlie line, so early the next morning we had to 
get on the move again. The C. 0. took pity on me 
and so gave me the "cushy" job of billeting, which 
meant riding to the new area in an ambulance. We 
were to go back to exactly the same territory we 
had come from three days before, and when I got 
there I was assigned to the same row of huts we had 
previously occupied. The ride in the ambulance 
had only taken an hour, but the marching party 
could not be expected for at least eight hours. Not 
only was the distance long, but the road was well- 
nigh impassable because of the countless traffic. 

Up to this time I had no idea why we were called 
back. But now I heard all sorts or rumours, which, 
on account of my ignorance of the country, did not 
impress me very much. Of one thing I was sure 
— the army had made up its mind that it needed 
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more troops at the front and as quickly at they could 
get there. 

Not having anything particular to do, I rum- 
maged round until I found a can of bully-beef and 
a biscuit and sat down to a hearty meal. A tin of 
"bully" fills up your insides pretty well when you 
are hungry. But it's terrible not to have any water 
to wash it down with, particularly if you have 
spread it on hard-tack. If you want to see how 
it feels, buy a pound of corned beef and a box of 
Uneeda biscuits at the delicatessen and cut off the 
water pipes. 

About three o'clock in the afternoon, I became 
restless and chilly. I had been sitting on a box 
in the doorway of my hut, watching the never- 
ending procession on the road and trying to make 
out whether the aeroplanes overhead were Ger- 
man or British. So I decided to take a walk as 
far as the sugar factory, which now is a mass of 
ruins and is used as a "watering point." As there 
was no room in the road to walk, I slopped in the 
ditch alongside. 

When I had gone about halfway, I noticed a 
column of troops coming toward me, and leading 

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them was an officer whose head-gear in the distance 
looked decidedly familiar. Could it be an Amer- 
ican? It was. And as they got nearer, I smiled 
with joy because it was Cookie limping doggedly 
along, a cigar, as usual, stuck in the middle of his 
face. 

I rushed over, saluted the English officer by his 
side and trailed along. 

"Hello, Cookie," I said. "Gee, I'm glad to see 
you." 

He looked at me in an anxious sort of way. 

"Hello," he whispered hoarsely. 

"Had a long march?" I asked. 

"Huh, huh," was the monosyllabic reply. 

I wondered what was the matter. I never saw 
such a look of agony on a man's face. He was a 
pale yellow, there were deep circles under his eyes 
and a smudge on one cheek, as if he had wiped a 
dirty glove over it. He forced himself to walk 
steadily. 

Again I started questioning him. 

"When did you start back?" 

"Got orders 'bout twelve o'clock last night," he 
groaned. "Started at half -past twelve. We've 
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been walking ever since. Don't think we are ever 
going to stop. I lost my voice about two hours 
ago. Can't even enjoy a smoke." 

It was then four o'clock in the afternoon, so 
you can see it was some walk. I left when we 
came to our billets and that's the last I saw of 
Cook. Later I heard that he was taken sick next 
day, some throat trouble, was sent to a hospital 
and eventually became attached to a labour bat- 
talion. 

Our men, dog-tired, marched in about eight 
o'clock that night. The officers were all in too, 
and said it was a worse march than the night be- 
fore because the road was jammed with troops 
and transports, and at times they had to stand in the 
road for a half hour to an hour until the mix-up in 
front was straightened out. At one point, a messen- 
ger on a motorcycle came rushing along, and in try- 
ing to dodge some troops he skidded on the slippery 
road, smashed into a three-ton truck and stove in 
his head. They carried him and his machine over 
to the side of the road and left him there. No 
one had time for anything more, and if they had 
they couldn't have gotten him through the jam. 

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Before we sat down to dinner our orders for the 
next day arrived. We were to proceed on foot 
to a village a few kilometres away. This was 
very satisfactory, for we could get there early and 
settle before the daylight faded. Shortly after 
dinner we "turned in," a weary crowd, who were 
anxious to get in between their blankets to keep 
warm. It had gro^vn so cold that the murky water 
in the shell-holes froze over. 

Even under the worst conditions life is bear- 
able, if you have cheerful companions around you. 
When the five of us got under our covers in our 
blanket rolls, laid on wire beds, we were almost 
happy, and chaffed one another in good old- 
fashioned style. There was Captain Emerson, the 
cheeriest Irishman I ever saw, who was most 
happy when things were at their worst. He just 
looked for trouble so that he could tell it to go 
to the devil. He always had a kind word for the 
men and was much loved by them, and he put him- 
self out to do favours for the officers. Like many 
Irishmen, he had a hasty temper but cooled off 
quickly. Then there was dear old Crosbie just 
back from a month's leave, during which time he 
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was spliced to his own true love. He was big, 
handsome and modest, so modest that I never did 
find out how he got the Military Cross. After him 
comes our dapper little quarter-master, Pamell, 

who was wishing that the war were over and 

that the Germans were in hell. He was an 

extremely efficient soldier having been in a terri- 
torial ambulance as sergeant major, and so knew 
the ranks thoroughly. And finally we come to 
our American friend Morgan, big and cheery and 
bubbling over with enthusiastic joyfulness. I 
knew Morgan would take, and take he did, good 
and hearty. 

We all slept soundly until seven in the morning, 
although there had been a fearful bombardment 
on nearly all the night. Our batman came in in the 
morning with cups of hot tea, which they either 
placed on the floor beside us or in our hands if we 
were awake enough to take them. Then they 
brought us hot shaving water in another cup and our 
boots, off of which they had scraped the thick mud 
and had shined them until they were smart enough 
to walk with on Fifth Avenue. 

By this time I had learned some of the English- 

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man's good habits and some of his bad habits too. 
Not very bad ones, but the first bad habit I had to 
learn was how to drink tea. An Englishman takes 
a cup before he gets up, after he gets up, two or 
three for breakfast, one or two for lunch, and then 
at four o'clock in the afternoon he takes "tea." 
Now, before I came over here, I had had numerous 
arguments with my wife about tea, which she per- 
sisted, for no known reason, in serving at lunch. 
I didn't like it and wouldn't like it, and even 
learned to drink buttermilk in its place. But over 
here it is hard to get good coffee, and so I fell 
gradually into the tea habit and became such an 
habitue that my stomach rang for its tea at four 
o'clock every afternoon. I even took a cup be- 
fore I got out of bed in the morning. 

The next habit I got into was keeping clean. I 
had always managed to be presentable at home, 
but there I didn't have to use the seat of my 
trousers for a napkin and I had a chance to wash 
more dian once a day. Moreover, I was allowed 
sufficient water so that I didn't have to worry about 
dividing a quart between my hands, face, hair and 
teeth. It is an axiom in tlie British army that 
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"clean troops fight better," and so men and officers 
must shave every morning. Many a time, later on, 
we had to get up in the wee small hours of the 
morning, when one candle was shared by four or 
five of us standing over our mirrors. 

I adopted a system of shaving in bed, which all 
of them laughed at at first but adopted later on. 
I must have looked funny, for I wore a khaki- 
knitted helmet over my head and face, and wrapped 
a plaid Irish shawl around my shoulders which 
I kept in place with a horse blanket safety-pin. 
The officers called me "Peary," because I looked 
like the North Pole. I would lift my helmet off 
my face and in a semi-sitting position get out my 
shaving soap, razor and brush. My tin cup held 
the hot water, pretty cold by the time I got at it. 
I'd lather my face, place my mirror between my 
knees and, balancing myself with one hand behind 
me, screw my face tight and run die razor over it. 
In a few days everybody was doing it. 

I also developed a system of washing. I had 
with me a folding canvas basin and a tin cup. 
My batman filled my basin with hot water. First 
I'd take out some for the cup and lay my tooth 

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brush next to it. I had a little soft sponge with 
which I washed my face and then I wet my hair. 
My shaving came next. I'd rinse off the blade of 
the safety razor in my tooth brush cup, so there 
were short little hairs all around the edge and 
some floating around in the soapy water. After 
shaving, I'd use the sponge (sponges don't show 
the dirt half as much as wash rags) again on my 
face. Now the shaving water was thrown into the 
basin and the cup cleaned out for new water from 
my canteen for my teeth. Before I used that, 
however, I'd wash my hands in the basin and then 
brush my teeth and expectorate into it. Thus I 
was clean from the neck up and from the wrists 
down and my basin contained soap, water, micro- 
scopic hairs, dirt from my hands and a moderate 
amount of saliva and tooth paste. After my ablu- 
tions were over, the water was thrown out and the 
basin packed away. In a week there was enough 
stuff" in the bottom to make it nice and slimy. 

I had with me two small Turkish towels. One 
was dirty after a few weeks, but when I brought 
out the other one I couldn't tell the diff"erence. 
Then I had my batman wash them and I couldn't 
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tell the difference. So after that I never troubled 
to have towels washed and I used khaki handker- 
chiefs because they wouldn't show the dirt. 

But to get on with our journey again. We got 
into our new home shortly after noon. I thought 
we had lived in some pretty rough places, but we 
seemed to be going from bad to worse. In the 
first place, we had many more troops here than 
the village could accommodate. The officers were 
given six Nissen huts, which we had to share with 
officers of two other organizations, and the men 
were quartered in large Adrian huts. These latter 
differ from Nissen huts in being about six times as 
large and ten times as draughty. They are about 
a hundred feet long and about twenty-five feet 
wide, having numerous places for windows, a roof 
that always leaks, a dirt floor that is always damp. 
There are wide doors at either end that never close 
squarely. Wire bunks are ranged on either side, 
one on top of the other, so that there is sleeping 
room for one hundred and forty men. Most 
times the men light braziers made of five-gallon 
tins which smoke up the interior until it looks 
warm. 

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The worst part of it was we couldn't get water. 
The wells around there were unhealthy, and so the 
only water available was in the numerous shell- 
holes which filled the space between the men's 
quarters and ours. Somehow or other, Jimmie, 
my batman, of whom I shall have a lot to say later 
on, managed to get me enough clean water to shave 
with in the morning. But the men had a hard time, 
for it was zero weather. A half dozen of them 
would get round a shell-hole, break the ice and 
scrub themselves vigorously, using the dirty water 
in the hole. Some used the water for shaving, 
while others who had managed to get some tea, 
saved a little at the bottom of their cups so they 
could put something warm on their faces to lather 
with. 

At the end of twenty-four hours we were on the 
move again. We started out on a bright, crisp, 
sunny afternoon. Everybody was glad to get away 
from that awful place. We couldn't imagine any- 
thing worse. But when we had marched about ten 
kilometres and found ourselves in a deserted, 
ruined village called Moislans, with no sign of 
habitation, we wondered what was coming next. 
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At one far end, down a muddy country road, we 
found a dressing station, which was already oc- 
cupied by another ambulance. But tliey loaned 
us a field near by in which our men could put 
up a row of tents for themselves, while tlie of- 
ficers were shoved into a comer of one of the 
large, hospital huts which wasn't really very bad, 
for it was dry and fairly warm and had some good, 
strong wire beds in it. We managed to com- 
mandeer a shack for our mess too, and with a 
great deal of trouble got hold of something that 
looked' like a stove. The Q.-M. always carried 
a bag of coal in his supplies, so we had a fire 
going in short order. Then the mess servants 
brought in a few wooden boxes loaded with bully- 
beef, biscuits and so on, which we were allowed to 
use as seats. 

I wondered how long we were going to stay 
here, but I wasn't kept long in suspense. 

Our cook had somehow arranged a good dinner 
for us, to which we sat down at about eight o'clock. 
It's wonderful the kind of food one gets at the 
front. Everything of the best goes up there. It 
is better grub than at the base. Moreover, the 

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food comes up regularly every day so that it was 
seldom that we were without fresh meat, and eggs 
were such an every-day affair that we groused 
when we didn't get them. The only thing that I 
missed was fresh fruit. The canned variety you 
could get any time. 

For breakfast we usually had a porridge, which 
was often far better than we get at home. Some- 
times we had fresh milk for it, but more often we 
had to use "Carnation Brand." Eggs and bacon 
came next. We were only allowed one egg apiece, 
but the bacon was thick, almost as thick as a slice 
of ham. Then there was plenty of bread, and if 
we had a good coal fire going we'd stand round 
it and make toast. Once in a while we had good 
French butter, but most often it was margarine. 
I've got so now that I can't tell the difference 
between margarine and butter except that one cuts 
soft and the other cuts crispy. I remember going 
out to dinner one night in the far past when I 
was a civilian in the States. The hostess served 
margarine instead of butter. It spoiled my ap- 
petite, and I couldn't eat and never after would I 
accept a dinner invitation from these people. It 
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was the same when I was first served rabbit and 
thought that it was chicken until I got hold of the 
back-bone. But now? I love rabbit all greased 
over with margarine better than anything. We 
would end the mess with tea, unless some one from 
the States was good enough to send over some G. 
Washington coffee. 

For luncheon we had a stew of some kind, with 
boiled potatoes or a hash or a "camouflaged" 
bully-beef. A good cook always disguises it so 
that it doesn't taste or look like "bully." Our 
cook was a genius in camouflaging. Sometimes 
the "bully" was covered in a mound of potatoes, 
at other times it was surrounded with carrots. 
Again he would bury it in H. P. sauce and green 
peppers. This course would be followed by 
cheese, either Swiss or American, depending on 
the quarter-master, and a pudding of tapioca, rice 
or wheatina. The pudding was usually rather 
tasteless, but that never bothered the cook any be- 
cause he knew we would drown it in marmalade 
or jam. Then of course we had tea. 

At four in the afternoon, we, with the rest of 
the British Army, would stop work and have tea 

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again, usually accompanied by some good Scotch 
raisin cake which Christie got from home once a 
week. Finally we would end up the day with 
dinner. 

This meal is a ceremony. Whether you get 
anything to eat or not, doesn't make any differ- 
ence. You must put on your Sam Browne belt, 
look clean and wait for the C. 0., for no one is 
supposed to sit down to the table before he does. 
The dinner may be ready by seven-thirty and 
everybody there, but the C. 0., who may be taking a 
nap. So you all sit round, twiddling your thumbs 
or smoking numerous cigarettes until eight-thirty 
when some one conceives the brilliant idea of 
waking him up. On one occasion, we couldn't 
find the C. 0. anywhere and waited and waited 
until nine o'clock, which made the cook so mad he 
almost swore. 

Dinner is usually served in courses on a table- 
cloth. The tablecloth we had was changed at 
every meal, but you never would notice it unless 
the spot that somebody made the night before when 
he spilled his soup happened to come around to 
your place. I was told that the tablecloth was 
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nice and white, but I can't believe it. In the three 
weeks I saw it on the table, it never once sug- 
gested its natural colour. Before we got done 
with it (it died of over-use after a while) it had 
more colours than a Persian rug. Napkins were 
considered superfluous aff'airs, and so we never 
had any. I don't know where I wiped my hands 
most of the time, but I believe that it was some- 
where near the seat of my trousers. Once in a 
while I used my handkerchief. It's wonderful 
how clean you can keep your hands if you lick 
off every speck of sticky food. The first course 
was a hot, greasy soup, which was followed by 
fresh roast-beef, potatoes — sometimes French fried, 
sometimes boiled, often mashed — and a fresh 
vegetable, most often string beans. We left out 
the salad course. The dessert was either another 
pudding or rice and canned fruit, or a nice apple 
pie, and of course we ended up with a savoury 
and coffee. When you are with the English you 
must eat savouries or else you are insulting. But 
I never could understand them because they are 
mostly like our appetizers at home, sardines on 
toast or any old tiling to give you an appetite. 

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Maybe the idea is to give you an appetite for break- 
fast in the morning. 

Our cook and mess servants tried their hardest 
to give us good things to eat and we appreciated it. 
We had a habit of bragging about our cook who 
had been a chef in a large hotel in Paris before 
the war. The result of it was that the news of 
his good qualities got to Staff Headquarters and 
as they had a rotten cook they sent an order de- 
taching our man from us and attaching him to 
them. The cook was mad clean through, the 
C. 0. raised an awful howl, but it didn't do any 
good and off he went. About a week later, he 
suddenly appeared one morning with all his equip- 
ment and a note from the General to the C. 0. 
which read, "I have given this man back to you. 
He's the worst cook I ever saw. Couldn't cook 
one decent meal. Yesterday he put catsup in the 
tea." The C. 0. read the note and looked up at 
the man and smiled. 

"What was the matter?" he asked. 

"Aw, nothin', sir," the cook answered, "I wants 
to come back so I queered the game until he lets 
me go." 
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We had just finished our savoury that evening, 
when an orderly knocked on the door, came in, 
saluted the C. 0., and handed him some orders. 
He glanced over them hurriedly. 

"Well, our little party is over," he said. "The 
second in command and Morgan are to go up the 
line immediately. Robinson is to report to a 
battalion. Captain Crosbie and Hays are to report 
at the main dressing station before one P. M. to- 
morrow. The Q.-M. and I stay here for the 
present." 

Although we had heard the pounding of the guns 
for two days and knew that a fierce battle was on 
only a few miles away, we had up to now received 
no definite orders. Our circle broke up hastily. 
Captain Christie went to gather the thirty stretcher 
bearers who were to go with him, while I went 
out and helped Morgan pack his kit. I hated to 
have him go. I had looked over the map and 
had seen that the advanced dressing station they 
were bound for was in a little village which we 
had taken only a few days before and which the 
Huns were shelling heavily. 



[77] 



CHAPTER VI 

EARLY the following morning Crosbie and I 
started out with twenty men for our new 
quarters. The day was gloriously sunny, the clear 
blue sky without a cloud. The roads had dried 
or frozen sufficiently to make walking fairly decent. 
We left camp by a back road, crossing the canal 
by the only passable bridge. Then we marched 
on to a high country road from which we could 
look down on the surrounding country and see the 
dozens of camps dotting the landscape. Near us 
was a large artillery camp, the horses drawn up 
in a long line, the ammunition wagons in precise 
rows in front. Long lines of tents, some white, 
some brick red, others variously camouflaged, were 
formed in squares. Aeroplanes buzzed overhead, 
and from the north one heard the crump, crump of 
shells or the heavy thunder from the guns. Our 
road started off well, but within a short time deep 
shell-holes, some large enough to run from one 
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side of the road to the other, made marching diffi- 
cult, and the few transport wagons we passed were 
having a hard time of it. It was impossible for 
the horses to avoid the shell-holes. First they 
would fall into one, pull themselves out, and then 
the wagons would fall in and the horses would have 
to strain and struggle to pull them out. After 
three miles of this road we came to the main 
thoroughfare again and from there on had no 
difficulty. 

We reached the main dressing station about 
noon. This station lies between an A. D. S. and 
a C. C. S., and not only takes care of walking 
wounded but is an evacuation point for the 
ambulance. This one was at Fins on the right 
of the main road and was wonderfully laid out. 
There was an "in" and "out" road, which led up 
to the receiving huts, three in number. These 
were large Adrian huts, partitioned off inside, so 
that the first room, well heated by oil stoves and 
coal fires, received the cases. The second or inner 
section was the operating room, which was ordi- 
narily lighted by electricity generated by a dynamo 
on the premises. When this gave out, acetylene 

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lamps or candles were used. The third room 
housed the wounded while they were waiting for 
the ambulances to take them on further. Here the 
padre would work, handing out hot tea to the poor, 
wounded Tommies or running round with packages 
of cigarettes. 

Besides these three main huts there were a half 
dozen others of similar size for waiting cases, 
walking wounded, sick patients, gas patients, and 
so on. To the right were the officers' quarters, 
Nissen huts, in which were comfortable iron cots 
widi mattresses and little invalid tables. To the 
left were row on row of tents for the personnnel 
and overflow, and behind it all were die horse and 
wagon lines. 

The Captain and I sought out the C. 0., who 
greeted us cordially and asked us to form part 
of his mess. He was a fine type of soldier. He 
was a territorial but had practised medicine before 
the war, so he knew his medicine and his soldiery 
well. His men idolized him, and his officers 
obeyed him faithfully and without question. 

Within an hour after our arrival we were as- 
signed to a gas ward, which meant that we were 
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to take care of all patients suffering from gas 
poisoning. 

I am not at liberty to tell you of the various 
kinds of gas used or the effects upon the men, 
except in a general way. Formerly the Germans 
used a "wave" gas, which had a deadly effect, 
particularly if it caught the men before they could 
apply their masks. This gas depended a great 
deal on the action of the wind, which often didn't 
act as the Germans wanted it to so they were 
frequently caught in their own gas. During the 
past two years the enemy has depended partly on 
gas thrown over in shells, but fortunately we have 
learned to tell the difference between a gas and a 
high velocity shell, so that a gas alarm is sounded 
before many casualties occur. 

To give you an idea of the irritating effects of 
gas, let me relate what happened when I came into 
the mess for dinner the day I had been through the 
gas school. I had come back late and so had no 
time to change my clothes. It was a cold, damp 
night, so all the windows were closed in the large 
dining-room where forty of us ate. A coal fire 
was burning. On my right sat the British 

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Quarter-master, a likable chap who had a most 
droll way of talking. On my left sat a padre. 
I didn't notice the Quarter-master until his eyes 
brimmed over and a tear fell in his soup. Then 
the padre watered his soup too, and a man at the 
next table began to sneeze. In ten minutes every- 
body was sneezing or crying or rubbing his eyes. 
I became the most unpopular man in tlie room. 
Then the C. 0. got up, saying he had "hay-fever," 
and before long, every man trooped out, leaving 
me to finish my meal alone. After I had taken 
off my clotlies that night, there was enough gas 
left in my hair and on my skin to make me feel 
sick at my stomach, and the next day on rounds 
in tlie hospital the Sister caught it and sneezed 
her head off. That afternoon I took a bath and 
changed all my clothes. 

Crosbie and I had a special ward for gas cases. 
Fortunately no more cases came in than we could 
conveniently handle, and these were mainly walk- 
ing cases. The chief complaints were the burning 
of the eyes and the harsh, dry cough. We had 
about fifty comfortable beds in the ward and two 
large coal fires. So we were able to keep the men 
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warm. After bathing their eyes, our chief duty 
was to see that they were placed in bed and given 
plenty of hot tea — and a cigarette. It doesn't 
make any difference how badly off a Tommy is, 
he must have a cigarette, even when he is coughing 
so hard that he can hardly get his breath. If he 
can't smoke the cigarette when you hand it to him, 
he'll stick it behind his ear and carry it there 
until he does get enough breath. 

As the ward was so much warmer than our own 
billet and as we were on twenty-four hour duty, 
we moved our kits into it and slept there. During 
the day we sat near the stove, writing letters home, 
and at night we'd talk ourselves to sleep. 

It's wonderful how close men get to each other 
when they haven't any one else for company and 
have to sit on two wooden boxes in front of a fire 
all day long. Crosbie was one of those quiet- 
voiced Irishmen, whose heart was too big for his 
body, although he tipped the scale at one hundred 
and seventy-five pounds. For three years he had 
been with a battalion where I know, from reliable 
information, he risked his life more than once. 
There never was a man more popular with a 

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battalion and he was well liked by the whole 
brigade from the General down. I received 
evidence of this when the General of his old 
brigade dropped in to see him one morning for 
a chat. He would never have left the battalion if 
his new wife hadn't made him feel that he had done 
his bit there and that she would feel more sure of 
him away from the line. 

After five days we had almost talked ourselves 
out. He had told me about his wife, his house- 
keeper, his chauffeur, his home, the little bungalow 
he had in the country, die amusing cases in his 
practice, the peculiarities of his patients, and the 
differences between Carson and the Sinn Feiners. 
I learned all about the Irish National Movement, 
about the riot on that famous Easter morning, the 
formation of the Ulster Volunteers. In return, I 
told him how to be a nose and throat specialist, 
went him one better in bragging about my wife 
because I had known her longer than he had his, 
showed him her picture and that of my little boy 
which I carried in a leather case next to my heart, 
told him how to bring up children so that if he 
ever had any he wouldn't make a mistake, ex- 
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panded about the nice home I once had, mentioned 
that I sang "My Country, 'tis of Thee" whenever 
he sang "God Save the King," and even went into 
secret family matters that I wouldn't have told to 
any one else unless I was drunk. He asked how 
I happened to go into the war. 

"I've always been a toy soldier," I told him. 
"One of the kind that liked to march on Decora- 
tion Day and look handsome in a uniform. For 
years I had preached medical preparedness. So 
when the time came to show the folks that I was 
willing to be a real soldier, I wrote to Washington 
saying that they could have me. They took me 
two weeks after war broke out. There's another 
reason too — if my boy ever has to serve his 
country, I want his father's example before him 
to show him the right thing to do. My wife is a 
true blue American — her family have been there 
since Noah's Ark — and so she made it easy for me 
by smiling and saying she wouldn't have me funk. 
Guess it's harder on the women than it is on 
us." 

"Guess it is," he replied; "particularly when 
they are worrying about us up in the trenches. I 

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had a funny thing happen to me one time, a thing 
that might have been real serious too. My 
battalion was going into an exceptionally hot place 
and so before I left I wrote two letters of farewell, 
one to my fiancee and one to my father, mushy 
letters full of heart-rending dribble which a man 
never wants read until he's dead. I gave the two 
letters to a padre at headquarters and told him 
to hold on to them. I made him understand that 
I didn't want them mailed until he was sure that 
I had gone 'West.' My aid-post was in a devilish 
spot, in a trench half full of water and open to the 
wily Boche who rained thousands of bullets into it. 
Often a bullet would come whizzing through the 
door of my dug-out, which faced the enemy and 
was only a few feet deep. On the second day, 
I got word that a soldier had dropped a bomb 
amongst his companions and that some of them 
were killed and others injured. They were at an 
outpost about a hundred yards off which no man 
could get to in the daytime without being seen 
the whole distance. But I had to get there, and, 
I tell you, when I started I was mighty thankful 
that I had written those letters. I never got to 
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any place quicker in my life. I did a hundred 
yard sprint and although a hail of bullets came 
my way, I wasn't scratched. I fixed up the in- 
jured men and waited until dark for the return 
journey. After five days in the trenches, we came 
back in reserve. I asked the Padre for my 
letters. 

" 'I mailed them,' he said. 

" 'For God's sake,' I yelled. 'Didn't I tell you 
to hold them until you knew I was dead?' 

"The silly fool had stuck my letters in his 
pocket and a few days later took them out, forgot 
my instructions and put them in the mail-bag. 
Fortunately my fiancee got a field card from me, 
dated a day later than the postmark on the letter, 
and knew that I was all right. But tlie old man 
was in a bad way until my cable came." 

On the sixth day he and I were ordered over 
to an operating hut where we were to receive and 
treat the wounded from eight in the morning until 
four in the afternoon. The three surgical huts 
were worked in eight-hour shifts with two officers 
and a number of R. A. M. C. men in each one. 
There was plenty of work for two men to do, as 

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you may well imagine, but we had been having 
a lazy time of it so we didn't mind. 

I shall never forget my first impression of the 
working room of the operating hut. Although I 
had practised medicine a number of years, had 
seen the most serious kinds of surgical operations, 
had performed many serious operations myself, 
I got so dizzy and sick at my stomach at what I 
saw that I had to get outside for a breath of fresh 
air. 

I stepped in tliere the night of the first day to 
see what was going on. Outside the hut, the 
ambulances were lined up in the drizzling rain, 
and the orderlies were pulling out the stretchers 
laden with wounded soldiers. They were gently 
carried into the receiving room where the stretchers 
were laid in rows on the floor. Some of the men 
were unconscious, others not, but each one bore 
his torture bravely. Not a groan did I hear. 
The heavily blanketed figures were like so many 
wax images. 

The operating room was well lighted by an 
electric fixture over each patient. The windows 
were covered so that no light showed outside to 
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make a target for enemy bombs. Orderlies were 
moving swiftly to and fro. Stretchers were laid 
on wooden horses so that the men could be at- 
tended to without having to move them too much. 
Whenever a case was finished, the stretcher was 
lifted up by two orderlies, the wooden horses were 
removed from underneath and the patient trans- 
ported to the evacuation room. The operating 
room was partly warmed by a large coal stove and 
a number of "blue-flame" oil stoves, which could 
be put under the stretcher to warm the patient up 
while his wound was being dressed. The orderlies 
wore aprons which were damply spotted with 
blood. There was no place to wash one's hands 
thoroughly, so one had to be careful not to touch 
the insides of the dressing. The two officers 
worked with their overcoats on. It was impossible 
to stay in a hut for eight hours at night without 
one on. They would do the dressing or direct the 
orderlies. Instruments were few — scissors, a 
scalpel, a probe, but there were hundreds of dress- 
ings, plenty of cotton, splints and bandages. 

I shall not dwell on the fearful wounds. They 
are every-day occurrences and a part of the game. 

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It isn't pleasant to describe a piece of shrapnel, a 
piece about the size of a chestnut, covered with 
spurs, sticking into a man's thigh. Nor is it pleas- 
ant to look at a man's face while the surgeon, as 
gently as he can, probes down in a wound, enlarges 
the opening and extracts the foreign body with a 
forceps. But it is pleasant to see the grateful look 
on the man's face when the M. 0. hands the bullet 
or piece of steel to him all wrapped up in a clean 
piece of gauze. It's the man's best souvenir, and 
tells more than words that he was willing to sacri- 
fice his life for his country and his God. 

Two things in that operating hut force them- 
selves on my memory — one, the remarkable cheer- 
fulness and courage of the wounded men; the 
other, the skill and gentleness of the British 
orderly. 

The majority of the wounded had had first-aid 
dressings put on either by a comrade or the officer 
in a regimental aid post or in an advanced dress- 
ing station. Some of them had been wounded for 
hours before they were found by stretcher bearers 
and had lain in shell holes or at the bottom of 
dirty trenches. They were caked with mud. 
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Their faces were smudgy and unshaved, their 
hands were cracked from the cold, their clothing 
was frozen into stiff folds, their boots, which often- 
times hadn't been off for days, carried an inch or 
two of clayey soil. Yet within the covering of 
dirt were clean souls that shined out of their eyes. 
When you spoke to them, they smiled, actually 
smiled, although they were sufTering agony; un- 
less it was some fellow whose face and head were 
swathed in bandages which hid an ugly ragged hole 
in the cheek or in the scalp. They had all been 
suffering from the cold and they were more anxious 
to get warm than anything else. Often when the 
orderly would give them a cup of tea and the 
Padre would hand them a cigarette and a lighted 
match, they would sink back contentedly as much 
as to say, "This bloody war ain't so bad after all." 
I saw men with fractured thigh bones, sometimes 
the ends protruding through the skin, calmly lie 
on their stretchers smoking cigarettes while the 
M. 0. and the orderlies pulled the fragments into 
place and fixed the legs firmly in a Thomas' splint. 
When it was all over they would say, "Thank you." 
It is hard to analyze courage. There must be 

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something in a man's soul that makes him cheer- 
fully face the greatest dangers, suffer the worst 
wounds calmly, and even be willing to sacrifice his 
life for his country. These men are ordinary 
men, many of whom would raise an awful howl if 
they sprained their ankles at home. I saw a strik- 
ing example of this a few weeks later when we 
were far behind the line, and where a stray rat 
running across your path will almost scare you to 
death. A number of men in a near-by village 
were having machine-gun practice. Dummy bul- 
lets were used, but somehow a live one got in 
this particular time and in its course it hit three 
Tommies. It went through one man's arm, an- 
other man's leg and seared the abdomen of a third. 
When they came to the ambulance they were howl- 
ing with pain and were completely demoralized. 
Now, if this had happened on the battle line, they 
would have come back smiling, proudly pointing 
to their wounds and talk about Blighty. There's 
a great difference between an Ace. wound and a 
G. S. wound, not in the wound itself but in the 
man's feelings and morale. 
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The skill and gentleness shown by the average 
R. A. M. C. orderly is truly remarkable. Before 
these youngsters get out to the front they are put 
through a severe course of training lasting a year 
or more, in which they learn, practically and 
theoretically, all the duties of a trained nurse. 
They can bandage, take temperatures, give hypo- 
dermic injections and put on splints. A great deal 
of the actual work at the front has to be done by 
these men, of course under the direction of a 
medical officer, but they are frequently "on their 
own" when they are sent out as stretcher bearers. 
These men may have rough exteriors and may not 
have the refinements of education, but they could 
teach many female nurses, and some doctors too, 
the art of handling the patients gently and tenderly. 
Perhaps some of them have been through the mill 
themselves and know what a battle wound feels 
like. I've seen them pet a wounded Tommy like 
a baby and use endless time and patience in cutting 
away a man's clothing from a wound and remov- 
ing the soiled, dried, sticking dressing. Those of 
the R. A. M. C. who are left after the war will 

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profit by this training, for they have looked into 
other men's souls and felt the good effects of less- 
ening the suffering of their fellow men. 

In a way Crosbie and I enjoyed our few days 
in the operating hut. On the day shift there are 
not as many serious cases as at night, but we had 
plenty to do. I always kept a box of good ciga- 
rettes so that after I had finished a dressing I could 
hand one to a poor fellow who so patiently al- 
lowed me to fix him up. Early one morning, a 
Boche plane flew over the hospital and dropped a 
bomb about a thousand yards away, where a 
number of pioneers were working. About thirty 
were killed and as many injured. The injured 
were brought in to us. Awful, awful! It is im- 
possible to describe these wounds — but it was the 
first time I had seen a chest wall ripped away, ex- 
posing the beating heart. We got the man out of 
our place alive, but he died on the way to the 
C. C. S. 



[94] 



CHAPTER VII 

IN our mess at this dressing station were a 
number of young American medical officers 
loaned to the C. 0. from various ambulances. I 
was very glad to see them, and was particularly 
interested to see how they behaved themselves and 
whether they stood up well under the terrific strain. 
Most of them were big strapping fellows, who 
were very keen and who were only too glad to go 
out into the most dangerous places and do their bit. 
They came from various States, most of them from 
small towns. They had had practically no 
military training before coming over here and 
therefore were decidedly handicapped. But they 
kept their eyes open and, being real gentlemen, it 
wasn't very long before they learned their new 
tricks and became very efficient officers. 

I don't know what impression the English had 
of us before our entrance into the war, but I'm 
inclined to think they were afraid we were going 

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to try to tell them how to run the army when we 
did get there. They thought that we were com- 
ing over with all sorts of "high-falutin' " ideas. 
They didn't expect us to be willing to learn. I'm 
sure the Irish Tommy, who had never left his rural 
district before the war, was convinced that Ameri- 
cans were divided into two classes — Indians and 
politicians. 

Emerson and I were talking about it one morn- 
ing. 

"I am glad you and Morgan came to us," he 
said. "You are sure some surprise. I don't know 
what I expected an American officer to be like, 
except I thought he'd come in with a know-it-all 
air. You see, our impression of you Americans 
before tlie war was founded on die pictures in the 
comic papers and the samples you sent over to 
show us how to spend money. Once in a while 
we saw a Cook's tour which didn't impress us any, 
except the women wore awful clothes and the men 
wore awful high collars. We never knew there 
were Americans who could just sit tight, like you 
and Morgan, and try to learn. Why, you two are 
regular fellows, not a bit different from us." 
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"Thank you, old man," I said. "All I knew 
about Irish gentlemen was that they kissed the 
Blarney stone and often came to America to boss 
the Government. I'm only too glad to learn the 
military game from you." 

There were two ways you could tell the Ameri- 
can officers — first, because they didn't dress as 
neatly as the Englishmen, and secondly, because 
they would invariably smoke cigars after a meal 
if they could get them, while the English officers 
were satisfied with pipes or cigarettes. Most of 
these men were very anxious to get over to the 
American Army, although most of them were more 
than satisfied widi the overwhelming kindness 
shown them. Their chief reason for wanting to 
change was that they felt their chances for promo- 
tion would be greater. 

I took occasion at this time to write to the Chief 
Surgeon of the American Forces, General Alfred 
E. Bradley, whom I had known before the war. 
I spoke of all the American officers I had met in 
the most glowing terms, told of their willingness 
to face any danger, their tireless energy, and their 
courtesy. I said the only complaint I had heard 

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from them was that they were afraid they would 
never get over to the American Army. Incident- 
ally I remarked that it would be an excellent thing 
to send out a lot of captains and majors, because 
they would learn the game from experienced 
teachers and this, in a short time, would help them 
to save thousands of lives which might be un- 
necessarily sacrificed because of their ignorance of 
the military game. The General replied a few 
weeks later. I was glad to show part of his letter 
to the officers I met — the part where he stated that 
all American officers with the British forces were 
being carefully followed, that they could apply for 
promotion through proper channels at any time, 
and that fortunately the American Army didn't 
need many doctors but that, when it did, a great 
many of the American officers with the British 
Army would be sent over to the A. E. F. 

Of course one naturally expects to find a few 
men who "grouse" — men who probably had little 
practice at home, who were just learning surgery 
and who expected to find themselves in the operat- 
ing room with knife in hand as soon as they 
landed in France. Moreover, in this class belong 
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a certain type of man (and he isn't peculiar to the 
United States) who is not a natural-born gentle- 
man or else is not amenable to discipline. An- 
other peculiar fact struck me — that the man who 
comes from a small town in the backwoods is the 
man who brags the loudest about America. Un- 
fortunately we are often judged as a nation by the 
one man who happens to be in a particular organi- 
zation of a foreign army, so that it is up to each 
and every one of us to make as good an impression 
as he can. 

I met one young fellow out here who, I found 
out later, was particularly despised in the hospital 
where he had been an interne. Before our en- 
trance into the war he had pro-German sympathies. 
He was the type who rubbed you the wrong way 
the first time you met him. At mess he was always 
butting in, even when the C. 0. was speaking and 
"had the wind up" something awful. 

I hadn't talked to him very long before he began 
to complain about the treatment he was receiving 
at the hands of the British. 

"Wish I were with the American Army," he said. 
"You ain't appreciated over here. My C. 0. is an 

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awful ass. The other day he stopped me and 
told me I'd have to learn to salute like a British 
officer." 

"Must be something wrong with you," I an- 
swered sharply. "No C. 0. acts that way if he is 
shown the proper respect. Ever been to a camp 
at home?" 

"No," he replied. 

"Well, you could learn something there," I con- 
cluded. 

A few nights later six of us American officers 
were in bed shortly after nine o'clock when an- 
other of our fellows, a new man, came in. We 
greeted him cordially. He got into his bed and 
then a general "knocking" went on. I listened 
patiently. Finally this fellow chimed in. 

"I told my C. 0. to go to hell the other day. 
We had been walking a long distance and I was 
tired, so when a lorry came by I jumped on and 
rode to our destination and waited for the bunch. 
When the C. 0. saw me there he bawled me out 
something awful — told me I should have asked his 
permission. I got mad and told him where he 
could go. Glad I did too. These fellows think 

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they are the whole cheese and that they can do as 
they like with us." 

I could stand it no longer. I jumped out of bed 
and right there on the cold floor in my pyjamas 
I lambasted those fellows good and proper. First 
I lit into the one who had been talking and then 
lit into one of the others. 

"I want to tell you a thing or two," I shouted 
excitedly, turning to the new arrival, "and you soak 
it in good and plenty. I happen to know a little 
more about the army than you do and besides I'm 
your superior officer here. Our Government ought 
to be ashamed to send over a man like you. Do 
you know what would have happened to you if you 
had talked to an officer in your own army like that? 
You'd either be court-martialled or kicked out of 
tlie army. I wish you were under me. I'd make 
your life one hell on earth until you learned to be- 
have yourself like a gentleman. It's a d 

shame that all Americans have to be judged by one 
fellow who doesn't know what it is to be true blue. 

"Now," I said, turning to the other, "I want to 
give you men some good sound advice. Behave 
yourselves like gentlemen and you'll receive the 

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consideration you deserve. Try to remember that 
you've got to learn discipline before you can be an 
efficient soldier and, for God's sake, don't go 
around with a chip on your shoulder looking for 
trouble. I've been with an ambulance too and in 
all my life I've never seen fellows who tried harder 
to make things pleasant, from the C. 0. down. 
If I found many fellows from the U. S. A. like you 
two fellows here, I'd walk out into No Man's Land 
and commit suicide." 

I believe there are quite a few hundred Ameri- 
cans with the Allied forces. I have met dozens of 
them. The majority are not only well liked but 
the Allies have often said they wouldn't know what 
to do without them. Morgan was one of the kind 
who was always well loved by every officer and 
man with him; Unger, from Chicago, was another; 
then there was Robinson, from Cleveland, and 
King, from somewhere in Connecticut. I could 
name dozens of others. I was mighty proud of 
them all. And these fellows all rave about the 
wonderful consideration shown to them. They, 
and I, tried hard to make our Allied friends under- 
stand that we were there to help them and to learn. 
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Unfortunately, there are always a few undesirables 
whom I would like to see called back and sent to 
school until they learned how to behave themselves. 
The English C. O.'s are made of too fine stuff. 
They won't complain. 



[103] 



CHAPTER VIII 

DURING my stay at the main dressing station, 
the Huns shelled us day and night, sometimes 
with high velocity shells, often with gas shells, 
so that we never ventured out of doors without 
our gas masks at "the alert." The firing was par- 
ticularly murderous at daybreak and at sundown. 
I never saw or heard tlie early morning firing, 
because I didn't believe in waking up before seven 
o'clock. But I used to stand out in the grounds 
round five in the afternoon and watch the shells go 
over. 

One doesn't get particularly excited at long-dis- 
tance firing, unless a shell falls short and hits up 
the earth around him. The Huns weren't as 
much interested in us as in the ammunition dump 
across the road. They tried for this very hard. 
You could hear the shell swish through the air, 
coming nearer and nearer until you felt it going 
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over your head and then you would hear a "crump" 
in the field opposite, followed by a huge cloud of 
smoke and flying dirt. Once in a while a "dud" 
would fall. This is a shell that does not explode 
when it hits the ground. Curious Tommies used 
to pick them up, but they've learned to leave diem 
alone as they have a nasty habit of going off in 
your dress-suit case just when you've made up 
your mind to bring them home as souvenirs to 
your best girl. I didn't see many gas shells, but 
I smelled them. As there were no men over in the 
field and as the ammunition didn't mind a little 
gas, they did no harm. One night one of them 
landed on the hospital road, and two men were 
slightly overcome. 

It isn't pleasant to be serenaded during your 
dinner by the hum of a thousand shells, particu- 
larly when your mess shack is a little hut that the 
wind could blow over. No one got the wind up 
particularly, but I noticed that every time they 
whined close by overhead, every one would duck 
involuntarily until his nose was almost in his soup. 
But the talk and ragging would go on just the 
same. 

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About five o'clock one morning two shells landed 
in the hospital grounds. No one was hurt. I was 
told about it and so after breakfast I went out 
to look at the holes. There's no use losing sleep 
over trifles. 

On the third day, some one came in and said 
they heard that Morgan had been captured and 
that Christie had become separated from his men. 
But later in the morning Morgan turned up like 
a bad penny and told us the most harrowing story. 
He lost himself the first night and finally ended 
up in a dug-out where he found an M. 0. who 
needed help. He hadn't had a wink of sleep in 
forty-eight hours, but he was as cheerful as ever 
and ready to go back again as soon as he could 
locate himself. 

I had been told that American engineers were 
a short distance away, so one morning I went over 
to visit them. I was naturally curious to know 
how they were getting along, for I heard stories 
of the wonderful account they had given of them- 
selves during the recent fight. They were running 
a narrow-gauge railroad up to the front line, bring- 
ing up ammunition and rations. They had little 
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two-penny cars attached to gasolene locomotives 
whose engines were in sideways like those on the 
gasolene grass-cutters we see in Central Park. 

I cut across the fields. Just before I came out 
to the main road, I walked into a huge cemetery. 
The grave-diggers were digging dozens of new 
graves alone one side of the square of hundreds 
of wooden crosses, each one of which bore a little 
aluminium plate with the name, number, rank, and 
company of the dead soldier. Opposite them were 
a number of oblong, blanketed rolls with tags tied 
on them. A narrowing at the ends with a huge 
bulge in the centre pointed out, all too plainly, 
that they were the bodily remains of valiant men. 
It made me sick at heart. But such is war. 

Across the road was a wide-gauge railway on 
the tracks of which were flat cars containing the 
most peculiar looking objects. They were the 
tanks, of which we had all heard so much. 

I ran across the road to get a closer view and 
was overjoyed to find that some of these giant 
caterpillars were going to perform for my par- 
ticular benefit. One was on its way to the cars. 
It would creep along on its many-toed feet, dip 

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its nose into a shell-hole, raise it up again and then 
calmly walk right up on to the car. The thing 
that struck me particularly was that they made no 
more noise tlian an ordinary passenger automobile. 

I was greeted very cordially by the officers of 
the Engineer Unit ^ and sat down to chat with them 
in their nice warm mess. Most of the talk was 
about home, of course, and then about the battle 
around us. Finally the conversation drifted to- 
wards tanks. 

"Funny animals," the engineer Captain said. 
"They brought them here a day or so ago. It was 
a great sight watching them walking across the 
fields, up hill and down dale. Now you saw them 
and now you didn't. About a hundred came in 
yesterday. All day long they were prowling 
around, sticking their noses into everything. If 
they had trunks on them you'd want to go out with 
a bag of peanuts and feed them." 

"You know the nights have been pretty cold 
round here and in order to keep the tanks from 
freezing they took them out to exercise every night. 
We almost aren't here to tell the tale. Last night 

1 1 believe it was the 12th Engineers from St. Louis. 

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while we were eating our dinner, we heard an awful 
crumbling sound at the side of our hut and then 
the wall began to give. We rushed outside, and 
darned if a tank wasn't trying to crawl over our 
shanty." 

"I wonder what the inside of a tank looks like," 
I said, after I had stopped laughing at his descrip- 
tion. 

"Come out and I'll show you," said the Captain. 

So we went round to the back of the shack where 
two of them were standing. 

"Did you know that there were male and female 
tanks?" he asked. 

"I've heard of both kinds in civil life." 

"They are much alike, except for the kind of 
guns they carry. A male tank has three-inch guns, 
the female tanks have machine-guns that can fire 
two hundred bullets a minute. I don't know why 
one is called 'he' and the other 'she,' except that 
the female animal can talk faster." 

A close inspection showed the weightiness of tlie 
ugly, awkward, grey monster. The caterpillar 
tractors wound round the wheels, digging into the 
ground with heavy claws. Solid, studded steel en- 

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closed it, leaded glass for small windows at the 
front end. One could hardly imagine how such a 
cumbersome object could be controlled so well, 
that it could walk over huge shell-holes, wide 
trenches and barbed wire without the least sign of 
effort. The snubnose just dips down into a 
trench, the peculiarly curved body propelling it 
out again and over the top. 

One enters the tank through a small, greasy 
opening in the side which can be closed by a steel 
door. Inside is an enormous mass of machinery 
— guns, ammunition, gears, levers, pulleys, steer- 
ing wheels, tools and engine. The racket inside 
must be deafening. It is impossible to stand up- 
right. There are enough small iron seats for the 
tankmen to sit and do their work. 

When we got out again, rather greasy and mud- 
stained, I asked the Captain where the 11th 
battalion was — a New York organization. 

"See those shell-holes over there?" he replied. 
"Well, the battalion moved out of here two days 
ago. That's the ground where they had their tents. 
If they had remained a day longer, there wouldn't 
be a man of them alive. The Huns shelled this 
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place the night after they left. We are going to 
build some dug-outs into yonder hill tomorrow. 
It isn't safe out in the open." 

The Engineer battalions had done some good 
fighting up this way. One morning when they 
were bringing up rations they saw the Germans 
coming on in a huge wave. They jumped off 
their trains, grabbed what rifles they could and 
fought by the side of the British Tommy. A few 
of them were in an important village, Marcoing, 
captured by the British and retaken by the Germans 
a few days later. I had heard that the Huns didn't 
intend to take any American prisoners and this was 
proved to me when a wounded British officer was 
brought into my operating hut at the dressing sta- 
tion. 

"Your fellows put up a great fight and I have 
to thank two of them for being here now," he 
said. "I was wounded, and when the Germans 
came in and took the village they stayed by me. 
The Germans made me a prisoner, but when they 
saw my two comrades they raised their rifles and 
fired point blank. It was awful. A few hours 
later our men re-attacked and got the village again, 

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and then I was sent down here. I'll never forget 
those fellows as long as I live. They didn't have 
the chance of a snow ball in hell!" 

On my way back to the dressing station, I passed 
a "cinema" theatre on the main road. There was 
a large sign in front advertising the show for that 
evening. Thus are life and death linked closely 
together at the front. 

Things were quiet in the operating room that 
day, so after lunch I sought out Jimmie, my bat- 
man, and inquired as to the possibilities for a 
bath. 

You must remember that I had been out at the 
front for nearly four weeks, and although I had 
longed for a good, clean bath it was out of the 
question. For two weeks at a time I didn't have 
my clothes off. I'd get as far as taking off my 
shoes and coat, but in order to make up for the 
loss in warmth I'd put on a pair of bed socks, a 
knitted helmet and wrap a blanket over my 
shoulders. It was too cold to do more than think 
of a bath. At first I felt so itchy all over and 
scratched so hard, that I was sure the cooties had 
got me. Once I took off my shirt and looked but 
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there were none. As the cooties inhabit tlie seams 
of your shirt and only come out to bite you and 
go back again, you don't have to go further to look 
for trouble. I once remarked that I couldn't see 
how a man could go without taking a balh at least 
once a week, but now I can understand how a 
Frenchman can go for a year without one. It's all 
a matter of habit and the people you live with. 
Once I thought that I couldn't get along without 
napkins, clean towels, scented soap, clean water 
to wash in, my morning coffee and all that. But 
that is all changed now. 

The thing that gave me the idea about a batli, 
other than the thought of my duty towards myself, 
was seeing a tin tub in the ward; so, as I say, I 
got hold of Jimmie. 

"Jimmie," I said, "something tells me I need a 
bath. Do you tliink you could fix it?" 

"Be you wanting it now, sir?" he asked. 

"Well, I could wait a few hours longer, consid- 
ering I haven't had one in a month." 

"Hot or cold, sir?" Jimmie inquired. 

"Now, Jimmie," I said. "What would you say 
on a nice hot day like this with the thermometer 

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thirty-two degrees below zero? If you can 
manage hot water, I'll be tliankful." 

"Yaz, sir," he said. "And where will ye 'ave 
the bath? I mean, sir, will ye 'ave it in the cubby- 
hole alongside the ward or where?" 

"The wisest plan, I think, Jimmie," I replied, 
weighing my words carefully, "would be to wait 
until the operating room is free at four o'clock. 
You could set the tub next to the fire and find a 
few screens to put round it to shut out the 
draught." 

"I'll 'ave it ready, sir. Four o'clock, sir." 

Jimmie, my batman, was my best friend. He 
had been given me shortly after I joined the 
ambulance. He was a short, stocky little Irishman 
with merry, twinkling blue eyes and a hidden smile 
which jumped out at you unawares. I thought 
that he had wonderful teeth until he came to me 
one day complaining of a toothache, and when I 
asked him to show the offending member he de- 
posited his masticators in a handkerchief and 
showed me the only real tooth in his mouth. He 
didn't smoke, drink or swear and went to church 
on Sundays. But, like all good batmen, he knew 
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how to steal honestly for his master. In a short 
time I had a little dressing table that I had never 
bought and innumerable little things like 
enamelled basins and cups, shoe polish, handker- 
chiefs and so on. My chief delight was to get 
Jimmie talking. He was somewhat of a philos- 
opher and certainly had kissed the Blarney stone. 
Whenever I wanted to be sure of anything, I'd ask 
Jimmie. He had made himself complete master 
of all my property and of myself. 

On a morning shortly after he was given to me, 
Jimmie saw me looking over my kit. He saluted 
me smartly. 

"If ye don't mind, sir, I'll do the lookin' after 
your property. All I wants to do is to take out 
everything you've got and look at it. Then I 

knows it's yours and I can catch the 

who tries to swipe 'em. You don't need to know 
what you've got any more. When you wants a 
thing just yell for Jimmie. I see you ain't got 
a few things like a tin cup and basin. I must make 
it my duty to get them." 

After that I never looked at my kit again. The 
only thing Jimmie would let me take care of my- 

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self was my money. I couldn't even get a new 
package of tobacco without asking him! — and 
cigarettes? The more I smoked, the more I had. 

Our work in the operating room stopped at the 
usual hour, and Jimmie got busy. First, he 
brought in the tin tub, which was about three feet 
long and one foot wide. He set this near the coal 
stove, on which he had a bucket of water boiling. 
He had five other buckets going on other stoves 
in adjoining huts. He brought in two wooden 
horses which he placed near the fire and upon 
these he carefully deposited my clean undercloth- 
ing, socks, flannel shirt, clean handkerchief and 
towels. Behind the stove he put my "gum" boots. 
Tlien he placed two operating room screens be- 
tween the draughty window and the tub and closed 
the door. 

The room was nice and warm. He had brought 
in the six pails of hot water and now he began 
pouring the water into the tub until it was three- 
quarters full. 

"All ready, sir," he said. 

I undressed first from the waist down and 
stepped into the water. How grateful, how sooth- 
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ing it felt! The warmth in my feet began to creep 
up through my body, and finally I ventured to take 
off the rest of my clothes. As I drew my olive- 
drab, flannel shirt over my head, my family flew 
out of my pocket and fell into the tub. Thus my 
wife and child felt the soothing effects of the tub 
too. I rescued them before the water could get 
through the leather cover of the photograph case. 

Somehow, every one must have known that I 
was taking a bath in the operating room. The tub 
wasn't large enough to accommodate more than my 
feet, and, thus as I posed there like September 
Morn, not more than twenty people came into the 
room. For minutes at a time I had to "stand to" 
to hide my modesty. 

With the help of Jimmie I got a good scrubbing. 
Wlien I had finished all the parts that I could 
reach, I gave him the soap and sponge, and he 
worked on my back. 

By this time my towel was steamed through and 
my clean clothes piping hot. Jimmie stood by, 
handing me one warm piece after the other, 
and finally helped me on with my boots. 

Never was there another like Jimmie. 

[117] 



CHAPTER IX 

OUR move orders to go back to Moislans ar- 
rived about four o'clock one afternoon, and so 
we hastily packed our kits and got our men to- 
gether. Morgan had become permanently de- 
tached and now was made a battalion M. 0. He 
was quartered in a village a short distance away, 
where he was amusing himself dodging bombs 
dropped from German aeroplanes. 

We were to rejoin our ambulance and then move 
back for a real, well-earned rest. The men of our 
division had been in the trenches day and night 
for over three weeks, fighting all the time in the 
worst kind of weather imaginable. The nights 
were bitter cold: the sun seldom came out during the 
day. When one considers that five days hand- 
running in the trenches is about all the average 
man can stand without a rest, you can appreciate 
how hard put to it the men were. 

As some empty ambulances were going our way, 
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we decided to wait until five o'clock and ride. But 
at the last moment they had to be used for patients, 
so we formed our men in line, and with Crosbie 
and I at the head the little band marched the eight 
miles. It was pitch dark, cold and raining. No 
lights were allowed on the over-crowded road. It 
is a wonder we weren't run into by one of the hun- 
dred ammunition lorries or ambulances that passed 
by us. 

We had to go over tlie same road we had taken 
ten days before. But it was a different proposi- 
tion, walking in the blackness of the night. We 
had great difficulty finding the crossing at which 
we were to turn off. All the shell-holes which had 
been fairly dry when we had passed them before 
were filled knee-deep with water and mud, and, of 
course, it was impossible to keep out of them. I 
had my flash-lamp with me, but it wasn't long be- 
fore it petered out, so that our little band floundered 
in the mud until we were covered from tlie waist 
down. I had high, leather, waterproof boots on, 
but the water came in over the tops of them, and the 
men's ankle boots were soaked through. At first 
the men started singing to pass the time pleasantly, 

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but it wasn't very long before they were cussing, 
except when a man fell flat in a shell-hole and al- 
most drowned. That was too good a joke not to 
laugh. 

When we got to the Ambulance we looked like 
a lot of drowned rats. Not a sign of habitation 
could be seen, not a light anywhere. The men 
had "struck" their tents and had rigged up dwell- 
ing places in any old tumbledown yard where they 
could find enough bricks and iron for covering. 
The C. 0. had moved over to a one-room palace, 
made of four walls that had been part of a pre- 
tentious chateau. The ceiling was also intact, and 
the openings of the windows and doors were cov- 
ered with blankets. The reason he had selected 
it was because it had a passable fireplace. The 
men could get plenty of wood for fuel from the 
destroyed houses around. 

We entered the warm room. One man, who had 
just returned from leave, happy "Emmy" and the 
Q.-M. were there. They were just about to sit 
down to dinner. 

"This is great," I said. "First time I've been 
warm in a week. Where do we sleep?" 
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"Right on this cozy little floor," answered Emer- 
son. "This village is short on hotels, and those 
that are here are all booked up. So we opened 
this one and called it the 'Palais de Luxe.' Un- 
fortunately it only has one room, but in that you 
can eat, sleep and be merry. Three of us have 
slept here so far, but I guess we can make room for 
two more. We'll fold the table up and stand it 
in the corner. Then we will draw lots to see who 
will sleep next to the fire." 

"That's all right, Emmy," laughed Crosbie. 
"But please don't dream you're my missus in the 
middle of the night and try to crawl into my bed." 

After dinner some one suggested bridge, so we 
cleared the table and laid the dishes on the floor. 
Each of us procured a candle from his haversack, 
took the lid off" his tin cigarette box for a candle 
holder and placed it at his comer of the table. 
We borrowed a deck of cards from the cook. 
These cards had once been new, but constant use by 
the cock in numerous games of Patience had 
frayed the edges and deepened the pinkish tints 
of the hearts and diamonds. We played for fifty 
centimes a hundred, and as Emmy had informed 

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me that every time I doubled him he would re- 
double we had an exciting, hilarious game. The 
walls shook with our laughter. When we finished 
well after midnight, I had won at least ten 
centimes. 

Our batmen had brought in our bedding rolls. 
We laid them out on the floor, side by side, and in 
a few minutes after the game was over every man 
was sliding into his blankets. But it was some 
time before we quieted down enough to go to sleep. 

On the following morning our definite orders 
to entrain for the Rest Area came. So we made 
our first move to Etricourt, a village a short dis- 
tance away, where we were to remain until the train 
was ready to take us farther. It was bitter cold, 
and so you can imagine our dismay when we got 
there to find that we were assigned to a row of dirty, 
soggy tents, located in a muddy field, pocked with 
shell-holes. One couldn't walk ten feet without 
getting caught in barbed wire or stumbling into 
a hole, and to add to our discomfort the troops 
who had previously been there had used the larger 
shell-holes for garbage and refuse of all kinds, 
which they neglected to cover up. 
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I sent for Jimmie. 

"Jimmie," I said, "pick out the warmest tent 
you can — one with a flat piece of ground if pos- 
sible. If I don't freeze to death before you get my 
bedding roll open, I'll come in when you are ready 
for me and go to bed." 

"Yaz, sir." 

And then I went down to inspect the officers' mess. 
It consisted of another tent which was icy cold. 
We couldn't have a fire in a tent and the men 
couldn't build any outside, not even for cooking, 
because it was nearly dark and a fire made too 
good a target for aeroplanes. 

I managed to get some tea and bread, and 
then informed my fellow officers that I was go- 
ing to bed. It was a little after four in the after- 
noon. 

"Aren't you going to have any dinner?" asked 
Pamell. 

"What for? I can't walk round in this pesky 
place for three hours. There isn't any place to 
sit down without freezing to death, and so I am 
going to climb into my blankets and stay there until 
we move." 

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They all laughed. 

Jimmie had found a fairly decent tent, had pro- 
cured a "biscuit," on which he laid out my bed- 
ding roll. From some place or other he had 
resurrected two large tin boxes, one of which he 
placed on top of the other, and on these he put two 
lighted candles. I slipped off my shoes and 
climbed into my blankets, which Jimmie had 
pinned together with large safety-pins. I had 
four plies of blankets under me and six above me. 
Then I donned my arctic garb — knitted helmet, 
Irish shawl, muffler and a pair of woollen gloves. 
My, how nice and warm it felt. 

I picked up Louis Vance's book "The Black 
Bag," which was published some years ago but 
was still exciting enough to keep me awake. 
Somewhere in my wanderings it got into my kit. 
My hands, as they held the book, would become 
icy cold, but I developed the system of managing 
the book (it was a small volume) with one hand 
so that I could keep the other under the covers for 
a time. 

Every one of the officers came in to laugh at me 
and call me Peary, but I noticed a wistful look in 
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their eyes. Jimmie came in innumerable times to 
see if I were comfortable. 

Along towards eight o'clock I heard some one 
opening the flap of my tent and Jimmie stepped 
in, head and shoulders first. In one hand he 
carried a tin can, in the other was a soup plate, 
and from the top of his puttee protruded a large 
spoon. 

"What you got, Jimmie?" 

"The officers sent for me, sir, and told me to feed 
you this." And witli that he poured hot pea soup 
from the can into the plate and pulled the spoon 
out of his puttee. 

Do you wonder that I was overwhelmed by the 
kindness of these men? I was too cold and lazy 
to get up for dinner. They were freezing down in 
a tent but they wouldn't forget me. 

Every one turned in early. As the men's tents 
were next to ours, we were kept awake for some 
time by their singing to the accompaniment of an 
old accordion. Those men will sing anywhere. 
They are made that way. I was complaining of 
the cold in between ten folds of blankets, while 
they had only one blanket apiece which thev had 

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to roll themselves in after covering the earth with 
their ground sheets. 

Just as I was dozing off at about ten o'clock, 
Jimmie came in. He looked me over carefully. 

"I thought perhaps ye might need me in the 
night, sir, so I takes the tent next to you. If you 
needs me, just you yell, 'Jimmie.' I don't tliink 
yer quite warm enough." 

So Jimmie tucks the corners round me more 
closely, ties up my bedding roll over them and 
finally takes my Canadian mackinaw down from 
a nail in the tent-pole and tucks it round my 
feet. 

Crosbie roomed with me, but he wasn't very 
comfortable, because he had loaned some of his 
blankets. He tried to sit up long enough to write 
a letter to his wife, but his fingers froze over the 
pen. 

All night long we were disturbed. Orders and 
contrary orders, telling us when to move and when 
not to move, kept coming in until six o'clock in the 
morning, when the Q.-M. jumped in on us to tell us 
he was going to pack his wagons and had to have 
the stretchers. Considering that we didn't move 
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for seven hours, he might have let us sleep a little 
longer. 

Crosbie w^as to take the transport by road, while 
the other officers and men were to entrain. 

At two in the afternoon we moved away from 
that frozen mud hole and marched to the railroad 
siding, where there was a line of compact, little 
cattle cars about four hundred yards long waiting 
for us. The dismal sky had frozen so that by the 
time we arrived there we were covered by a line 
film of snow. I looked round for a de luxe com- 
partment for officers, but the train-master forgot 
to put it on. So after seeing our men comfortably 
piled on the floor of three of the cars, we jumped 
on to a fourth where we found a dozen other com- 
panions in misery. 

First, I must explain the art of getting into a 
box car. If you are a horse or a mule or a cow, 
some one borrows a plank and you walk up 
majestically. But if you have two feet, there is 
no one to help you at all. You first look round 
until you find a small projection of iron in which 
you may place one foot, then you get hold of the 
floor with your two hands and raise yourself 

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enough so that you can crawl in on your stomach. 
In the process you swallow some dust and your 
clothes look as though you had come out of a coal 
bin. 

This particular car must have been used for its 
proper purpose at one time. It certainly was not 
fit for human occupation. The floor was covered 
with an inch of dust, manure, sawdust, straw, hay, 
horse hair, and ruined bits of bread. We didn't 
like the looks of it, so we began house cleaning. 
One of the officers got on one side and I got over on 
the other, and thus we swept all the dirt towards 
the centre with bits of newspaper. The next prob- 
lem was to get the dirt out of the car — we blew 
it out, and kicked it out. 

After a moderate wait, the train began to stretch 
and finally worked itself along the track. The 
dozen or so of officers cozily deposited themselves 
on the floor, after some of them had managed to 
close the two sliding doors. While the daylight 
lasted we were fairly comfortable, and a young 
subaltern with microscopical down on his upper 
lip actually told stories that made us laugh. 

But darkness came on early, and with it the 
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storm increased in intensity until the miserable, 
cold wind blew in enough snow to cover the floor 
of the car. After a time, some one suggested that 
we close the window openings, and so we rode on 
in utter darkness. 

The mess servants of the Ambulance had packed 
up some sandwiches for us, so that when tea time 
came round we felt pretty good about it. But what 
is the good of six sandwiches when there are twelve 
men aboard, and tlie other men hadn't had fore- 
sight enough to provide for tliemselves? When we 
had emptied our packages and divided all our 
sandwiches in half, we were hungrier than ever. 

I thought that I had experienced cold weather 
before and couldn't feel colder. But that ride was 
the opposite of Hades. The cold ate into your 
wet boots, froze your socks, got inside your under- 
clothes, crawled down your neck and made the 
water run out of your nose. You would sit on the 
floor as long as your sitting arrangement would 
allow it and then stand up, first on one foot and 
then on the other, pawing the floor like a regular 
horse. We smoked innumerable cigarettes and 
pipes, but that didn't do us any good. We blew 

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our hands, but that didn't warm us any eitlier. 
Some one tried to sing, but his voice cracked like 
an icicle. After a few hours some of the men 
began tramping up and down, and in order not to 
have their toes kicked the others joined in, and 
finally we formed a prisoners' file, one behind the 
other, with our hands on one another's shoulders 
and tramped up and down and down and up until 
we got our circulation going. 

We made the sixteen miles in eight hours. 

When we opened the doors at our detraining 
point, we found that a real blizzard had set in. 
We jumped out in a foot of snow, formed our men 
into companies and marched four miles to a vil- 
lage, which was so small that a map wouldn't 
recognize it. Glorious news awaited us. The 
transport was somewhere on tlie way, we were told, 
and all our motor ambulances were snowed up on 
the roads. We had relied on these ambulances 
to bring our food and our luggage. As we hugged 
the miniature mess fire, we decided of all the miser- 
ies of war nothing could beat the hardships of 
going back to the rest areas. I wondered if we 
were ever going to get any rest. 
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Emerson saved my life that night. How he ever 
got his bedding roll, I don't know. He gave me a 
wink to follow him out into the hall. 

"Get hold of one end of this," he whispered, as 
he pointed to a canvas heap on the floor. "Don't 
say a word to any one." 

We carried "it" over to our billet, where there 
was a big bed. Inside were most of his blankets, 
which we made use of in short order. 



[131] 



CHAPTER X 

WHEN wc got up the following morning we 
found the world blanketed in snow. The 
storm had abated somewhat, but there was still 
enough wind to carry whirling eddies of fine white 
filaments, so that in a short time the roadway was 
so steeply banked that one could walk through it 
only with the greatest difficulty. One of our 
ambulances had managed to crawl in during the 
night, but all the rest of them, motor and horse 
transport, were stranded along the road. Troops 
came floundering into the village, heavily bent by 
their snow-covered packs. Their officers, many of 
whom had been up all night, were anxiously mak- 
ing inquiries. They knew where they were to go, 
but didn't know how to get there, because most of 
the passable roads marked on their maps were com- 
pletely blocked. Some of the battalions didn't 
find their headquarters for days, and often one 
would see a long line of marching men cutting 
across the fields where the walking was a trifle 
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better, their officers in front, feeling their way 
along with their compasses. 

Our Ambulance began its move early in the 
afternoon for Beaudricourt, a town but a few miles 
away. Ordinarily one would have gotten there in 
two hours. But, as I said, the good roads were 
impassable; so we had to crawl up the side of a 
mountain along a by-path covered with slippery 
ice. At times, for hundreds of yards, the drifts 
were so high that the lower parts of the men's 
bodies couldn't be seen, and one would emerge 
from the struggle with the snow, sweating and ex- 
hausted. To add to our troubles we lost our way, 
and so more than five hours had passed before we 
arrived at our destination — cold, hungry, tired and 
dirty. 

No cheerful welcome awaited us. Christie had 
gone ahead to do the billeting. He had done the 
best he could. But there was only one barn avail- 
able for the men, and only one billet available for 
the officers — a billet that had to be used as a mess 
and for sleeping quarters. The few civilians in 
the village were rationed, and so had no coal or 
wood to give or sell us. There was a small stove 

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in our room, and by dint of a great deal of persua- 
sion in very poor French we prevailed on the land- 
lady to start a fire, which she kept going by putting 
in one piece of coal at a time. 

We sat down in our cheerless room to discuss 
the situation. Not a man had more than one 
blanket, and the officers had none. The only kit 
we had was that in our small haversacks which we 
carried with us — shaving and toilet articles, a 
towel and possibly some tobacco. Moreover, our 
food had almost given out. We had enough on 
hand for the night's meal — biscuits, tea, bully-beef 
and cheese — but when that was gone there wasn't 
a possibility of getting any more until our wagons 
turned up. There was no use trying to get any- 
thing to eat from the people of the village. They 
themselves didn't look any too robust. 

I went out to see how the men were getting on. 
The long, uneven street of the village, covered with 
snow, led to the corner where the draughty, straw- 
thatched bam stood. Inside, in the dim light af- 
forded by two or three candles, I could see the 
shadowy outlines of our men, closely huddled to- 
gether between tiers of wire beds, trying to keep 
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themselves warm over two hastily improvised 
braziers from which the smoke was thickly pouring. 

I wondered where they got the fuel. I after- 
ward found out that they had ripped off the door 
of a tumble down house and cut it up for firewood. 
Of course there was an official complaint. Al- 
though the men swore they knew nothing about it, 
the Government had to pay. 

One could see that, beside being cold, the men 
were hungry. But do you suppose such trifles 
could dampen their spirits? Later in the even- 
ing, when I had occasion to pass their billet again, 
I could hear them singing: 

Take me back to dear old Blighty: 

Put me on the train for dear old London town: 

Take me over there, drop me anywhere, 

Liverpool, Leeds or Manchester — where I don't care. 

I should like to see my best girl; 

Cuddling up again we soon shall be. 

Whoa! Hi — te — tiddley highty, 

Hurry me off to Blighty, 

Blighty is the place for me. 

When I returned to the mess, the officers were 
discussing our sleeping accommodations. Besides 

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the table, there was a double bed in the room on 
which were two mattresses, a heavy comfortable, 
a thin woollen blanket, and a light counterpane. 
There were also three canvas cots. Off to the side 
was a smaller room with a bed in it and enough 
covers for tlie C. 0., provided he was willing to 
sleep in his clothes and use his overcoat. 

"We were just talking over the comforts of our 
mansion. Hays," laughed Emerson. "Excluding 
the C. 0., there are five of us. We have one bed, 
three cots (the legs are broken on one of them 
but that doesn't make any difference), and a few 
odds and ends, of course. We haven't decided 
how to divide them." 

"I'll tell you what we'll do, Emmy, provided 
the others are satisfied," I said. "We'll move two 
of the cots together and give Glanville and Christie 
the comfortable and Parnell can use the other cot, 
the one with the crooked leg. We'll give him the 
blanket and counterpane. You and I will use the 
bed." 

"All very fine," he answered. "I suppose you 
want us to use our shoes to cover ourselves 
with." 
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"Not at all," I replied. "I have observed that 
the bed has two mattresses. We'll sleep on one 
and use the other for a cover." 

That appealed to his sense of humour. We all 
crawled in as I suggested. Each man wore his 
overcoat and muffled his face up in a knitted scarf, 
if he had one. 

Emmy and I rolled back the upper mattress and 
when we had laid ourselves flat, let it roll over 
on top of us. It was good and heavy but warm 
— better than a half dozen blankets. The only 
trouble was that whenever Emmy or I wanted to 
turn over we'd both have to wake up, roll the 
mattress halfway and then let it come back again. 
The discomfort of sleeping between two mattresses 
may be imagined when I tell you that we slept for 
ten solid hours. 

Late the next morning Christie came in with the 
glad news that he had found new billets for us, 
"the finest you ever saw at the front," and, to make 
us happier still, our ration wagon, which we hadn't 
seen for over twenty-four hours, turned up with a 
goodly supply of food, at least sufficient to last 
us for two days. 

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I went round later in the day to investigate the 
new billets that had been picked out for us. We 
were to keep the original one for a mess. One was 
located in the attic of the Mayor's house! 
Parnell and the C. 0. were in a fairly decent 
mansion and clean too. I couldn't find No. 13, 
so I had to inquire of one of the Miles., who of- 
fered to show it to me. I was conducted through 
a back door into a stable, in which were two horses 
and plenty of manure. We waded through it and 
came to a room in which was a small iron bed, a 
room which probably was once used by a horse 
or cow. Then I went down to my billet at No. 
5. Here I found a gorgeous room facing the 
street, with curtains at the two windows, a fine coal 
stove, a writing table and a large bed with inviting 
covers upon it. 

The tears came to my eyes when I thought of 
Christie. "Just like him," I said to myself. 
"That blessed fool goes to work and takes No. 13, 
the very worst room, and gives me the best." 

But that's the way it was with those men — 
always the best for me, always the worst for them- 
selves. It wasn't only what they did — it was the 
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way they did it, with no ceremony, no ostentation, 
just as if it were a matter of course that their 
guest from America should have the best of every- 
thing. Do you wonder that I loved them? 

If men are left in a place long enough, they will 
manage to make themselves comfortable. In- 
side of three days the village was transformed. 
The men had tidied up and repaired their bam, 
the cooks had found a suitable cook-house, the 
sergeants had found a decent place for themselves 
where they could hold aloof from their men in 
dignified disdain, tlie officers managed to get 
enough of their kits to make life bearable. More- 
over, we heard of a Canadian saw-mill a few kilo- 
metres away, so one afternoon I was given a detail, 
marched over there and loaded up with all the 
refuse lumber we could carry. This meant com- 
fort for the men as well as for ourselves. 

As I have mentioned, I had a stove in my billet, 
but at first I had no fuel to burn in it. So I got 
hold of my ever- ready Jimmie. 

"Jimmie," I said, "there is a stove, and I am 
cold. What would you do if you had a stove and 
were cold?" 

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Jimmie smiled. 

"Maybe the old lady has some wood," I con- 
tinued. "But I can't parley with her. Do you 
think that you could parley with her enough to get 
a franc's worth of bois?'' 

"Shure!" he answered. 

So I accompanied Jimmie out to the kitchen and 
silently listened. 

"Bon jour, madame," he said, "s'il vous plait 
beaucoup bois" (he pointed to a piece of wood) 
"I'officier" (he pointed to me) "il achete la bois" 
(he opened his paw and showed her a franc). 
"J'achete une franc's worth." 

She caught on, called her little boy, and ex- 
plained to him in gestures and a jumble of mean- 
ingless words. He went to the woodshed and re- 
turned with two long pieces of timber, which 
Jimmie proceeded to hack with a half-handled 
hatchet. 

We were destined to stay in this village for a 
good many days. They were really and truly 
happy days, after we once got settled. I had been 
assigned to the care of all the sick, whom we took 
care of in two large bare rooms, upon the floors 
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of which we could lay stretchers. In peace time 
we would have considered it impossible to care for 
patients properly with such poor accommodation. 
But the poor Tommy was glad to get a bit of rest 
anywhere, particularly when he knew that he could 
get plenty of blankets. We didn't have many 
kinds of medicine. Aspirin or salicylic acid did 
for rheumatics. No. 9 or No. 13 pill did for the 
digestive tract, and castor oil was ladled out by 
the quart every morning. Many of the men had 
sore or blistered feet. These we treated with hot 
fomentations of borated gauze. 

We not only had to treat soldiers but civilians 
as well. One night I was called in to see an old 
woman who was supposed to be suffering from 
heart disease. The sergeant took me through the 
stables and out to a decayed shack. The stench 
in the one room was awful. The floor, table, bed, 
everything was filthy. The old woman lay over 
in one comer on a bed covered with rags. I 
never saw such a filthy human being. She was 
a brownish, yellow green. Her grey white hair 
was matted with dirt. She looked a hundred 
years old. I hated to go near her, but I at last 

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got up courage enough to feel her pulse. Then I 
went outside with the sergeant. 

"Think she's got cardiac failure," I said. "Get 
a hypo ready with some digitalis and bring it over 
to my billet. And, Sergeant — you needn't mind 
sterilizing it." 

A short time after he brought the medicine and 
syringe over to me, and on second thought I de- 
cided to sterilize it anyway. Then we went to see 
the old woman again. 

The sergeant bared her arm, poured out some 
iodine on a piece of gauze and applied it. But 
even when I held the candle close to the arm, I 
couldn't find the place where he had put it on. It 
was just the colour of her skin. 

I picked up the flabby skin, held my hypo, 
firmly, gave a jab; the old woman gave a yell that 
raised the roof, broke my needle before it got 
through the skin, jumped out of bed — and was 
cured of her heart disease. 

It was the day before Christmas when I thought 
of what I could give Jimmie. We had been mak- 
ing preparations for the holiday for a week, for 
we wanted the men to have as good a time as was 
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possible. We had bought two pigs, weighing over 
two hundred pounds apiece, which I had the 
privilege of seeing "stuck." It's a most abomina- 
ble sight, but when the carcass is hung up, all shiny 
and clean, one forgets that it ever was an animal 
with piggish sensibilities. The British Govern- 
ment were to supply plum pudding, and the 
officers had bought cigarettes, tobacco and choco- 
late for the men. We had purchased an eighteen- 
pound turkey for ourselves and had managed to 
find a good many of the trimmings. 

As we were near Doulons, a fair-sized town, I 
asked the C. O.'s permission to jump on one of the 
ambulances that was going to a C. C. S. located 
there. I also asked if I could take Jimmie along. 

"It's not customary for the men to ride into 
town, Hays," he said. 

"I know that," I replied. "But I want to deck 
Jimmie out for Christmas and I want to take him 
along so he can select the things for himself." 

"All right this time," — he laughed. 

So Jimmie went with me, wondering all the way 
how he happened to be taken on a joy ride. 

I decked Jimmie out with good warm gloves, 

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heavy woollen socks and other things, until his eyes 
almost popped out of his head. I spent twice as 
much as I usually gave him for salary in a month. 

"Gee, Captain, that's great. Thank ye." 
That's all he said, but I knew Jimmie was mine, 
heart and soul, for the rest of my life. 

He came back with me, a happy boy. And I 
am sure he bragged all night to his less fortunate 
companions. 

The next morning Jimmie came in with my shav- 
ing water. 

"Merry Christmas to ye. Captain," he said. 

"Merry Christmas, Jimmie," I answered, as I 
got out my shaving things. "Nice bright morning, 
isn't it?" 

I noticed that Jimmie looked embarrassed as he 
stepped uneasily from one foot to the other, and I 
also noticed that he held one hand behind his back. 

"Would ye be so kind, sir," he said after a 
pause, "as to accept a present from me?" And 
his hand flew out. In it was a beautiful bevelled- 
glass mirror, one that magnified on one side. 

I was overwhelmed and hated to take it, but I 
wouldn't have hurt the poor fellow's feelings for 
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the world. Where he got the mirror from I don't 
know, but I'll bet it was one of his prize posses- 
sions. 

I was afraid of Christmas Day, afraid that I 
would remember too well the happy home holidays, 
afraid that I would be so lonesome, that I would be 
a nuisance to every one around me. But some- 
how the surroundings were so different, there was 
so little of the holiday spirit, that I wouldn't have 
known it was Christmas if I hadn't been stopped by 
the men who wished me a happy day. 

We had hoped to give the boys a cheery dinner. 
But the only room we could find to serve the dinner 
in was the one room of the schoolhouse which 
would only hold sixty at a time, so they had to 
eat in three shifts. It started to snow early in the 
afternoon and, as the kitchens were some distance 
away and the food had to be transported in open 
pails, it was cold before it got to the men. The 
great thing that distinguished the dinner from all 
others was that the men had plates, knives and 
forks. The pale French beer helped to lighten 
them up some, and although the dinner was not the 
success we should have liked it to have been, it was 

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so out of the ordinary that the men made a good 
time out of it until — 

An orderly came up to the C. 0., who was stand- 
ing round watching the men. He handed him a 
note. I could tell by his face that it contained 
bad news. 

"Have to move, Hays," he said to me in an 
undertone. "Orders to go back farther. The 
transport must leave before daylight. We and 
the men can wait until the following morning." 

"Going to break up the fun, I'm afraid," he 
added. "Have to call some of the men out to 
pack up the wagons. Puts the kibosh on our 
dinner, too." 

So, instead of sitting down in comfort to our 
fine dinner to which we had looked forward so 
much, we swallowed it as quickly as possible, got 
on our heavy coats and went out on the road to 
superintend the loading of the wagons. 

I had done so much walking that my feet were 
sore. So the next day the C. 0. informed me that 
I was to take charge of the transport that remained 
— two horse ambulances, two G. S. wagons and a 
limber, and the twelve horses and mules. He and 
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the men were to start oflF at six in the morning and 
march to the entraining point, while I was to come 
on later with the transport, riding on one of the 
ambulances. My transport was to entrain too, but 
some time later in the day. He pointed out a 
short cut on the map to me. The job looked easy 
and so I was glad to tackle it, although I had little 
previous experience with wagons or horses. 

Jimmie awakened me at four a. m. and I helped 
to see the men off at six. Then I made an inspec- 
tion of all the billets, saw that they were thoroughly 
clean, that no refuse was lying about anywhere, 
and that the garbage had been properly burned. 
I interviewed the mayor, presented him with the 
billeting certificates, had them properly signed. 
At nine o'clock I had the transport lined up, with 
the two ambulances laden with sitting patients lead- 
ing the way. As I was told that the train didn't 
leave until twelve o'clock, I knew we could travel 
the ten kilometres we had marked out on the map 
with perfect ease. 

At the start our first mishap occurred. The two 
balky mules in pulling a limber around a comer 
ditched it. Pull as they would, they couldn't get 

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it out. So we had to take off all the load, unhitch 
the mules, and pull the limber out by hand. For a 
kilometre or so after that everything was smooth 
sailing, but then the roads became more and more 
slippery, and when we came to a long hill the 
mules just sat down on their tails and said, "No, 
No!" After a great deal of urging with a whip 
we got them going, and they kept on well until we 
came to a level road which was covered with a 
glaze of ice. One of the mules insisted that the 
travelling was better in the near-by field, but his 
partner didn't agree with him. The result was 
that the driver couldn't keep the wagon on the road, 
and when the offside mule sat down again I almost 
gave up in despair. Now it happened that I had 
in my care a blind horse, which we kept in the 
Ambulance for sentimental reasons, and as he was 
just trailing along I decided to make use of him. 
So I ordered the mule unhitched and the blind 
horse put in his place. He and the other mule 
made a sorry pair. 

We covered two-thirds of our contemplated 
journey in less than no time. I knew where I was 
to turn off. But when I got there an M. P. in- 
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sisted that the road was so bad that no transport 
could get through and pointed to another road 
down which all the troops had gone early in the 
morning. 

We tramped and tramped and tramped. I had 
been detailed to the transport so that I could ride, 
but I was so sorry for the horses that I didn't have 
the heart to add to their burden. 

Twelve o'clock came and went, and still I 
couldn't see the railroad siding. I stopped an 
N. C. 0. who was passing. 

"Can you tell me how far we are from Mondi- 
court?" I asked. 

"I think, sir, it ain't more than ten kilometres," 
he replied. "You goes down this road and then 
turns to the left. You see that big hill? You 
goes up there if you can. It's about a mile 
and a half long and I don't think you can make 
it in one day. Some of the transport which came 
through last night ain't more than halfway up 
yet." 

I could hardly believe him, but a near-by sign- 
post informed me that I was farther away than 
when I started. 

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Fortunately I found one of the other ambulance 
companies of our division stationed here and, after 
explaining my difficulties to an officer, I arranged 
with him to borrow a pair of horses and some 
traces. I then got hold of my sergeant. 

"Sergeant," I said, "we were due at the station 
at twelve o'clock, and it is now twelve-thirty. If 
possible we are going to get there some time today. 
Take the transport down to the first turn and then 
trace each wagon separately. I'll go ahead, jump 
on the first lorry and see if I can't hold up the 
train." 

So after a few moments I jumped on a passing 
lorry and got to the entraining point in less than 
no time. Here everything was bustle and confu- 
sion. A long line of cars stood on the tracks, 
hundreds of men were running round, horses were 
being driven into cars, wagons were rolled on to 
flat cars. I sought out the R. T. 0. and told him 
my troubles. 

"Well, it isn't as bad as it might be," he said. 
"This is the ten o'clock train. If you get here 
by four o'clock, I guess it will be time enough." 

I found one of our ambulances waiting there, 
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so I ordered the driver to take me back to my men. 
On the way I worked out a plan. I decided to 
pile all the sick into the motor ambulance, give 
them enough rations and send them on with a 
note to the C. 0. Then, if necessary, I'd stay at 
the station overnight and come on the next day. 

When I got to the top of the hill, I found that 
one of the wagons had already been traced up. 
Four more remained. I separated the sick and 
sent them on, and then watched the poor, sweating 
animals get the other wagons up. It took a full 
two hours. By that time the motor ambulance 
had come back for me and so again I raced to tlie 
station. 

By four o'clock three of my wagons had ap- 
peared and they were immmediately put on the 
cars. Spaces remained for the other two. 

"All ready to start," called the R. T. 0., as he 
came toward me. 

"I — I think my wagons are coming, sir," I said 
anxiously. "I'll just go out to the road to see." 
In a moment, I was back again. 

"I see them in the distance, sir. If you could 
only hold the train for a few moments." Of course 

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I hadn't seen them, but I had to bluff it. I hadn't 
fallen down on the job yet and I didn't want to 
fall down on this one. 

"I'll give you eight minutes more. The train 
moves at 4.08." 

Glory be! At 4.07 the two wagons showed 
dimly in the distance, and at 4.08 exactly they 
drew up before the empty trucks. The drivers 
hastily unhitched their horses, ran with them to 
their proper places, while a half hundred men got 
at the wheels and shoved the wagons on to the 
cars. 

I rushed to a seat in my third-class compartment 
and sat down. I was thoroughly exhausted. 

That train went off on schedule time. It was 
supposed to move at twelve noon, but it actually 
got into action at 5.28 p. m. 

I shall not enter into details of the journey. It 
was a fairly comfortable one. I consumed a can 
of bully-beef and some biscuits, took off my heavy 
wet boots and wrapped my feet in a light blanket I 
carried and went to sleep. 

We got to our destination near Corbie shortly 
after midnight. As far as I can recollect, the dis- 
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tance as the crow flies was at least twenty miles. 
But in order to get there we had to travel back 
towards the front about forty miles to find the right 
track. 

I was dead to the world, and therefore was 
overjoyed to find faithful Christie awaiting me 
with an ambulance. I left him to attend to the 
wagons (which I found out afterwards took about 
three hours to unload), jumped on the car with 
Jimmie and rode two miles through the frosty 
night to the farmhouse allotted to us. I was as- 
signed a room with Crosbie, whom I found com- 
fortably snoring in the only bed. Jimmie placed 
my bedding roll on the floor, and soon I was in- 
side my blankets hugging myself to keep warm. 
It was no use. So I crawled into the narrow bed 
with Crosbie and, hugging close to him for warmth, 
slept soundly till Jimmie came in in the morning 
with a cup of hot tea and some shaving water. 



[153] 



CHAPTER XI 

FOR the first time since I had joined the Am- 
bulance, we remained in one place long enough 
to establish and run a 60^*7 fide hospital. The 
farmhouse in which the officers were billeted, a 
low rambling affair with a large manured garden 
in front in which the chickens pecked all day, was 
about ten minutes' walk away. The hospital 
buildings, before our immense victory on the 
Somme, had been converted from a bicycle factory 
into a C. C. S. The rooms were large, bright and 
sunny, but were in sad need of repair. The glass 
in the windows was broken, the stone floors of the 
lower rooms were damp and the roof leaked in cer- 
tain spots. 

I was placed in charge of the hospital, so imme- 
diately I set to work fitting up rooms for stretcher 
cases, others for walking sick, one for a dispen- 
sary, one for a receiving room and so on. As 
there was no possibility of getting stoves, I made 
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some out of tin cracker boxes and oil drums. 
The cracker boxes were opened up and then rolled 
into the form of a pipe. We made holes in the 
tops of the oil drums, drove the bottom in a few 
inches, made an opening near the bottom for a 
draught, and another near the top to put the coal 
in. Two or three of these were set in each ward, 
with the pipe sticking out of a hole cut in the 
paper or oil silk covering the window. 

For the first few days we were tied up by a 
snow-storm, but then the sun came out and glowed 
down warmingly so that we were able to be out 
of doors a great deal of the time. 

Amid these pleasant surroundings we passed 
the last days of the old year and the first 
days of the new year. Our agreeable circle was 
given a jolt when orders came for dear old Crosbie 
to report to a convalescent depot at the base. I 
particularly would miss him for, although I was 
very fond of all the men, Crosbie and I had been 
placed in more intimate contact than any of the 
others. 

I mentioned that, on the night of my arrival at 
La Neuville, I was so cold that I jumped in bed 

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with Crosbie. The next day when I went into my 
room for my pipe, I found that he had instructed 
his batman to put his bedding on the floor and ar- 
range my blankets on the bed. He never said a 
word to me, and, of course, although I appreciated 
why he did it, I couldn't stand for that. 

I went into the mess where he was reading. 

"Well, you're a peach," I said. "What sort of 
a fellow do you think I am?" 

"What's the matter?" he asked. 

"Why in thunder did you give me that bed? 
I'm mad as a hornet. When I crept in with you 
last night to keep warm, I didn't ask for the whole 
bed, only half, and I tried to keep to my side too. 
If I had known that you were going to do this, 
I'd have stayed where I was." 

"Forget it, old man," he said laughingly. "I 
just love a little floor; sleep better there than in 
bed. Don't you worry about me." And after a 
pause he continued, "And anyway I promised 
my missus that I'd be a good boy, which implies 
that I wouldn't sleep with any one while I was in 
France." 

"You dear old blockhead," I said, "I know how 
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you meant it and all that, but it's a mighty doubt- 
ful compliment. I oflfer to sleep with you and 
what do you do? Choose a hard old floor instead." 

That night I heard him manceuvring around for 
a comfortable position. The moon, shining 
through the uncurtained window, hit him squarely 
in the face, and the cold, draughty wind came 
roaring through the cracks between the ill-fitting 
window and the sill. But his heart and soul were 
warm even if his body wasn't. 

I managed to get him to use the bed for a few 
nights anyway for, as orderly officer, I had to sleep 
in the hospital, so that I could be near the men 
if I were needed. 

When I heard I was to sleep down there, I 
called Jimmie to help me find a bedroom. There 
was none to be had. But Jimmie always was re- 
sourceful. 

"I've found a nook for ye," he said, "providin' 
you be satisfied with it." 

So he took me upstairs to the large ward on the 
second floor where I kept my throat and bronchitis 
patients. The forty or fifty men were lying in 
their clothes on stretchers ranged along the walls. 

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Each man had three blankets and his overcoat. 
Besides, the room was nicely heated by four of my 
improvised stoves. Over in one corner was a small 
cubicle, partitioned over by canvas which extended 
halfway to the ceiling. Jimmie took me in there. 
Near the window was a small wooden ledge, but 
otherwise the place was bare. 

"I think this room will do nicely for ye, sir," 
Jimmie said. "I'll bring your bedding roll in 
and place it over in the corner on a biscuit all nice 
and cozy. I think I can get ye some straw, sir, for 
under the stretcher so the wind won't freeze your 
back. I think ye will keep nice and warm here, 
sir, for them patients cough a lot of hot air into 
the ward and maybe a little will get into here." 

Of course I had to go wherever Jimmie said, 
and so that night, about nine-thirty, I tramped 
through the fields from the officers' mess and, tired 
and weary after a hard day's work, reached my 
bedroom. 

I undressed — that is, took off my shoes — and 
tucked myself into the blankets. But there was 
no sleep for me that night, although, as Jimmie 
said, the place was warm enough. I might have 
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slept if it hadn't been for the non-curative effects 
of the medicine I had given my men. Most of them 
had bronchitis or tickling in the throat. No. 1 bed 
would begin to bark, No. 2 bed would make it a 
duet and shortly the chorus of forty male barks 
would join in. Not to be outdone, I began to cough 
too, and thus it kept up until the wee small hours 
of the morning when I fell asleep from sheer ex- 
haustion. But then a new sound assailed my ears, 
the pounding of a hundred or more feet on the 
floor above, where the enlisted men slept. It 
started as a slow muffled tramp, but became louder 
and louder as more men joined in, until the ceil- 
ing shook. But could one blame the poor fellows 
who had lain on the floor all night with their feet 
freezing off" them? 

On the afternoon of the last day of the year, 
the Colonel, Pamell and I decided to see Crosbie 
off" and have a New Year's Eve dinner at the re- 
nowned Josephine's in Amiens about twelve miles 
distant. We had been talking of Josephine's for 
many days and had made up our minds to have at 
least one meal there before we returned to the 
front. Besides, I needed a bath. 

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We packed Crosbie's luggage, including a dog, 
and ourselves into the ambulance. It was a clear, 
crisp day, and so we were able to enjoy tlie ride. 
There was nothing noteworthy about the scenery, 
but one was first impressed by the thousands of 
troops in this back area, and then by the number 
of German prisoners who were working along the 
roads, looking very contented in their grey-green 
uniforms and dark, ugly overcoats, on the back of 
which large red letters were seen. 

The large manufacturing town of Amiens is 
probably today the most talked of town in the 
world.^ The Germans had it once but evacuated 
it early and, strange to say, left it intact. It is 
full of gay life, numerous busy shops, large hotels, 
cinemas, cafes and so on. It is the most western 
of all the towns taken by the Germans, but the 
battle of the Mame placed it in the hands of the 
British, although it is still under the civilian con- 
trol of the French whose people are there in 
thousands, thriving on the trade thrown their way 
by the British soldiers. It is most noted for its 
pastry and its cathedral which, "as every reader 

1 See Appendix. The Most Thought-of Town in the World. 

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of Ruskin knows, is one of the most beautiful and 
wonderful things ever made of stone. It is badly 
placed: it is hemmed about by a mass of bad archi- 
tecture, but the thing itself is matchless." Here 
also is a huge railroad terminus, through which 
pass the great mass of the troops toward the front. 
Every officer looks forward to the refreshmg 
novelty of visiting this town, particularly of seeing 
a money-making, ill-shaped, unkempt French- 
woman running a restaurant, which now is as 
famous as the town itself. Fortunately, early in 
the war, a wandering officer discovered that Madame 
served exceptionally good food, which she must 
secrete in the cellar, for there is no room for it 

elsewhere. 

There was another temptation for me here, for 
I hadn't had a bath for so long that I began to look 
for "burly Jaspers" again. I had heard glowing 
accounts of "Les Bains" and therefore looked for- 
ward to a second Fleischman's— marble and tiled 
rooms, porcelain tubs, a large swimming pool and 
all the accessories. 

We first went to the railroad terminus. Every- 
thing here was hurry and bustle— thousands of 

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troops bound for the front, hundreds of others 
going away on leave. There were French, English, 
Irish, Australian and American soldiers every- 
where, and scattered among the white men were a 
few blacks and Indians dressed in khaki. 

We helped Crosbie check his luggage. Every- 
thing went through all right except the dog. 
Somehow dogs are napou and no amount of per- 
suasion could convince the railroad officials that a 
poor nice doggie was just as much a part of a man 
as the rest of his baggage. The poor cur was 
wished on us until he could find better masters. 

I immediately went to look for the baths. After 
passing through various back alleys, I came to a 
dingy place marked "Les Bains," paid my one 
franc, thirty centimes, through a dwarfed window, 
was given a ticket and a piece of scented soap 
and told to wait my turn. I entered the corridor 
of the bath-house where I saw a conglomerate 
lot of officers with tickets in their hands waiting 
their turn. I could smell hot water. A thin vapour 
of steam hung around the walls. When the attend- 
ant called ninety-four, I followed her upstairs 
and entered a steaming room which was so vapour- 
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ized that I couldn't see what was in it for a 
moment. I soon located a galvanized iron tub 
which was rapidly filling with hot water, the added 
attraction to which was that the tub was large 
enough to hold all of me at one time. I spent a 
glorious half hour in laving myself with the 
scented soap and emerged, feeling as clean as 
though I had really been in the place I dreamed of. 
I put on the clean clothes I had brought with me in 
my haversack left a fifty-centime piece for Madame 
on the edge of the tub and went down to join the 
three officers who were waiting for me. 

As it was too early for dinner, we went to 
Josephine's for tea and to reserve our tables for the 
evening. Again I had expected something palatial. 
Turning down a narrow street we came to a window 
with the word "Huitres" on it and entered a glass- 
panelled door. Inside everything was dingy and 
crowded. In the small, front anteroom all kinds 
of shell-fish were laid out on large, china platters 
— oysters and lobsters particularly. A wooden 
partition divided this from an inner cubbyhole on 
one side of which was a miniature stove. The 
mistress of the stove was a pert mademoiselle who 

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was dressed for the drawing-room, with dainty, 
dark blue, tight-fitting dress and high, black, ankle 
shoes. It is hard to imagine that all of Josephine's 
dinners are cooked on this one little stove. Just 
beyond the stove is a stairway leading to the rooms 
above — so close to it that you have to touch made- 
moiselle (affectionately, if you wish) in passing. 

Upstairs all is quiet and clean — except Josephine 
and her waitresses, all of whom bustle about, ♦chat- 
tering like magpies and using their hands vocifer- 
ously in articulation. They apparently realize 
that it isn't necessary to dress up to attract cus- 
tomers. The lady of the house wore a loose, 
ill-fitting, flimsy yellow dress and the girls were 
mostly in gingham hand-me-downs. The food is 
the main thing, and Josephine goes in for food in 
capital letters. 

We sat down to a well-ordered table, with the 
whitest of napery on it and an immense loaf of 
good French bread and fresh sweet butter. We 
were served with excellent tea, toast, cakes, etc. 
And before we left we put in a reservation for a 
table for dinner. 

We spent the next two hours wandering about 
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the town. It had been raining hard and it was 
now dark, so we were unable to visit the Cathedral, 
which I was particularly anxious to see. So we 
went into the movies, first in the B. E. F. Canteen 
where Sidney Drew and his bountiful wife gave 
us an exhibition of humour such as was popular 
in America three years ago. Tired of this, we 
visited a French movie which I hoped would be 
a little risque, but again America supplied us with 
the talent in an exhibition of the Wild West as it 
exists in the movie director's mind. The only 
difference over here is that the words are in French, 
so that you have to guess what is going on, just 
like the small boy does at home. 

At seven-thirty we again sought Josephine's. 
When we got upstairs we found the rooms crowded 
with British officers, packed so closely together 
that we could hardly get through. All classes and 
ranks sat side by side, with Josephine flitting about 
from one table to another, volubly jesting with the 
men in French they didn't understand, vehemently 
berating her underlings for not serving the food 
faster. Our table, in one comer of a small room 
which was gratefully hot after the chill damp out- 

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side, was invitingly laid out. Potage, delicious 
sole, spring chicken, French fried potatoes and an 
omelette. Champagne, chilled to the right temper- 
ature, made our hearts beat as one. Everything 
was wonderfully cooked — everything was delicious 
and, as the wine loosened us up, a general spirit of 
camaraderie pervaded the room. 

When you talk of Josephine's in the line, every 
one says, "Good food, but it costs like hell. Wish 
I had some." And Josephine says, "Those officers 
— we rob them? Yes. Before the war I have a 
cafe which no one looks at. I make no money. 
When war comes, I have a visit from a British 
officer. He likes my food and tells his friends. 
Ah, mon Dieu, since then I work hard. I work my 
legs off. I work my arms off talking to them. 
They non comprend my French but they have 
money, nest pas? I charge them one franc, two 
franc, a hundred franc. They pay just the same. 
When I charge most, they come most. The war 
may be over tomorrow and then — no more rich 
British officers and maybe I go back to my little 
cafe again. Maybe I make enough money to buy 
an automobile and diamonds.'* 
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We left Josephine's and sought our ambulance 
at the station. Not a light was visible in the town 
except the electric torches of the demimondes who 
flash them in your face as they pass by to see if 
you are good enough to be enticed to their lairs. 
If you are once caught — well that's anodier story. 
All of us being married men, they had no attrac- 
tion for us. 

We had a glorious New Year's Eve. On the way 
to the ambulance Parnell said, 

"Ain't this an awful war? Our loved ones at 
home, no doubt, are worrying themselves sick 
about us — poor, self-sacrificing men who are spend- 
ing a dreary New Year's Eve in this cold, cruel, 
country, trying to keep warm in the camp-fire's 
soothing glow, trying to bear the awful hunger with 
a heart full of courage, tiying to smile in the face 
of war's grim reality. I'll bet my missus is so 
full of tears she can't even swallow a glass of 
champagne. And we — ?" 

Not such a bad time, was it? 



[167] 



CHAPTER XII 

NEW YEAR'S DAY passed quietly, and so un- 
like a holiday that no one noticed it. We 
had the usual "quota" of sick in hospital and were 
kept busy taking in new cases and evacuating old 
ones. 

I suppose every one made a New Year's resolu- 
tion. I quote from my diary of that date. 

January 1st, 1918. — Father Time has turned 
over once more, and now we shall look forward with 
hope and longing to that real peace which has no 
ending. I have made my New Year's resolution 
— I shall add my mite to my country's strength, 
if necessary until death shall end it all — if in the 
end I can feel that my child and his children shall 
for ever be protected from this ungodly murder. 
No one is wavering — we are strong and we are 
cheerful, and every one looks forward with abiding 
faith to the wonders our army is going to accom- 
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plish. We Americans must live up to the reputa- 
tion we have made; but I hate to think of the 
daily list of casualties in the morning papers — 
brave American youths who deserve a better fate 
than to give themselves to swine who do not know 
the meaning of civilization. I pity the Germans 
after the war. 

Quite a number of German prisoners were em- 
ployed by the farmers in our neighbourhood, and 
every day we could see a band of them marching 
into a near-by field. The farmers paid them a 
few pence a day. Most of them had a little money 
with which to buy luxuries. It made me heart- 
sick when I looked at these strapping fellows who 
were given every consideration and then thought 
of the prison camp for the English prisoners at 
Ruhleben and in other German towns where the 
men not only suffer from hunger but from inhuman 
treatment of all kinds.^ They were rationed the 
same as our men, were given the same kind of bil- 
lets, were allowed to wear warm clothes, had a can- 
teen in which were sold various things such as 

1 See Appendix. Hun Red Cross Fiends. 
See Appendix. A Soldier's Narrative. 



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crackers, chocolate, soap, towels, tobacco, etc. In 
fact these men looked so smug and contented that 
one couldn't help feeling that they were glad they 
were prisoners, particularly when they thought of 
the limited allowance of food at home and of the 
hard and drudging work from which diey had 
recently been taken away. 

There is nothing particularly characteristic 
about German prisoners. I have seen thousands of 
them both at the front and in the rear zones. Put 
them in Tommy's clothes and it would be rather 
hard to tell them apart, except for one thing — the 
German soldier looks cowed and beaten: there is 
a hang-dog air about him which makes one think 
that he has been driven into battle with a whip ; on 
the contrary', Tommy looks at you with a merry 
twinkle in his eye and radiates cheerfulness. He 
has the straightforward, independent bearing of 
the man bom in a free country, who has long been 
used to feeling that he is as good as his officer above 
him and is worth as much to his country. 

As I was going to the hospital one morning, I 
watched a band of twenty or thirty Germans march 
into the court-yard. One English guard in front 
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and one behind, with fixed bayonets, directed them 
to the bam where they were divided into two 
squads. A German non-commissioned officer acted 
as overseer. One squad ascended a ladder to the 
bam loft where it was put to work on the stored 
hay; the other squad, after picking up shovels, 
rakes, etc., began to clean out the court-yard. 

I was anxious to talk with the prisoners so I 
went up to the guard to ask him whether any of them 
could speak English. He pointed out a sturdy 
fellow who, coming over to me, stood politely at 
attention. 

"How are your men?" I asked. 

"Very well, sir." 

"Any of them sick?" 

"No, sir, they are all very well." 

"I suppose you will be glad when the war is 
over?" 

"Ah, sir — " and dien the tears began to roll 
down his cheeks. 

Not so different from any other man, was he? 
The Germans know, as well as you and I know, that 
this war was forced on them by the Junker class. 
And let me tell you a secret — many of them pray 

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to the Lord for the extinction of these tyrants as 
much as you and I do. 

The tears of the German didn't affect the guard 
very much. You could see that sentiment meant 
nothing to him, and that taking care of German 
prisoners was the last job on earth he wanted. 

"What sort of men are they?" I asked. 

"Rotten lot. They don't appreciate nothin' ex- 
cept a jab with a bayonet once in a while. A lazy 
lot of loafers, they are. The farmer gives 'em 
money for workin' and they loaf on the job 'alf 
the time if you let 'em. They gets just as good 
food as our boys an' plenty of warm clothes and 
blankets an' a good bam that ain't got more rats 
than any other bam. After all we does for 'em, 
I bet they go 'ome and tells the folks how cruelly 
they was treated. 

"The other mornin', sir, our C. 0. orders 'em 
out to work. It was freezin' cold and you would 
'ave thought any man would be satisfied to work 
to keep warm. But they went on strike — said they 
weren't goin' to work any more for nothin'. So 
the C. 0. gives 'em field punishment and you bet 
in about fifteen minutes they changed their minds." 
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Later in the day I was called to see one of them 
who had a ragged cut above one eye. He was a 
slim young boy, meek and mild-mannered. The 
wound wasn't serious, and he was deeply grateful 
for the attention I gave him. 

I had been looking forward for some time for 
a chance to go to an entertainment of our divisional 
troop of actors. In the line some of these men had 
acted as my stretcher bearers. In the rest areas 
they give up soldiers' work and get themselves 
ready for a short skit of some kind. As naturally 
no females are allowed out here, it is necessary for 
some of the men to become female impersonators. 
I believe this is a very popular job, so all of them 
take turns at it, regardless of whether they have 
shapes, faces or voices to match the part. 

A story is told about the "Royal Songsters," 
whose chief female impersonator had been taken 
sick. There was no one else in the cast to take his 
part. So one of the officers was appealed to to 
help them out. As he could not find anybody suit- 
able, he decided to write a "chit" to the General 
about it. He wrote as follows: "Can you supply 
me with a female impersonator?" To which the 

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General replied: "I'd like to oblige you, but there 
are no females on the front line for personal use at 
present." 

Our troupe were called "The Merry Mauves." 
I don't know the origin of the title, but they had 
a reputation for putting on a good show. The 
news of a performance by them in a near-by town 
was spread about some days in advance, and every 
one was waiting expectantly for the new revue. 

The Colonel, the Q.-M. and I sent down for re- 
served seats early in the afternoon. The perform- 
ance was to be given at 6.30 p. M. We got there 
in the nick of time and were escorted to the officers' 
row of front benches. The price of our seats was 
one franc, while the men paid thirty centimes. 
The profits from the shows go to a special fund 
which is used for the purchase of medical com- 
forts for wounded men — chocolate, tea and cake. 

The theatre was a large barny hall, unlighted 
except for the two candles placed on either side of 
the piano and the acetylene hand lamps (borrowed 
from the hospital), which were hidden behind the 
proscenium arch. The floor of the hall was of 
stone, and on it were placed row after row of 
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wooden benches, every one of which was crowded 
with smoking Tommies whose faces shone intently 
in the dim light. 

The signal for the performance to commence, 
the hitting of a nail on a tin can, was given, and the 
orchestra, a man dressed in a white spotted domino 
and fool's cap, walked solemnly to the piano. He 
blew into his hands for a moment and then enjoy- 
ably banged away, until he restored his circulation. 

The curtains were pulled apart and a magnifi- 
cent view was presented — a railroad station with a 
train receding on the painted scenery. To the right, 
rear, was a door on which was painted "Waiting 
Room," but because of limited space on the stage 
it was made so small that none of the actors could 
get through it. The drops and sides were gardens 
and trees, borrowed from another setting. Any 
one could see with half an eye that it was a rail- 
road station, and if he couldn't the Scotch porter 
who came out on the stage informed him of the 
fact. 

The story was wonderfully clever. An assum- 
ing young gentleman wearing a monocle comes on 
to the stage, looking for his sweetheart whom he 

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must marry within twenty-four hours or else he 
will lose the money which his father has condition- 
ally willed to him. He describes her minutely to 
the porter, telling him that she wears silk stockings 
on her — feet and a pearl necklace around her neck. 
The porter is brought into service with the aid of 
twenty-five pounds and of course picks out the 
wrong 'un who wears cotton stockings on her — feet 
and a coral necklace. He should have known she 
wasn't the right one for she carries a little baby 
(thank God, it was made of cotton), and doesn't 
she say in a deep base voice, "I am looking for my 
husband who I haven't seen in twenty years"? 

Of course, Gertie, the heroine, appears after her 
dearly beloved has left. She is a petite, little thing. 
Her number ten feet are encased in number nine 
high-heeled, low shoes and she wears silk stockings 
almost like a lady. And her dress is very girlish 
and her face is very mannish. One front tooth 
is missing. Her beautiful black tresses are neatly 
concealed under a flower-bedecked straw hat. Her 
voice is a falsetto soprano, which unfortunately 
lacks the sob note. 

After searching everywhere for her dearly be- 
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loved, she finds him hiding in the wings, which is 
sufficient cause for a song. After a general mix- 
up, when the lady with the baby appears, and the 
porter and his assistant make tlie usual cryptic 
comments, and the irate father of the girl raises 
Cain, and the Italian tenor in a real dress suit 
somehow gets on the stage, the plot comes to an end 
in the usual way. The only problem unsolved 
was, "Where was the husband of the woman with 
the baby?" 

The scene of the second act of the revue was in 
an English railway coach, one of those sidedoor 
arrangements, which permitted the porter, who 
apparently was the porter at several stations, to 
step into the coach whenever the author said so. 
The annoying fact of a lady being placed in a 
compartment with two men, one of whom wanted 
to smoke and the other of whom didn't like smoke, 
made a good farce which was well enough acted 
and contained enough humour to keep the audience 
in an uproar. 

Finally, there was the third and last act. The 
scenery had given out, so the railroad station was 
brought on again. It was a good background for 

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every one to get off something broadly amusing 
for example: 

Porter's Assistant: And what have your 
family been doing for the war? 

Porter: They have all been working mighty 
hard from the mither down to little Willie. 

Porter's Assistant: And little Willie is 
workin' for the war too? How old is little Willie? 

Porter: Little Willie is five years old. 

Porter's Assistant: And what has little Wil- 
lie been doin' for the war? 

Porter: He has been makin' a shillin' a week, 
he has. 

Porter's Assistant: And how has he been 
makin' a shillin' a week? 

Porter: By sleepin' wid an ole lady what is 
afraid of aeroplanes. 

No audience was ever more attentive, no audi- 
ence was ever more appreciative. The actors were 
applauded at every turn, and no one criticized 
Gertie because she was missing a tooth and lisped. 
Even the woman with the baby — a tall, ungainly 
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fellow (not the baby), who hadn't had time to 
shave that day — made the men roar with laughter 
when she (he) took the baby up by the wrong end 
and stopped for a moment until she found which 
was supposed to be the head. The climax came 
when she threw the baby at the fast receding train. 

The men like the sob stuff, and the more loving 
there is, even of a mismated pair, where the heroine 
is a "he," the more they like it. "Swinging in the 
Apple Tree," sung by the lover as he swung his 
sweetheart in a rope swing let down from the arms 
of an imaginary old apple tree, brought the tears 
to many a man's eye. 

Of course the Italian opera singer in a real dress 
suit was brought in for a purpose. This was evi- 
dent when the stage was cleared of the others and 
the one-man orchestra, who by this time had been 
playing almost steadily for two hours, played the 
opening bars of Pagliacci. The audience sat up 
more erectly and was as still as death. In a clear 
tenor voice the actor brought the song home to these 
men. One could have heard a pin drop until the 
bitter end, when the applause became deafening. 
"Give it to us again, wop." "Chantez-vous some 

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more," and other hearty yells brought him to the 
edge of the stage again. The men enjoy these 
serious songs when there are not too many of them. 
The English Tommy appreciates good music, par- 
ticularly if it is well sung or played by some one 
who knows. 

Even my frozen feet did not keep me from en- 
joying the performance. I had heard grand opera 
sung by the greatest stars in the world, I had 
listened to some of our greatest actors and actresses, 
I had seen burlesque from Weber and Fields down 
to Miner's Eight Avenue Theatre, but never in my 
life had I enjoyed a show more than this one. 
For behind it all was the earnest effort of the actors 
to put it over right, to give the men a good laugh 
so that they could forget the army and its troubles; 
the weird, shadowy faces of the men, sitting un- 
comfortably on their wooden benches, seriously ab- 
sorbed in the play, trying to make the actors feel 
that their every effort was appreciated, made an 
impressive picture and more than made up for any 
bodily discomfort. 



[180] 



CHAPTER XIII 

A WELL-SET-UP fellow, Captain Peart, wan- 
dered into the hospital grounds one day with 
a half-dozen lorries containing cook-stoves, kettles, 
timber, coal, and all the various paraphernalia of a 
cookery school. He informed us that he was 
commanding officer and had been instructed to find 
quarters for his school, his men and himself in our 
hospital and billets. It was a tight squeeze, but 
he was such a likable cliap that we made room for 
him somehow and asked him to join our mess. 

He had been an expert caterer before the war, 
had even gone into the profession deep enough 
to graduate from the King's School — not that the 
King runs the school, but his chef, who is some 
chef, does. Apparently they put some special 
falderals on his Majesty's food which can only be 
learned by a course in scientific cookery at the 
King's School. He knew the trade from A to Z, 
and could toss a hard biscuit into the air and make 
it come down as soft as a pancake. 

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We had many pleasant chats together, and I 
learned that his chief ambition had been to be a 
doctor. 

"Forget it," I said to him one day. "The doctor- 
ing business is all right, but what is better than to 
tickle the palate until your gastronomical muscles 
work and at the same time be able to make artistic 
wedding cakes? As a doctor you see the beginning 
and end of life — both painful. As a boss caterer 
you see the middle of life — exceedingly pleasur- 
able. People brag more about their caterers than 
they do about their doctors, unless the doctor is 
a successful beauty specialist." 

He was a wonderful artist, too, in an amateur 
sort of way. In his kit he had an easel, brushes, 
paints, crayons and all that, and a clever portrait 
in oils of his batman who was almost as good look- 
ing as Jimmie. Before I left I got him to make 
a crayon sketch of me. If he had had time to get 
my characteristic features, it might have looked 
like me. Anyway it's a grateful souvenir. 

There is a cooking school attached to each army, 
under the command of a captain. To it are sent 
various men who have suddenly become culinarily 
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ambitious. It doesn't matter whether you ever 
were a cook before. When you finish the course 
you can bluff a soldier to a standstill. For ex- 
ample in Peart's little book, entitled "Cooking in 
the Field," you find the following: "Every effort 
must be made to vary the diet to the greatest ex- 
tent possible. To serve the same dishes day after 
day shows the lack of initiative and interest on the 
part of the cook (housewives, please take notice), 
besides making the meals dull and monotonous 
for the men. A pudding of some kind or another 
(it doesn't say what kind) can well be provided 
every day when imits are out of the trenches, by 
utilizing spare pieces of bread, flour, biscuits 
(hardtack), dried fruit, jam, rice, oatmeal. Care 
should be taken that all spare pieces of bread or 
biscuits that are not consumed are returned to the 
cook-house for this purpose." 

The result of this teaching was a variation in 
diet as follows: 

Monday. 

Breakfast: Oatmeal porridge, bread, bacon and 
tea. 

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Dinner: A stew containing beef or bully, pota- 
toes, carrots and water, rice pudding. 

Supper: Tea, jam and bread. 
Tuesday. 

Breakfast: Bread, tea, bacon and porridge. 

Dinner: A stew containing water, carrots, beef, 
and potatoes, rice pudding. 

Supper: Bread, jam and tea. 

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday — 
the same, unless the oatmeal, bread, rice or jam 
give out. 

A few days later we again packed our wagons 
and started on our way to the front. We were to 
make the journey in three stages, so that the men 
and transport would keep together on the march. 
The weather had changed for the worse, and a 
thaw set in that cut up the roads horribly. 

The march the first day to Rosieres was only 
twelve miles, so that we were able to get to our 
destination in daylight. The men were billeted 
in a large, dilapidated schoolhouse, and the officers 
quartered in a deserted mansion, which must have 
been quite livable in peace times. Unfortunately, 
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the owners having taken their furniture with them 
when they departed, there was nothing left for our 
comfort but the floors and enclosing walls. To add 
to our discomfort, no fuel of any kind could be ob- 
tained. So there was nothing to do but to retire 
early and stay under blankets as long as possible. 
My room was of particular interest because a part 
of one wall was missing. This defect was due to a 
Boche shell which somehow went out of its way to 
hit it. 

We started on our next fourteen miles' march to 
Bethincourt before daylight. The sun came out 
over the eastern hills early in the morning and 
helped to warm us up. I enjoyed this walk very 
much, for it was not long enough to be tiresome 
and the roads had frozen hard during the night. 
Moreover, there were many things of interest to be 
seen, miles and miles of barb-wire, old deserted 
trenches now overgrown with rank weeds, and a 
number of old German dug-outs. We rested on 
the side of one of these for a few minutes, so I 
had a chance to investigate. There was a central 
open chamber from which branched out on either 
side, long, narrow corridors which dipped into the 

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earth a hundred to two hundred feet. Numerous 
small rooms, cut out of the earth and propped up by 
beams, ran off from the corridors — subterranean 
chambers, which even at this late date (for the 
Boche had been gone for over a year) were dry and 
hard. 

At a railroad crossing I saw the distinct outline 
of an American hat and rightly surmised that some 
of our engineers were working here. We had to 
stop for a passing train, and so I rushed over to 
the officers' hut, grabbed the man I found there by 
the hand, said "Cheerio" and rushed back into the 
ranks before the Colonel saw me. This officer must 
have thought that I was crazy. I was crazy to 
grab an American by the hand — any old person 
who came from "God's chosen country." 

Our new billets at Bethincourt didn't look very 
inviting. There were a number of small, wooden 
shacks in a muddy field, but we were fortunate 
in finding some good stoves and plenty of wood 
fuel. In a short time we had our twenty patients, 
that we carried along in the horse ambulances, 
comfortably housed. Three of us were given a 
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shack to ourselves, while the Colonel occupied an 
alcove next to the mess. 

Christie, who had preceded us to attend to the 
billeting, apparently hadn't been very cordially re- 
ceived by the ambulance that had moved away. 

"They didn't seem to have room for me any- 
where," he said. "I gave them all sorts of hints, 
told them I had no place to go. They suggested 
that I try to get a bunk in Nesle. So I hopped on 
the Ford, rode there, scoured the town and couldn't 
find anything. I was some mad — and tired. Then 
I saw a Red Cross flag in front of an old con- 
vent, and so I inquired there. It's run as a sort 
of children's hospital and orphanage by the 
American Red Cross. Captain Baldwin greeted 
me cordially, and when I told him my troubles 
he insisted on giving me a real, live bed to sleep 
in. Gee! it felt great to have sheets around you. 
I didn't want to get up this morning. He has some 
females there too, nice women; nurses from the 
States, I think." 

I glowed all over; for at last one of my country- 
men had come out in his true colours and helped 

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me to repay my old friend for all his kindnesses. 
I told him how happy I was about it. 

"Hays, how would you like to have them over for 
dinner tomorrow night?" asked the C. 0. 

"Great!" I said. 

"In the morning, go over there in one of the 
ambulances. Ask the 0. C. and all the nurses. 
It will be a novelty to have women at an ambulance 
mess. And while you are in town, see if you 
can't get some good dry champagne and a few 
decent eatables." 

So bright and early the next morning I was on 
my way. I found the old convent and soon made 
myself acquainted. Captain Baldwin, a bright 
young fellow from Johns Hopkins University with 
his four female aides, was taking care of all the 
sick children in the neighbourhood. There re- 
cently had been an epidemic of diphtheria, and 
three of the four nurses were laid up after their 
antitoxin inoculation. However, I prevailed on 
him and one of the nurses, a Miss Miller, a 
charming nurse from the same hospital, to accept 
my invitation. 

We made great preparations, and our cook put 
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forth every effort. When they arrived, Savage, 
the mess servant, had the table spread with a clean 
cloth and had found enough boxes to sit upon. 
There were no napkins, but we had almost enough 
knives, forks, spoons and plates. A large box of 
Mirror candies had reached me that day with some 
good American cookies and nuts. These were 
placed decoratingly around the table. A number 
of candles on cigarette tins gave the place a com- 
fortable glow. 

I'm sure Miss Miller enjoyed her dinner, for 
never was more attention paid to any woman. 
She was the queen of the feast. First, we had hot 
soup, which was followed by delicious fish, roast 
beef, fried potatoes, string beans and a real home- 
made apple pie. Add to this, whisky and soda, 
champagne, candy, nuts, cakes, cigars and ciga- 
rettes. 

When they were leaving, I asked Miss Miller if 
she would like to see our bunk and the hospital. 
She wasn't agreeably impressed with our sleeping 
quarters and she raised her hands in horror when 
she saw the sick men sleeping on the floor. It was 
hard to convince her that they were comfortable. 

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"Miss Miller," the Colonel said to her as she 
was getting into the Ford, "it has been a great 
pleasure to have you. Sometimes we long for 
female society and this dinner, with you as our 
guest of honour, will live in our memories. Write 
back to your friends in America and tell them that 
you are probably the first woman to dine with a 
field ambulance near the firing line." 

The following day we were again on the move. 
I was sent ahead this time to act as billeting of- 
ficer, and so I found the dear old town which was 
to be our resting place for many a week. Dury 
was one of the few places near the front that 
had been untouched by German shells. Civilians 
were still there, so I was able to find comfortable 
quarters for the officers and most uncomfortable 
quarters for the men. 

The village was built round a small park, which 
at one time may have been beautiful but now 
was mainly occupied by large Adrian huts and 
cast-off, farm implements. As one entered, pre- 
sented to his view on the right was a large, un- 
kempt, walled-in court-yard along two sides of 
which were wooden buildings to be used as mess 
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rooms and cook-houses for the men. At the rear 
was a combination house and bam filled with dank 
hay and manure. Later investigation showed that 
the army considered the second story habitable, for 
it contained over a hundred wire bunks for the 
men. On either side of the muddy road were a 
number of straw-thatched dwellings, more or less 
the worse for wear, but which I marked with chalk 
as quarters for the sergeants, shoemaker, tailor, 
motor transport drivers and A. S. C. men. As one 
turned the comer, he saw before him the remains 
an old chateau beyond iron-trellised gates and the 
inevitable court-yard. This chateau was reserved 
for the higher authorities. Another turn brought 
me to the schoolhouse, one room of which I was 
allowed to reserve for "walking wounded." 
Beyond the last comer was a fairly respectable 
brick building which since the beginning of tlie 
war had been used as a hospital, so there was no 
question about my taking it over for that purpose. 
In front of it was a large red cross made of stone 
— the arms of the cross of cracked red brick, the 
rest of the circle filled in with loose white stone. 
The idea was to point the place out to visiting 

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enemy aeroplanes so that the pilot could have a 
decent target to shoot at. 

In this little village I spent many an enjoyable 
hour. Although only about seven miles from the 
front, we were in a quiet section where only guns 
of small calibre were used, so that we seldom heard 
the firing. The officers were luxuriously quartered 
in civilian houses, where there were real beds to 
sleep upon, beds with mattresses and sheets and all 
that. 

Pamell and I took a room together next door 
to the mess, in a one-story house, consisting of a 
kitchen and our room. The other inhabitants of 
the house were a mother, a granddaughter and a 
little light-haired eight-year old girl. On a little 
French stove in the kitchen they cooked their simple 
meal; on the large, centre, oilclothed table they 
ate; in the large feather bed in one corner they 
slept. 

Our room contained two three-quarter beds, a 
few tables, a screened fireplace, two or three large 
chests full of stored clothes and a locked window. 
The ceiling was heavily beamed and damp, and 
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the sheets on the bed were so clammy that I had 
Jimmie cover them with blankets. 

That first night we retired early. By the light 
of a candle, flickering at my bedside, I read an 
article in a penny magazine on "The Kaiser's Right- 
Hand Woman." The story went on to reveal her 
machinations as a spy and let you into the secret 
that she was a niece of old Hindenburg, whom we 
know as the finest trench builder in the world. 

As we lay there quietly, a familiar sound as- 
sailed my ears. There was a pitter-patter of soft, 
little feet on the floor above, like so many O'Sulli- 
vanized rubber heels running lightly to and fro. 
The race became fast and furious, and finally I 
made up my mind that a baseball game was in 
progress and that one of the players was trying 
to steal second base while another one tried to 
reach home. There was an awful scramble and 
scraping, and suddenly a fearful thud on the floor 
— as though a big fat rooter over near third base 
had fallen out of the grandstand. 

My companion awoke from a doze. 

"My God! What's that?" he yelled. 

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"Nothing — only rats," I replied calmly, although 
I had a shivering feeling all over. 

"Gee — I thought that it was a bomb." And 
then he went off" to sleep again. 

In the morning Jimmie awakened me from a 
sound sleep. 

"Morning, Jimmie," I said. "Where were you 
billeted last night?" I always like to ask Jimmie 
leading questions. 

"In the bam, sor," he said. 

"Pretty comfortable, there?" 

"Not so you could notice it, sor." 

"By the way, Jimmie," I continued, "speaking 
of rats, have you seen any of those four-legged 
animals?" 

Jimmie looked at me seriously for a moment and 
then showed his two rows of beautiful false teeth. 

"Did you say rats, sor? Never in my life did 
I see so many. You mayn't believe me, sor, but 
last night when we were tryin' to sleep in them 
wire beds, we hears a noise like as if a German 
army was coming, and believe me, sor, the rats 
were formin' into fours and then into companies 
and then into battalions. They marches down the 
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billet, four abreast, keepin' good step like old 
regulars, and with their grey coats they looked like 
Germans too. When they were dismissed, one of 
them — bigger than a cat, jumps on my bunkie. 
He gives a whack and it lands on me and believe me, 
sor, it was that big I couldn't move it." 

It is hard to believe that there are rats out here 
as big as cats, but it is a fact. I never had one 
come near enough to bite me, but I have seen them 
and that is enough. 

Our ambulance was detailed to take care of 
all the skin cases of the division. As soon as the 
men heard of it, all of them developed skin dis- 
ease, or so I might have thought from the way 
they came filing in. Scabies (itch-mite) came 
first, and then his compatriot impetigo, which is 
the aftermath of scratching for a cootie. A few 
of those animals arrived also, mixed in with a 
boil or two. Our hospital accommodated seventy- 
five patients, but before two days had elapsed we 
had three hundred, so that we had to quarter them 
in bams until we established a branch hospital 
in another town. On account of my constant con- 
tact with these patients I got pretty scratchy my- 

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self so that I had to take a bath at least once a 
week. 

Yet with it all there was an air of cheerfulness 
about the place. The skin-diseased Tommies sang 
and smiled cheerfully because they were out of 
the line; our men felt happy because they were 
settled at last and because it was their nature to 
smile. They believed in the song: 

Smile, damn yer, smile! 

For when you smile 

Another smiles, 

And soon there's miles 

And miles of smiles, 

And life's worth while 

If you but smile, 

So smile, damn yer, smile! 

Here we met many officers from other organi- 
zations who would drop in for tea in the late after- 
noon. Among them I remember particularly the 
officers of the 2nd Co. D. S. C, the C. 0. of which 
was Captain "Davy" Mears, as gallant and happy 
an Irish gentleman as one could wish to see. He 
always had a good joke to tell you, but his merry 
face would become serious enough if you talked 
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to him about your dear ones far away or got him 
talking about the only girl, whom he had married 
on his last leave. 

"Did you hear the good one about the General?" 
he asked one day. 

"No." 

"Well, I'll tell you. This General had a good 
many men up for court-martial. And every time 
he would sentence a man to ten days or field 
punishment or something like that, when the man 
was walking out of the door he would say, 'And 
you.' Everybody wondered what he meant by 
*And you,' but no one had nerve enough to ask 
him. Finally a new subaltern came to the division 
and when he was present at one of these court- 
martials he hears the General say, 'And you.' 
He couldn't understand it. So he asked one of the 
officers, 'Why does the General always say, "And 
you" when a man goes out of the door after he 
has sentenced him?' 'I don't know,' answered 
the other. 'None of us has nerve enough to ask 
him. Suppose you ask him.' So the next time 
the subaltern sees the General, he says to him, 
'General, I've noticed that every time you sentence 

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a man, just when he is leaving the room you say, 
"And you." May I respectfully ask what you 
mean?' The General laughed. 'Well, you see,' 
he said, 'I know that every time I sentence a man, 

he says to himself, "Go to ." So I say, "And 

you. 

Mears was telling us one day of a dear Irish 
friend of his, C. 0. of a D. S. C. who always said 
what he meant, generals or no generals. One 
morning his company received notice that they 
would be inspected by A. A. Q. M. G. or the 
D. A. D. 0. S. or some other initials. The Gen- 
eral accompanied him to the field where the highly 
polished wagons and freshly combed horses were 
drawn up on parade. The General looked over 
the horses first. 

"Your horses are poorly shod," he said, turn- 
ing to the C. 0. "Haven't you any blacksmith?" 

"Yes, sir. I have five expert blacksmiths and 
only one damn hammer among them. How am 
I expected to shoe a hundred horses with one 
hammer?" 

"Why don't you indent for more?" roared the 
General. 
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C H E E K I , 

"Sure and I indent every day. It takes three 
sheets of paper for every shoe-nail I want and I've 
wasted enough paper to get a keg full of nails 
and a dozen hammers and nary a one did I get." 

I would spend my morning hours in visiting tlie 
sick and the afternoons in strolling about the 
beautiful green country, which now showed signs 
of spring. Well-ploughed fields, farmed by the 
soldiers and the few civilians — unkempt old men 
and young boys — extended for miles. There were 
numerous streams which gurgled merrily under 
the small, shaky wooden bridges. One could 
never want for an interesting view if he kept his 
eyes open. 

Many other troops besides our own were 
billeted in the village, sometimes only for a night, 
sometimes for a day or so. I got to know some 
of them well, for their sick were often treated at 
our hospital. 

One afternoon I was sitting in our mess, writing 
letters to the dear ones at home. The sun had 
come out. The morning had been heavy with im- 
pending rain. An impression of music came to 
my ears, but it was a vague echo of a band in the 

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far away. The boom of the drum at one time 
seemed to resolve itself into a continued and more 
vigorous pounding, more vibrant, more resound- 
ing; and the window and door in front of me gave 
a twinkling shudder. The distant boomings, like 
far-off thunder, continued regularly at first and 
then less frequently and more irregularly, until 
they stopped altogether. When the booming 
stopped, the weird quietness around me was more 
nerve racking than this murderous cry of the enemy 
shells. Then again — a soft detonation, but with 
it a gradual crescendo roll. There could be no 
mistake now, no trick of the imagination; for, 
mingling with the boom of the base and snare 
drum, were the blare of the cornet, the growl of the 
saxophone and the shrill piping of the flute. 

I walked over to the village square, which no 
doubt in peace times is the quiet home of beautiful, 
stately trees and tender grass. I could visualize 
the children playing there, happy and care-free — 
playing innocent games with no thought of the 
morrow. But now? There are no signs of grass, 
no trees, no flowers. In the far comers of the 
square stand the long, ugly, symmetrical, Adrian 
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huts, an army product whose only advantages are 
that they keep out the rain sometimes and provide 
accommodations for a hundred men, more or less, 
who huddle in their wire beds at night, trying to 
keep the dampness of the earthen floor out of 
their bones. The clinging, clayey mud is now 
churned into a thousand puddles. Most of the 
park is occupied by cast-off, farm and road im- 
plements — discarded reapers with prong-like ap- 
pendages; heavy, low, iron rollers for the roads, 
reddened by rust; and clumsy mowing machines, 
partially destroyed, the heavy wooden wheels sunk 
in the mud. A small open space remains where 
the khaki-clothed bandsmen stand. The emblem 
on their coat-sleeves, a miniature drum in brass, de- 
notes their calling; the red, brown and blue tab 
on their shoulder shows the battalion to which they 
are attached; their cap badges indicate the divi- 
sion to which they belong. 

The men stand in a circle in front of their long, 
slender music stands, their sergeant and leader in 
the centre waving his small baton. 

"Now, you men," he says, "tyke yer 'ands out 
of yer pockets an' stand at 'shun. You'se ain't 

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'ere for a 'oliday, yer 'ere to learn that piece an' 
yer goin' to stay 'ere till yer get it. Yer goin' ter 
play in Ham on Toosday whin the General's goin' 
ter be there an' I expec' yer to play like 'ell. All 
ready now, boys!" 

He lifts his baton. The band starts playing, 
first softly and gently and, as the men gain con- 
fidence in themselves, a little more forcibly until 
the sound of the booming guns far away; the 
machine-like whirr of the aeroplanes in the pale, 
blue sky; the rattle of the ammunition limbers 
along the near-by road, are drowned in the melody 
of sound. The trombone tries to out-do the 
cornet, the flute screams to the birds and the bass 
and snare drums are uninterruptedly beating their 
staccato notes. Everything goes well until the 
final bars when everybody is in a hurry and tries 
to finish first. Music has ceased: it is a chaos of 
noise. 

The Sergeant looks at his men witheringly, 
wrinkling his face into a satanic, sarcastic smile. 

"Whad yer tink yer were doin'?" he says. "Do 
yer tink yer playin' a waltz, er a march, er rag- 
time? Yer does well for a minit an' then yer tries 
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to play faster than er aeroplane. We ain't in no 
'urry, but yud tink we was, from the playin'. Tike 
it from me, the faster yer play, the slower yer 
gits there. Don't blow into yer 'ands. It hain't 
cold. Save yer wind fer yer instruments. 'Shun! 
We starts them last two lines over again." 

The men returned to their task grimly. The 
bass-drummer, a grey-haired, doubled-up man, 
past middle age, tries to straighten the kinks out of 
his bones and longs to forget that it is miserably 
cold. His blue hands wave his sticks clumsily. 
Trombones pulls the long rods of his instru- 
ment backward and forward as a sort of warm- 
ing up exercise; Bass Horn pulls out his mouth- 
piece and drops the excess saliva; Cornet waves 
his shining brass up and down at his side; Flute 
jerkily fingers his stops. Every man in the circle 
is trying hard to be cheerful and obedient while 
the cold creepers run down his back and his toes 
are slowly freezing. 

"Tat, Tat," speaks the leader's baton. As it 
falls, the brass throated instruments send their 
music into the air. The last two lines are played 
over and over again until all are playing in unison ; 

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and then a grand finale, a rendering of the whole 
piece, discordantly in parts, ends the afternoon 
rehearsal. 

"That'll be about all fer today," said the 
Sergeant. "Company dismissed!" 

The clouds had gathered again and the sun was 
sinking low. 



[204] 



CHAPTER XIV 

"i^OURAGE is a peculiar thing," I said to 
' \_j Pamell late one afternoon as we were tak- 
ing a walk after tea. "I've been thinking about 
it a great deal lately. One gets into the habit of 
doing the right thing out here. I mean he acts 
like a brave man because every one round him 
does the same. I've often wondered who were the 
cowards in this crowd, or maybe there aren't any." 
"It's in the air. Hays," he answered. "And, 
another thing — the men develop a certain fatalism 
which stands them in good stead when they know 
that they are 'going West.' Funny thing, I don't 
care whether a man ever thought of a hereafter 
before he joined the army. When he's out to the 
front line he knows there's one. All of us feel 
that we may pass into the 'great beyond' where 
we shall meet all those dear pals who died so 
gloriously by our sides. 

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"I asked one of the men once," he continued, 
"what he thought about the dying proposition. 

" 'I ain't afeared to die,' he told me, ' 'specially 
when it's for my country. There ain't any of us 
afeared to die. What we is afeared of is that we 
might have to live without feet or arms or eyes. 
When I sees a man buried alive next to me and 
see two more pals go under, I says to myself, "The 
next time it's your turn." And I wouldn't care if 
it was. I expects sometime I'll meet all my old 
pals in Heaven where we can cuss the Germans 
and not be afeared of bullets either.' 

"There is another funny thing about these men. 
They cuss all day and use the Lord's name in vain, 
but there is hardly a night that they don't pray 
hard for their loved ones to a God they feel is 
watching over them." 

"While we are talking on this subject of the 
Hereafter, let me read you a clipping I cut out of 
a magazine the other day. It's from a man who 
has seen things. 

" 'There is not a single man in the trenches to- 
day who questions immortality. When a man is 
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face to face with death, he cannot convince him- 
self that death is the end. He fears death, in the 
many gruesome forms in which it is meted out to 
him, and "The Great Beyond" to which he may 
be mercilessly hurried along. His conscience tells 
him when death stares him in the face that mortal 
life on this earth is not the end: hence the reason 
for the fervent prayer for ever on his lips when in 
face of danger — a prayer for the prolongation of 
his mortal life.' 

" 'The stricken man, who lies limbless on the 
battle-field, mortally wounded, and whose last 
spark of life is fast ebbing away, prays for the 
pardon of his past misdeeds; prays to the 
"Creator of Mankind" to be merciful in His judg- 
ment of him; for he is fearful of the life to come 
and that he may not attain "The Great Hope" 
which is forcing itself into his soul as he draws 
nearer the end.' " 

"There is a great deal of truth in that," I said. 
"But the kind of men we have out here are the kind 
that in peace times would run a mile to get away 
from a fight. I've tried to analyse courage — in 

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myself, for example. I don't claim to be particu- 
larly brave and I'm sure a rat would scare me 
silly." 

He laughed. 

"You're not the only one that is afraid of rats. 
I'm scared of the damn things myself, and I know 
of men, some of them big guns too, who would 
rather face a thousand bullets than one rat. 

"Let me tell you a funny one about that," he 
continued. "One night six officers and I were 
billeted in a Nissen hut in a deserted village. 
One of the men was a lieutenant-colonel who had 
all sorts of medals. He was a very devil in the 
line. He'd been wounded twice in action. But 
he was dead scared of rats. We turned in about 
ten o'clock, and each of us fell sound asleep in 
less than no time. Our bedding rolls were laid 
on the floor, the Colonel's over in the far end some- 
what separated from the others. 

"It must have been about midnight when I heard 
the most unearthly yell. By the moonlight dimly 
shining through the window, I could see the gaunt 
figure of the Colonel standing in his pyjamas on 
his bedding roll, trembling like a leaf, his hands 
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shaking with palsy, his teeth chattering and the 
tears rolling down his cheeks. I never saw a 
school-girl more hysterical. 

" 'What's the matter?' I called. By that time 
the other men had awakened and all of us were 
sitting up in our blankets. 

" 'My God,' he said, 'rats, rats. I — I wo-woke 
up and found one of them sleeping on my 
shoulder.' And he then cried some more. 

"We laughed at the ludicrous figure, of course, 
but there wasn't a one of us who didn't shiver a 
bit when he got under his blankets again." 

"Reminds me of old Marshal Ney," I said. "I 
don't suppose there ever was a braver man on tlie 
battle-field, and yet he frankly admitted that he 
was dead scared to go into a dark room alone. 
Men certainly are peculiar. There's hardly a man 
out here who doesn't carry some lucky-piece, some 
fetish which he believes in implicitly. I've heard 
many a man say that as long as he had his lucky- 
piece with him, he was sure he would suffer no 
harm. I carry a little Chinese dog in my pocket 
book which a cousin of mine wished on me before 
I left the States. I wouldn't lose it for the world. 

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C H E E IM 



Some of these lucky-pieces are funny. One man 
carries a half of a silver sixpence. His wife has 
the other half. Another carries a lock of hair. 
One general has a little piece of string hanging out 
of his breast pocket on to which is tied a small 
piece of wood. He is sure if he ever lost it he 
v/ould die. What do you carry?" 

He opened his coat and showed me a black 
button sewed to the lining. 

"See that?" he said. "Well, before I came over 
my chum's wife sewed that in my coat, and my 
wife sewed one into his coat. Behind the lines I 
wear any old coat, but whenever I go into action 
I put on this one. One day I got halfway to the 
front with the wrong coat on. When I discovered 
the mistake, I got so scared that I trembled all over. 
So at the next halt I got out my kit and put on 
the right coat. I was as brave as a lion after 
that." 

"Ever read 'The Red Planet' by Locke?" I 
asked. 

"No," he replied. 

"It's the best story about a man's faith and 
superstition that I ever read. The hero once did a 
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cowardly thing in the South African War. In this 
war he had won all sorts of honours. He always 
carried a little cane in whose luck he believed im- 
plicitly. Carrying that cane made him brave. 
As he was going over the top his cane was smashed 
to smithereens and he was lost — was going to turn 
turtle — when a shell zipped by him and blinded 
him for life. Personally I have never been super- 
stitious, but I'd feel awful crawly if I lost my 
Chinese dog." 

We approached our mess. I kept thinking over 
the things that we had been talking about and 
wondering just how much difference there was be- 
tween the manifestations of courage and coward- 
ice. During peace times one is seldom put to a 
test, and he certainly gives little thought to dying. 
That's because he so seldom sees death, and when 
he does it's usually death after some lingering, 
suffering disease. Out here, on the contrary, 
death is so common that one gets into the habit 
of feeling that it's coming to him sometime and 
that it may as well come now. Is there anything 
finer than to give up one's life for one's country? 

Later we were sitting round the table in the of- 

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ficers' mess, digesting a hearty dinner. The 
Nissen hut was overcrowded with officers' luggage, 
two benches and a wooden table which held the 
remnants of our meal. Three sputtering candles, 
resting on upturned cigarette tins, threw wavering 
shadows against the walls. 

Savage, our mess servant, in his spotted tunic 
and muddy boots, noiselessly entered before the 
wind of the opened door. He held one side of his 
face in his hand. 

"What's the matter. Savage?" I asked. 

"Got an awful toothache. Haven't been able to 
sleep for two nights. Will you give it a pull. 
Captain?" 

"Surely," I answered. "Come over to the 
dispensary with me." 

I knew I would have to come to the tooth-pulling 
job sooner or later. Every doctor at the front has 
to pull teeth, but I wished the job on some one else 
every time before. I reckoned that if I didn't con- 
sider the first few patients on whom I had to 
practice, I could learn to pull teeth just as well as 
I had learned to run an automobile. The only 
thing to do is to get hold of the tooth and have 
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implicit confidence in yourself. If the forceps 
doesn't slip off, the tooth is bound to come out. 

The job is made easier for you because the 
manufacturer of the forceps, realizing that the men 
who pull teeth out here are not professional 
dentists, give you only five forceps to choose from, 
on each of which is stamped "upper incisors," 
"lower incisors," "right," "left," etc. If you 
know the names of the teeth it is only a question 
of holding the patient firmly while you rock to and 
fro. 

I sat Savage upon a stool in the dispensary and 
prepared my "upper molar right" forceps by dip- 
ping it in a permanganate of potash solution. 
One of my men flashed my electric lamp into his 
open mouth and I, standing in front of him, slipped 
the blades underneath the gums, and around the 
body of the tooth. In a moment the tootli was out, 
clean and whole. 

My hand trembled. 

"Gee!" Savage said. "That was great. Never 
hurt at all. I've had many a tooth yanked. Cap- 
tain, but this is the first one that didn't hurt. 
Guess you must have had a lot of experience." 

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"Oh, an old hand can do anything," I answered 
non-committally. 

Savage whistled a song as he departed. 

He came into the mess a half hour later to clear 
the table. 

"Savage, are you an Irishman?" asked the Col- 
onel. We always asked Savage some foolish ques- 
tion. 

"Naturalized, sir," he answered like a flash. 

After the laughter had subsided, I said: 

"Pretty hard lines for a fellow like that to go 
puttering around the kitchen and waiting on of- 
ficers. Never gives him a chance to show what 
he's worth." 

"Didn't you know Savage was up for a military 
medal?" asked Pamell. 

"No." 

"This is the third time he's been recommended. 
That man has a heart of gold and the courage of 
a lion." 

"What did he do?" I asked. 

"In our last stunt," Christie continued, "Savage 
was one of my stretcher-bearers. Servants aren't 
excluded from soldier work, you know. We got 
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into a particularly hot comer, dead and wounded 
lying all over the road, and any number of maimed 
horses and mules. It was an awful sight. We 
had to run our patients on wheeled stretchers over 
a road which was registered by the Johnnies. 
Some of my men were injured, others killed. 
Well, Savage was on one end of a stretcher taking 
in a wounded officer when his companion on the 
other end was potted by a machine-gun bullet. 
Killed. Savage went on a little way only to find 
that the bullets were coming over so thick that 
he couldn't go on. Moreover, the road was 
blocked with dead men. He carried his patient 
over to the side of the road where there was a 
little protection from the rising ground and laid 
him down. With his bare hands he dug a hole 
large enough to put the officer in and then stood 
guard over him for eight solid hours. Just stood 
right up in front of him amidst tliat downpour of 
lead and used himself to shield his patient." 
"Gosh, that's great," I said. 
"We are all proud of Savage," said the Colonel. 
"But there are thousands of youngsters in our army 
who have done wonderful things and who have 

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shown almost superhuman bravery — especially the 
R. A. M. C. men and S. B.'s. Bravery is so cheap 
now-a-days that you only notice the exception." 

"That reminds me," I said, "of an article on 
stretcher-bearers that I cut out of the Daily Mail. 
It's written by a fellow named Hodson who knows 
what he is talking about. I'd like to read it to 
you." I took the clipping out of my pocket. 
"This is what he says: 

"I have yet to meet the Flying Corps man," 
wrote an airman in the Daily Mail the other day, 
"who does not place in honour the work of the in- 
fantry before his own. 

"As an infantryman I have yet to meet the foot 
soldier who does not readily agree that the most 
heroic lads in the battalion are the stretcher-bear- 
ers. I never yet met a stretcher-bearer who didn't 
do his job faithfully and well, and doing that 
means that he has won decoration after decoration 
— even if he isn't wearing them. For there is ex- 
citement in fighting, there is quick pulsing of the 
blood, there is the 'devil'; but there is none of 
these in kneeling in a shell-swept zone beside a 
shattered lad, binding his hurts. 
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"My own battalion was particularly fortunate in 
its 'S. B.'s.' We had several lads who had been 
medical students, and we had as much confidence 
in them as your city man has in his Harley-Street 
physician. That was a great comfort, because 
one's life depends a good deal, as an infantry- 
man, on one's company 'S. B.'s' — about four in 
number — for it is ten to one it will be one of them 
that will bandage one's wounds in the first place. 

"Stretcher-bearers are selected from the ranks 
of each battalion, and they become 'specialists,' 
like Lewis gunners or bombers. They work under 
and are trained by the battalion medical officer, 
and receive lectures and demonstrations at his 
hands. Actual carrying is perhaps their least im- 
portant job. 

"Not of the R. A. M. C, wearing no distinguish- 
ing mark except a narrow white band — more often 
khaki coloured with mud — with the letters in red, 
*S. B.' worn around the sleeve above the elbow, 
having with them probably no weapons of defence 
because they are generally too busy to carry or 
use them, theirs is a Christ-like task — to bear 
everything and not hit back. They work in the 

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very midst of battle, where there is little time or 
opportunity to discriminate — even if the enemy 
wished to do so — between tenders of wounded and 
fighters. They seldom get promotion because they 
are but a tiny band (sometimes the most senior 
of them is a lance corporal), and they don't get 
all the medals they win. Their ordinary, every 
day, every night job is tending wounded under fire. 
I have never yet known an 'S .B.' hesitate to run 
into the middle of shell-fire or any other fire to 
help a hurt man; I have never seen an 'S. B.' with 
the 'wind-up,' 

"The first one I met flopped into the hut one 
night about eight o'clock (in England). 'Tired?' 
I said. He nodded. 'Just finished a twenty-five- 
mile march, carrying stretchers. Doc was seeing 
what we could do.' He spoke with quiet triumph. 

"Next time was in a crater near La Bassee — 
a hot place for snipers, rifle, grenades, and so on. 
The trenches were narrow, too narrow for stretch- 
ers, and my big 'S. B.' friend solved the question 
of the wounded by carrying them all out on his 
back. How, think you, 'S. B.'s' fared carrying 
stretchers over ground so deeply muddy that it took 
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us eight hours to traverse a thousand yards, when 
relieving? But they did it — God alone knows how 
— and made one journey after another. 

"The last time I saw them at work was near 
High Wood, on the Somme. I was in a saphead 
perhaps a hundred yards from the enemy. It was 
lively because the Boche had the 'wind-up,' and 
every now and then he put up green lights for 
artillery support, and we got 'strafed.' Just after 
one affair had subsided I heard a clear, strong 
voice in front shouting, 'This way. Bill. Sure he's 
this way.' I hailed him, and he replied that he 
was a Middlesex 'S. B.' (We had relieved the 
Middlesex that afternoon.) The ta-ta-ta-ta-ta of a 
machine-gun swept across, but these two men took 
no notice. They were searching for life in the 
waste of death, and at last they found it — life with 
two broken legs but a great cheeriness. They 
came and borrowed my ground sheet and brought 
the lad in on that. 

" 'Knowed as there was a fellah out there,' said 
the 'S. B.' 'A bloke told me so down at Mametz, 
so I came back for him, see? How are you, 
mate?' — to the wounded lad. 'We'll soon place 

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you out of it. You're all right, you are. Blighty 
as easy as easy.' 

"And off they went down the trench with the lad 
on the ground sheet. 

"This may or may not be a holy way, but 
stretcher-bearing is God's own calling." 

"Hits the nail on the head all right," exclaimed 
Christie. "My men did many stunts like that in 
the last show." 

The conversation drifted off into a philosophical 
and psychological discussion on courage and 
every one admitted that the deeds of heroism in 
this war, performed by men who were mainly 
soldiers in the making, were remarkable. It isn't 
as though we had professional soldiers out here. 
The men are mild-mannered clerks, artisans, 
schoolboys, mechanics, ne'er-do-wells dressed up in 
soldiers' clothes. Is it the clothes that make the 
man? Or is it an inborn love of country which 
arouses all one's good qualities and glorifies death 
on the battle-field? 



[220] 



CHAPTER XV 

I HAD become settled contentedly in our little 
village and had made up my mind that I'd 
as soon stay there as anywhere for the duration 
of the war. The food was good, the beds were 
clean, I could take a bath at least once a week, 
and I could spend the afternoons visiting ray 
friends in near-by places and take tea with them. 
Moreover, January was turned into June — so much 
so that Nature tried to poke a little green into the 
muddy fields. 

But one morning the order came through for me 
to report to a battalion to take the place of a 
medical officer who was going home on leave. I 
had been told that sooner or later I would have 
my tour of the trenches. I was glad that I was 
to go into a quiet sector for there were a lot of 
things I wanted to learn about front line work, and 
I was most anxious to write to the folks at home 
that I had been over the top and seen No-Man's 

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Land first hand. Yet I wasn't particularly- 
anxious to have my head blown off, so a "cushy" 
spot looked good to me. 

I packed up my belongings, jumped into the 
jumpy Ford and was driven to the town designated 
in my orders, Fluquires, a town located about six 
kilometres behind the front line. Now I had 
passed this place once or twice on my visits to our 
A. D. S. but I had never seen any town. There 
were large mounds of brick and muddy clay and 
soldiers, so I wondered just what sort of billets I 
was coming to. 

We turned off the main road to the left and 
stopped before battalion headquarters. An agree- 
able surprise it was to find an orderly row of little, 
trim, brick huts which looked cozy and clean, 
hidden in the side of the hill so that they couldn't 
be seen by any one on the road. The pioneers had 
built a brick-paved quadrangle in front of these 
huts, enclosing a little garden which in due time 
would form a beauty spot in this oasis of mud. 
A stout wall of stone and brick, mortared with 
mud, about two feet high, enclosed the quadrangle, 
and in front of this was placed an almost full- 
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sized statue of the Crucified Christ — common in all 
the small villages of France. A few hundred 
yards beyond the mud-spattered roads met at the 
sentry post, where, day and night, a grim-visaged 
guard in khaki stood. In the distance could be 
seen the barracks for the men, a few Adrian huts 
and a number of improvised brick abodes. 

I was cordially greeted by the C. 0., Colonel 
Cox, a very fine English gentleman who had re- 
cently seen service in Salonika, and who had a 
row of ribbons extending almost to his coat sleeve; 
and his second in command. Major Rose, a tall, 
stalwart, handsome, brave man who became one of 
my dearest friends. Then I was taken on a tour so 
that by noon time I had met all the officers of the 
various companies. 

Battalion life is exceedingly fascinating, par- 
ticularly for a medical officer, for he is part of 
headquarters staff and is his own boss from sick 
parade in the morning until he has seen the last 
man take a bath at night. The officers are pleasant 
comrades who don't give him a chance to talk shop. 
In the battalion, he learns the war game from A 
to Z. In a short time he knows how to handle a 

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rifle, how to fire a pistol, how to read a trench map, 
the intricacies of a Lewis gun, the drill and battle 
formation of the men, the peculiarities of a horse, 
the disposition of garbage, the "manure dump," 
and a thousand and one other details. 

My first duty in the morning was attendance at 
sick parade. The sergeants of the various com- 
panies would wean out the "ailers," march them 
up to my shack and stand there with them until 
I had finished my inspection, for it was the "non- 
coms" duty to see that his men reported sick and 
to keep his hold on any malingerers. If a man 
were marked merely "duty," he was in for it; for 
that meant that the M. 0. considered him a faker 
and worthy of field punishment. 

My orderly and corporal awaited me in their 
small quarters where we placed a table on which 
were laid a number of clinical thermometers, a few 
needful instruments, a dental set, cotton, gauze, 
iodine, and bandages. 

Sick parade would go something like this: 

"Private John Smith!" I would order. 

Sergeant Brown would call, "Private Smith! 
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'Shun!" And Private Smith would limp into the 
room with a shoe and stocking in one hand. 

"What's the matter?" I would ask. 

"Me 'eel, I. C. T., I think. I can't march." 

"M. D. Corporal. Put on a dry dressing." 

"Private Jones!" I would call. 

Jones is a scrawny individual with a cast in one 
eye. He stoops as he enters the room and coughs 
something dreadful. 

"What's the matter?" I ask. 

"I dunno, sir. I 'ave such pains in me back I 
can 'ardly walk an' I coughs me bloomin' 'ead 
oflf." 

"Yesterday you had a stomach ache and the day 
before you had a sore throat. Can't you bend 
your back?" 

"No, sir." 

So I drop my pencil on tlie floor and widiout 
hesitation, out of sheer politeness of course, Pri- 
vate Jones picks it up without any difficulty. 

The next man is Private Dawkins with a tooth- 
ache. 

"When did you clean your teeth last?" I ask. 

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I look into his filthy mouth and see the swollen 
gums over the few remaining decayed teeth. 

"Aint' never cleaned 'em, sir. Didn't know you 
'ad to clean 'em." 

"Get out!" I yell. "Don't you ever come near 
me again until you can show me a tooth-brush." 

Thus in the morning I see five or six sore heels 
and toes, two stomach aches, a pain in the chest 
(real), two pains in the chest (unreal), a number 
of decayed teeth and possibly one sick man. 

On pleasant mornings, after sick call and 
sanitary rounds, I used to wander over in the near- 
by field and watch the men at their various stunts. 
A Tommy is never allowed to be idle, you know, 
and in these rest quarters he is kept going from 
early in the morning until tea time to get the 
stiffness out of his joints, as the Colonel used to 
say to me. 

Here was a small crowd of men standing round 
a corporal who had a Lewis gun in front of him 
which he was dismantling. "The Lewis gun," I 
could hear him say, "is the gun of the army and 
so you men can shoot it straight, I am going to 
explain its insides to you. You can shoot it better 
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if you understand it. The action of the trigger 
of the Lewis gun depends on the combustion of 
gases inside the barrel, which are formed from the 
explosion of the cartridge." He would take off 
one part after another, carefully laying each part 
aside so that he would have no difficulty in as- 
sembling it again. 

A short distance away I could hear the raucous 
voice of the company sergeant major, who had a 
disreputable looking crowd in front of him whom 
he was putting through physical exercises. The 
men had thrown their tunics down on the grass 
and had rumpled their hair with dirty hands. 
They had gone through the formal exercises and 
the fun was about to start. 

"Form yourself into a circle," he called. "An' 
join 'ands. Bill, you tyke yer belt off. Now, 
Bill will run around the circle an' when he swats 
one of yer with the belt, run like 'ell an' try to 
ketch him." 

Bill took off his belt and cautiously went round 
the circle of bent backs until he came to the party 
he wanted and then he let go with a full arm swing. 
The other looked surprised and then ran helter- 

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skelter for him but Bill got into his place before 
the other touched him. Then the Sergeant started ( 
again. Each man was trying to look dovm his 
back so that he could see when he was going to 
be swatted. How they laughed! How much they 
enjoyed themselves at this manly "Ring around 
the Rosy." 

After a time the Sergeant started a new game. 
The men were lined opposite each other and 
clasped hands in seat fashion. The "goat" took 
off his shoes and was placed, stomach down, on 
the first row of hands. He was propelled into the 
air by a dozen muscular arms which, at the same 
time, threw him forward until he had reached the 
last of the row of forty men. Forward and back- 
ward he went, once, twice, fifty times until there 
wasn't a breath left in his body and the arms of 
the men were sore. 

Captain Thompson — a handsome young officer, 
with dark, curly hair and a bewitching smile, brave 
as a lion, and never "afeard of the devil or Ger- 
mans," evidenced by the three gold wound stripes 
on his sleeve — was explaining the details of a 
mock battle to his men. 
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"The enemy is over on that ridge," he explained. 
"You men are coming from the field back there in 
extended formation, one company supporting the 
other. Your platoon commander will give the 
orders as you go forward. Now go over to the 
field and start toward the enemy when I blow my 
whistle." 

The battle started and Company A came skulk- 
ing along like a lot of Indians on the war-path, 
treading gently, bodies bent intently forward, 
swinging rifles at their sides. At an order from 
their platoon commanders, they fired at the enemy 
and crept forward on their hands and knees to new 
positions and then threw themselves flat on their 
bellies. Companies B, C and D came over in 
proper order, creeping forward until they filled the 
gaps between the advanced men. A grand salvo 
at the enemy and then quiet. One man got up on 
his knees. 

"Get down, you idiot!" yelled the Captain. 
"Of all the fools! The enemy are over there. Do 
you want your dirty head blown off"! Now, men, 
one volley at them and then off^ you go at them 
with fixed bayonets." 

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There were the clicks of a hundred rifles and 
then one grand, air-splitting yell as the men 
rushed out in to No-Man's Land and up the brow 
of the hill until they had obtained their objective. 

Colonel Cox was strict on cleanliness and he 
couldn't stand the sight of a man whose hair was 
more than two inches long. 

"I won't stand for long hair," he told me one 
day. "In the first place the men don't get a chance 
to brush it and they get every chance to invite 
the little bugs to come in and nestle there. I 
want every man shaved every morning too. I'm a 
great believer in the saying, 'A clean man fights 
better.' " 

He was most insistent on the men keeping their 
billets tidy. He would wander about at unex- 
pected hours and "strafe" the men good and plenty, 
but he was as willing to praise a man as to bawl 
him out. 

I must take off my hat to the cleanliness of the 
British Army. It is almost an obsession with 
them. Clean, clean, clean all the time; face, 
hands, uniforms, belts, shoes, billets — if not for 
yourself always, at least for the man that comes 
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after you. The following was posted in orders 
one day: 

TO ENCOURAGE OTHERS 

We can never achieve the purse of silk 

From the ear of the wallowing sow; 
Nor can we all have rich, new milk 

From the placid Divisional cow; 
But we can, with a little thought and care 

In the camps we are passing through, 
Do much for the welfare and comfort there 

Of ourselves — and of others too. 

We can build up walls round the wooden huts 

(This work must always be done) 
To keep out the horrible wind that cuts 

And the bombs of the aerial Hun. 
We can lay out paths for to keep us dry 

As we walk through the mud and snow; 
And build brick stoves for to warm us by 

When the temperature's rather low. 

The walls inside we can make less bare 

With pictures for every taste; 
The "Hunting Scene" and "The Lady Fair," 

Artistic, refined and chaste. 

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If we leave them behind when we are moving on 
That's the least we can fairly do; 

For the other chap's coming when we have gone, 
And he may like pictures too. 

If we do whatever is in our power 

As much as we possibly can; 
If we add improvements from hour to hour 

On a properly thought out plan; 
When the next fellow takes our place he'll say: 

"By Jove, they've improved the view, 
That's not a bad crush we relieved today. 

But we'll show them what WE can do." 

I have refrained from saying much about a 
little animal that has frequently been heard 
of during this war, chiefly because of a deli- 
cate sense of decency. But truth compels me 
to say that lice, "cooties," "burley jaspers" 
or anything you want to call them, love the 
men, particularly near the front line. Even 
now, I might keep quiet on the subject if it 
were not for the fact that the louse is probably re- 
sponsible for trench fever, a disease which is more 
or less prevalent among the troops. One theory 
is that he inoculates a person by biting him, the 
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same as a female mosquito will transfer malaria or 
yellow fever. 

Early in the war, tlie louse was a general 
nuisance and it took some time to put him under 
control/ We have discovered that he loves the 
seams of men's trousers and underclothes and there 
their eggs are laid. During the day he wanders, 
and even at night, if the man has his clothes on. 
We also know that he hates the heat of a hot 
flat iron and it positively nauseates him to smell 
creosote or gasolene. He will stand ordinary 
temperatures fairly well, but if you put him in a 
Foden sterilizer, he will explode at about 212 de- 
grees. Moreover, frequent changes of clothing 
and hot baths will make a man's body so clean that 
he finds it hard to feed upon him. 

I was particularly anxious that this battalion 
should become un-lousey. I determined to have 
inspections of the men twice a week, see that all 
of them got a hot "spray" bath and a change 
of underclothes. Moreover, arrangements were 
made to have their uniforms ironed while they 
were bathing and their blankets sterilized. 

1 See Appendix. Extract of a letter of a Canadian medical 
officer. 

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I asked the town major for the use of the bath- 
house on Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday, 
so that I would have plenty of time to bathe 
and inspect each one of the several hundred odd 
men. 

The baths, particularly the shower baths, at the 
front are very well arranged. The water is 
pumped up, either by hand or electric motor, into 
a large cistern which pipes over to the heater in 
the bathhouse. This heater is a French affair, a 
coil of pipes with a fire underneath, and the tem- 
perature is supposed to be gauged by a centigrade 
thermometer which, more often than not, is broken 
so that the Tommy has his water served to him so 
cold or so hot that he only allows one drop to 
reach him at a time. 

When Saturday came I wandered to the bath- 
house to inspect the first twenty men. The change 
of underclothing and socks hadn't arrived yet, so 
we had to wait. When the wagon did come, there 
were only one hundred suits of underwear for two 
hundred men and a variegated assortment of socks; 
some grey, some brown, some black, which ranged 
in size from No. la to No. 20b. 
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I got the first squad undressed and under the 
showers after I went over each man's skin by the 
light of a candle. Their uniforms were handed 
out of a window to pressers who worked over the 
seams with an iron which should have been hot 
enough to kill a louse, but which was usually just 
warm enough to hatch out the eggs. 

When the men began to dress I stood round, 
listening to their remarks. One man had his uni- 
form handed to him. He looked it over carefully 
and came over to me. 

"Captain," he said, "you didn't see any cooties 
on me, did you?" 

"No," I answered. 

"Would you mind lookin' at this uniform? 
I've worn it for a year and haven't had a bite. I 
knew that there were some eggs along the seams 
of my trousers but they never hatched out. I 
looked every day. And now I gives my pants 
to them pressers; they puts an iron on to them and 
now see what has happened." 

I looked. The trousers were un wearable from a 
lousy point of view, but as there were no others, 
he had to put them on. 

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A husky brute was sitting in one comer in his 
underwear, holding up a pair of socks. 

"Ain't they the cute ones?" he said. "They 
just fit over my pinky. Guess I'll send 'era 'ome 
to my kid." 

I managed to bathe about a hundred men that 
afternoon, many of whom showed signs of lousy 
occupation. 

I expected to bathe the rest of the men the next 
day and was particularly anxious to do so, for I 
knew we were soon to go into the trenches. But 
that night an order came in for one hundred men 
to proceed the next morning to a near-by town, to 
parade for the presentation of medals and for the 
rest to form themselves into a fatigue party and 
dig trenches. 

The following day I sent this letter to the 
A. D. M. S. 

"I have tried conscientiously to live up to your 
orders to eliminate lice from this battalion but 
have failed to do so for these reasons; 

1. There was not enough time for the men to 
bathe properly. 
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2. One hundred suits of underwear arrived for 
six hundred men. 

3. Apparently most of the sox that came were 
meant for the men's children. Some of them 
might have been old enough for a five-year-old 
child. 

4. All the blankets were sterilized on Saturday 
although two-thirds of the men were not to get a 
bath until Sunday. 

5. Inspection of all the men, as you suggest, 
is impossible unless they are allowed to take a 
bath. 

6. The irons are only hot enough to hatch out the 
eggs in the seats of the men's trousers — not to kill 
them. 

I am as anxious as ever to serve you and await 
your reply. 



I never did get a reply. 



[237] 



CHAPTER XVI 

AT three o'clock on Monday afternoon the bat- 
talion was on the move, bound for the 
trenches. We had received orders to remain in 
support for one night in some dug-outs in a rail- 
road cutting in front of Grand Seracourt and to 
proceed to the front line on the following night. 
Therefore our journey was to be a short one — 
about fifteen kilometres and there was a possi- 
bility that we would get there within four or five 
hours. 

The day was bitter cold, and the sharp north 
wind chilled us to the bone. 

First in line came the various companies, each 
man in full marching order, with his pack, blankets 
and rifles. Behind the company was a field kitchen 
which allowed tea or heavier eatables to be cooked 
on the way. Each unit was separated from the 
one following by a certain number of yards so 
that inquisitive aeroplanes couldn't spot them. 
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Bringing up the tail end of the procession was the 
regimental M. 0., yours truly with his orderly, 
stretcher-bearers, sanitary squad and water in- 
spectors. The hospital equipment was carried on 
a Maltese cart, which is a short, two-wheeled 
wagon, something like a half-limber. This also 
held my baggage. 

The regimental M. 0. is provided with a horse, 
and so I took advantage of the occasion to mount 
same and ride. 

I could tell you a great many thrilling stories 
about that horse, particularly with me upon him. 
I had not ridden for nearly twenty years except 
once a few years ago when at Tobyhanna they put 
me on an artillery horse who was used to drawing 
heavy stuff and therefore did not think I counted. 
I must also except the time I rode Kaiser on that 
dark, frosty night a few months before when we 
went back into the line. 

The first time I saw Beauty was when I decided 
to visit my friends of the Ambulance one afternoon. 
She was a sleek, dark-brown little animal who 
looked as tame as a dove. In order to make 
friends, I patted her on her haunch or some place 

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in that vicinity. Apparently that was one of 
Beauty's sensitive spots, for she "riz" her hind legs 
in the air. I despaired of getting on her and 
assuredly would have sent her back to the stables 
if so many people hadn't been looking on. Some- 
how I got seated and off we galloped — at least 
Beauty galloped while I prayed to the Lord that 
I wouldn't lose my stirrups. 

Everything went well until I was ready to ride 
home again. My friends in the Ambulance mar- 
velled at my courage in riding her at all, but I 
just laughed in a care-free sort of way. 

Beauty was brought over from the stables and 
stood in front of my brother officers, frisking 
about. 

"She's a good little animal," I said, "when you 
get used to her. No trouble at all to get on her." 

And then and there I gave a delightful exhibi- 
tion. Beauty just laughed and kicked up her hind 
legs every time I tried to put my foot in the stirrup. 
Finally one of the orderlies held her nose, another 
held the stirrup and a third boosted me up into the 
saddle. I shall leave the rest to your imagination. 
Beauty smelled home and decided that her slowest 
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gait should be a gallop. I argued otherwise, but 
she wouldn't listen. Needless to say I came back 
a wiser but a sorer man. 

But to get back to my travels. I didn't stay 
on Beauty long. She behaved herself wonderfully 
well because she was on the march and knew her 
place; but it was so infernally cold that I had to 
dismount and walk to warm up. After an hour's 
marching, we stopped on the side of the road for 
tea. The officers spread a box, the servants got 
out cups, saucers and spoons, bread, jam and 
butter. The tea came from the cook-wagons 
piping hot and was very grateful after our cold 
march. 

At eight o'clock we found ourselves in the rail- 
road cutting — a deep excavation with four unused 
tracks ankle-deep in clayey mud. Along one side 
were dug-outs extending for hundreds of yards 
and, what was particularly delightful, they were 
electrically lighted — at least for so long as the 
R. E.'s allowed the juice on. These dug-outs were 
forty to fifty feet deep and were well ventilated 
by a number of steep stairways, rudely cut, with 
only height enough to take a man bent double. 

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In creeping down them, many of the men got bad 
knocks and some of them would surely have been 
severely injured by protruding nails if they hadn't 
had their tin hats on. One man got a severe cut 
right above the eye from a jutting rusty nail. 

The hospital quarters were very palatial. 
Above ground was a wooden lean-to against the 
side of the hill, and this had a good stove in it. 
Down in the dug-out itself were a number of racks 
for stretchers, thirty or forty of them, and off to 
one side a small room was partitioned off which 
contained a canvas bed, a table and an electric 
light. I rolled my bedding into it and fitted my- 
self up cozily. 

Headquarters was some distance away. Most 
of the officers were given bunks in deep dug-outs 
hidden well under the hill and so dark that they 
had to bum electric lights or candles all the time. 
Our mess room was above ground, placed between 
the kitchen and the C. O.'s quarters. 

After sick call the next morning I decided to 
call on the M. 0. whom I was to relieve in the 
line, and to learn all the dope I could from him. 
So, donning my mackinaw, gas mask and tin hat, 
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I set out with my orderly. No one moves alone 
up there — it's too dangerous. 

We took a short cut across a muddy field, well 
cut up with serpentine trenches and matted with 
barbed wire. We left the field to trudge along 
a well-paved road which was chiefly notable for 
having no traffic upon it. It is of the utmost 
importance that the wily Hun be kept in ignorance 
of the number of troops at the front, so there is an 
absolute rule that men must walk only in twos and 
threes and no wagons or ambulances must be on 
the road during the daytime. 

My first stop was at the A. D. S. which was lo- 
cated in an old disused quarry with brigade head- 
quarters. Here I was cordially greeted by the 
M. 0. in charge, who directed me in to the proper 
communication trench. 

"I'll send one of my men along with you," he 
said. "These trenches start off all right but don't 
be surprised if you fall into mud up to your neck — 
and I wouldn't advise you to walk over the top 
until you get used to things." 

You must remember that we had been through 
ft severe winter and that the ground had frozen. 

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When the thaw set in, as it had a few weeks be- 
fore, the walls of the trenches started to cave in, 
with the result that the mud at the bottom was often 
over your boot tops. 

I followed my guide into the first trench, which 
for a few hundred yards or so had been cleaned 
out, parapetted and duck-boarded. I began to 
think that trenches weren't so bad after all. But 
we rounded a traverse and then we gurgled and 
sucked along in the worst mud I had ever seen. I 
had heard of mud, I thought that I had seen mud, 
but no one knows what it is until he feels that the 
thing beneath him is trying to pull his foot one way 
while he is trying to pull it another. I had been 
cold at the beginning of my journey; but now, 
beads of sweat (not perspiration, but sweat) stood 
out on my forehead and ran down my cheeks. 
The same sort of stuff trickled down my back until 
I was soaking wet. My hands were stuck with clay 
until I couldn't spread my fingers apart. The 
only thing that saved me from a muddy bath, was 
my walking stick which I used like a mountain 
climber does his pole. 

We had almost reached the front line and the 
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R. A. P., when the guide jumped over the top. 

"Guess walkin's easier up here. There ain't no 
danger — anyway it's only a few hundred yards." 

I decided it was better to risk German bullets 
than French mud. 

The surroundings weren't very cheerful. As 
far as the eye could see were miles and miles of 
trenches which I have no doubt extended from 
Calais to Verdun and then some. There was a 
space, a few hundred yards wide that was free 
from excavation — No-Man's Land. Beyond it 
were more trenches, looking just the same, but I 
had reason to think that they weren't very friendly. 

The R. A. P. wasn't a very pleasant spot 
either. The front room was an "elephant" — a 
heavy, rounded corrugated iron corridor covered 
widi sand-bags. Steps led down from this into the 
dug-out which was partitioned off into sleeping 
rooms, some for the officers, some for the men and 
others for the patients. It was terribly dark, damp 
and cold down there and the ceilings weeped. 

I met the M. 0., a cheery, young Irishman, 
looked over the indents with him, and decided I'd 
rather sleep above ground in the elephant where 

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there was light than below ground where there was 
dampy darkness. He agreed with me that the 
bunks in the elephant containing two patients might 
be evacuated and that a little sweeping out would 
remove all objectionable inhabitants therefrom. 
The greatest objection to the place was that it was 
almost impossible to build a fire, for there was no 
hole anywhere for a flue. 

Our battalion came in after dark and took over. 
As officers' accommodations were limited, I invited 
three officers to stay in my billet. One of them. 
Lieutenant Stuart, bunked with me above ground, 
and the other two stowed themselves in the room 
down below. 

I had expected Padre Gill to share my quarters 
with me too, but they found a bunk for him at 
headquarters. The Padre, an R. C. priest, was 
one of the finest men I ever met. He always had a 
cheery smile of welcome. He took himself seri- 
ously once a week — on Sundays. At other times, 
he was a real man, aff'able, kindly, brave. His 
smooth-shaven face, thoughtful forehead and keen 
grey eyes overlooked nothing. The black cravat, 
over-wide celluoid collar and black shoulder 
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straps were the only things that gave evidence of 
his calling. 

The army chaplain, more commonly called a 
padre, has done wonders for the British Army and 
incidentally for himself. Most of them in civil 
life have lived in small communities where they 
never had a chance to broaden out. The intellects 
with which they came in contact were small. But 
out here tliey are thrown in with the best of men 
and they see the best in men. Many of them have 
already given up their lives for their country and 
others are awaiting their turn to see their God of 
whom they have preached so much. It isn't only 
what the padres are doing for the men now that 
counts. They have created a wonderful spiritual 
influence over them which is going to make them 
take more interest in spiritual matters after the 
war. A clean example of wholesome living, even 
in the midst of death, has been set them by these 
men of the cloth — an example which they will 
never forget. 

Our padre was an Irish philosopher of the old 
school and a thorough independent. He believed 
in Irish freedom from the word go. And if more 

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men from the south of Ireland were like him, I 
would agree with him. 

The M. 0. and the Padre are constantly thrown 
together, and thus I had many an opportunity to 
chat with them, and recall many of them — amaz- 
ingly fine men. I can see one padre before me 
now, succouring the wounded under the heaviest 
shell fire and often carrying a stretcher; another 
padre as he talked to the boys of a Sunday; our 
padre as he carved the roast beef at the head- 
quarters' mess. 

In spite of all the hardships and the possible 
danger, the short time I spent in the trenches will 
be amongst my pleasantest memories. I was not 
content to stay within doors all the time, particu- 
larly without a fire, for there was much to see and 
the officers took particular delight in showing me 
the ropes. 

I had no sick — perhaps one or two a day — and 
very few injured, "casualties," we call them; for 
there is an unwritten code among the men that no 
one must report sick while in the trenches. Every 
man knows that every other man is needed too 
much. And the only way you would get any sick 
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at all was to have an officer bring one of his men 
in by the back of the collar. 

As I stated, we were in a "cushy" spot, but that 
doesn't mean there was nothing doing. During the 
day it was often mighty quiet, except for a machine- 
gun bullet or a rifle bullet coming your way when 
you weren't expecting it and except for the whirr 
of the aeroplanes followed by a thousand detona- 
tions of our Archies as an enemy plane came into 

view. 

Headquarters was about a half mile distant, 
situated on the leeward side of a quarry. A trench 
led down to it — also a road. No one thought of 
taking the trench, for up to that time the Boche 
hadn't registered the road. But he must have seen 
my American campaign hat one day when I was 
walking in a part of it that dips down into a little 
valley. I let him have his fun and walked serenely 
on toward B. H. Q. Here this road met the main 
road. As I turned, I heard a zip across my left 
cheek and ducked. Never again did I go near that 
comer. 

The Boche apparently thought that road worth 
while after that, and so they pumped it full of lead 

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whenever they saw anything on it that looked like 
a man. Still I was not apprehensive until a few 
mornings later, when my orderly came in, much 
the worse for mud, and informed me, "Just as we 
got to the valley, sir, the Boche lets go with the 
machine-guns. I says 'Good-bye' to my compan- 
ions an' falls down on my belly an' crawls to the 
trench." A few moments later a casualty was 
brought in — a fellow who was nipped in the heel 
just as he was getting down on all fours. Feel 
sorry for him? No. He had got his Blighty 
and was grinning all over. 

As soon as the sun went down and the earth was 
covered with cold and darkness, Hell was let loose. 
Our machine-guns beat a tattoo with Johnny's and 
the big guns let off steam. This music was often 
interrupted by the tat-tat of a rifle. It wasn't the 
thundering noise that I had heard in my dug-out 
months before, but it was the scarey, jumpy kind 
— quiet, then a shot, some more quiet, then a hun- 
dred shots, each separate one scaring you almost 
to death. 

I went on an exploring expedition with my sani- 
tary corporal the second day, to get the lay of the 
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trenches which wound in and out in a most puzzling 
fashion. Most of them were marked at intersec- 
tions with sign posts saying "Broadway," "Picca- 
dilly Circus," and so on, but whether Broadway 
ended in the Bronx or in Brooklyn, it was hard to 
tell. One of them might have been marked Phila- 
delphia for it led to the Boche lines — a deadly 
place. 

We wandered in and out of mud, he leading, I 
following. Often my foot got stuck good and hard, 
so that I no longer doubted the stories of how the 
men had to be pulled out with ropes when they 
first took over this line. Once in a while my foot 
would slip into a big yawning cavern which proved 
to be the entrance to a disused front line dug-out, 
and sometimes I'd get mixed up in the signal wires. 

There were many times when I wondered why the 
Boche didn't pot me. I surely was exposed 
enough. There was a place where you descended 
a row of steep steps from a piece of rising ground. 
For the next hundred yards or so, you couldn't 
keep covered unless you walked on your hands 
and knees, and nobody did that. 

No-Man's Land is a beautiful place. As you 

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look over the top, you see a piece of land a few 
hundred yards wide, sometimes more, sometimes 
less. It is very straggly and moth-eaten, and has 
a number of pits made by exploding shells. 
About twenty yards or so in front of your trench 
is a barbed-wire barricade, cunningly devised by 
criss-crossing the prickly wire on stakes so that the 
enemy can't get through it and neither can you 
unless you know the weak spots. Then you see a 
quiet piece of mud, inhumanly quiet and beyond 
it is more wire and more trenches but these belong 
to the enemy. 

Speaking of wire reminds me of a story an 
officer told me about the days of '14 that are no 
more. 

"At that time," he said, "we had only a thin line 
of men and practically no reinforcements. Some- 
times we had trenches; at other times the men 
simply dug themselves in — made a hole in the 
ground with a spade, just big enough to lie in. 

"The Germans opposite us had some deadly 
snipers and one of these picked off six or seven men 
each day. The C. 0. was furious, so one night he 
detailed three men to go out to find this sniper. 
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They never came back. The next day he sent out 
three more and they never came back. And so it 
went on for four nights until we had lost twelve 
men. 

"I knew about it, of course, so I went up to the 
C. 0. and asked permission to find this man. 

" 'I've lost enough men already,' he said. 
'You can't go.' So then I outlined my plan and 
he gave me carte blanche. 

"My idea was to locate the sniper by indirect 
means. So I rigged up a dummy in a Tommy's 
uniform and in the dead of night I crawled out 
with it to our wire, where I laid him. I tied a 
thin rope to his neck, passed it through a pulley 
on one of the wire poles and brought it back into 
the trench and waited until morning. 

"When it got bright and sunny, I gave my rope 
a pull and before my dummy got to his knees, he 
had a hole right through his forehead. .A few 
hours later, I tried it again and he was plugged 
once more. I didn't want to spoil the game so I 
waited until almost dusk for the third trial and he 
got another bullet through him. 

"I wanted the sniper's attention on that spot and 

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I got it. That night I went out with a lot of pieces 
of iron, tin cans, etc., and tied them on to the wire 
near the dummy. We often tied such things on 
so that if a Johnny came through carelessly the wire 
would jingle. I took the rope off the dummy, put 
it on the wire and crawled back into the trench 
again. I gave the rope a pull, the tin cans jingled 
and my friend, the sniper, thinking we might be 
coming through, let go with his rifle and I caught 
the fire of it. 

"My next move was to phone to the artillery. 
I ordered them to put a barrage at a certain place 
and to move it gradually forward for fifty feet. 
They did as I requested, and when their noise had 
ceased, I tried the tin cans again but there was nary 
a response. I called for three volunteers, and we 
went out to investigate. We found pieces of the 
sniper and part of his gun. He had crawled out 
to a shell-hole beyond his wire each night, a shell- 
hole which he had deepened until he could stand 
in it and had it covered over with boards and earth 
until there was only enough opening for his eyes 
and rifle." 

I made a complete tour of the trenches that first 
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day and became so well acquainted that I was sure 
I could find my way in them at any time. I visited 
B Company headquarters, which consisted of a 
very deep dug-out in which no light and very little 
air could enter. Then I wandered over to battalion 
headquarters where I found a number of letters 
from home awaiting me. How strange it seemed 
to read of New York City doings in this barbarous, 
ungodly land at the front— truly No-Man's Land. 



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CHAPTER XVII 

I LEARNED many interesting things in the 
front line, the chief one of which was to pre- 
tend that you were not afraid. Strange to say, 
I had no feeling of fear at any time. I don't 
suppose I was ever in so much danger, and yet 
every one went about his business so calmly and 
incidentally so few were hit that there was no use 
worrying. 

In order to hold out in the trenches, mentally 
and physically, one must forget that he ever had 
an imagination and must have an iron constitution. 
If he allows his imagination to work, he will see 
himself dead or mortally wounded a thousand 
times a day. It is because the average officer is 
educated, and therefore thinks more, that I believe 
him to be a braver man than the soldier under him; 
for he must exercise his will-power, oftentimes to 
the limit, to keep his nerves in hand. One of my 
pals up there was an officer who had been out here 
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for three years. Any one could see that he was 
high-strung and as taut as a fiddle; and he con- 
fided to me that he was afraid he would break 
any minute. 

I don't attempt to analyse myself. I am con- 
scious of a certain moral stamina and believe that 
I have the average man's courage and unfortun- 
ately more than the average man's imagination. 
Moreover, I am sensitive and hate to go to a dentist. 
Yet when I got out here, I made my mind a blank 
and each time a bullet passed near me, I would 
stop for a moment and say, "Wouldn't give a 

d if I was hit." There is a great comfort 

in hearing the bullets zip by you, for you know 
the axiom, "A bullet you hear won't hurt you." 
When you don't hear it — well, you know the rest. 

There are certain phenomena of trench life that 
are very interesting. One develops owl's eyes, so 
that not only does he see very well at night through 
dilated pupils but the night doesn't seem as dark. 
One learns to develop an acute sense of hearing 
too, so that in a short time he is able to tell the 
difference between a Boche machine-gun and one of 
his own. The rat-tat-tat of the former is slower 

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and has a deeper note. This leads to another 
peculiar observation — the direction from which a 
rifle is firing. If the gun is pointed away from 
you, you hear only one crack. If it is pointed 
toward you, you hear two — one when the cartridge 
is struck, the second when it leaves the barrel of the 
gun. A further observation of interest is the 
rapidity with which the shells from the big guns 
travel — faster than the waves of sound. One often 
hears the swish of the shell through the air before 
he hears the detonation of the gun firing it. Lastly, 
one learns to tell the difference at night between his 
own and enemy planes. It is hard to describe this 
difference in words, but you feel it. The Boche 
plane has a peculiar, low rumble like in a machine 
shop, while the English plane sounds more like the 
b-rr-h of a heavy electric fan. 

Not only did no one think of danger but one 
seldom talked danger up here, except when the 
men got together to swap experiences, in which 
the humour of situations was brought out more 
often than the pathos. Stuart and I would sit on 
either side of our little table in the elephant wait- 
ing for grub, and more often than not he would sing 
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some Irish ditty in a clear, mellow, tenor voice. 
One of his songs I remember particularly well. 
It was called "God Send You Back to Me." 

Love, you have left me 
Weary and lonely, 
Sailing so far away. 
Ah, how I miss you, 
Daily I'm praying 
Safely you'll come home 
Some day. 

Chorus. 

God send you back to me 
Over the mighty sea. 
Dearest, I want you near. 
God dwells above you, 
Knows how I love you, 
He will send you back to me. 

Though we are parted 

Love lives for ever. 

When hearts are fond and true. 

So, till our meeting — 

Let us remember. 

Ever I pray for you. 

While he was singing this, a lump rose in my 
throat and I could hardly hold back the tears. I 

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hadn't been lonesome for a long time — life was too 
exciting — but now the vision of home came be- 
fore me. I could see my dear wife and kiddie 
sitting there, waiting and waiting, and my boy 
writing me a letter while his mother helped him 
spell the words. I could hear them both saying, 
"Oh, when is this awful war going to end? When 
will Daddy come back to us?" And I murmured, 
"Dearest, I want you so." 

That night Stuart took me on his rounds. Walk- 
ing in the trenches at night is sure some job. One 
foot follows the other unconsciously, but neither 
knows what the other is going to do next. Your 
arms and hands are more useful, for as you trip 
or fall you can always grab a piece of dirt and thus 
keep yourself from falling into the deep mirey 
mud. You usually start out with a normal body 
temperature, but before you have finished your 
tour you are sure that your temperature is round 
212 degrees and that a bath in the cold ocean 
wouldn't be so bad. 

One imagines that trenches are clean-cut holes 
in the ground, running straight and true, perhaps 
winding over hill or dale and maybe bending at 
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an angle every mile or so. The truth of the matter 
is that they are sluice ways filled with mud, with 
uneven sides and parapets, and run serpentinely 
in never-ending waves. This serpentine effect is 
caused by the innumerable traverses. The idea is 
by making them thus, an explosion in one part of 
the trench will be unable to have a serious effect on 
the adjacent parts. Besides the regular trenches 
— front-line, support and so on — there are com- 
munication trenches which lead to headquarters, 
and a number of "saps" — straight trenches running 
at right angles to No-Man's Land and often directly 
communicating with a Boche trench. The only 
thing that separates you from the enemy here is a 
mass of barbed wire, thickly enmeshed, which fills 
up the trench from the bottom. 

Stuart and I kept close together — about one 
traverse apart. 

"Never come out here alone. Hays," he whis- 
pered. "You see you might take a wrong turn and 
get lost or injured. No one would know where to 
find you. And when you are walking with any 
one, keep one traverse apart so that if a shell comes 
over, it will get only one of you." 

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I agreed that I would never go out there alone. 

We stopped at the junction of Piccadilly and 
the Strand to get our bearings, and then walking 
on we suddenly ran up against a machine-gun 
post. 

"Halt! Who goes there?" called the sentinel in 
an awful creepy whisper. 

We gave the password. 

Those "halts" used to make me jump more 
than anything. You always felt that the guard 
had his bayonet pointed at you and his finger 
on the trigger of his gun. Suppose he got nerv- 
ous? 

We spoke to the man for a few moments while 
we let our eyes wander out into No-Man's Land. 
It was very quiet — too quiet. We could see out 
as far as our barbed wire. The men were particu- 
larly wide awake at this post, because the Boche 
had come over a few nights before and walked off 
with a sergeant and a private. The sky was lit up 
at irregular intervals by flashing Verilights. The 
white parapets of the trenches across the way 
looked ghoulish. When we least expected it, the 
sharp rat-tat-tat, rat-tat-tat of a machine-gun started 
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and a dozen bullets passed over our heads. We 
ducked. 

"I've got to go out to a post in one of the saps," 
he whispered. "Want to come along?" 

Did I want to come along? Well, rather. I 
told him that it was my one ambition in life. 
So we left the front line trench and carefully 
picked our way toward the Boche line. We prob- 
ably didn't walk more than a hundred yards, but 
I felt as though we were on our way to Berlin. 
The farther we went, the slower I went. Once I 
felt myself walking backward. 

"Don't see any one here," he whispered, as he 
stopped for breath. "The men must be round here 
somewhere. I think we had better get along our 
wire and see what's doing." 

So over the top we went, standing up straight 
and tall like regular fellows. At last I was out in 
No-Man's Land — not the No-Man's Land I had read 
about, with hundreds of dead bodies lying all 
around and an awful decayey smell, but No-Man's 
Land just the same. 

I wanted to take Stuart's hand and have him lead 
me. But he kept serenely on until he came to our 

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wire and then, following its course, he walked 
towards another sap. Like a little dog I trailed 
along. 

"Halt!" I wished they wouldn't say that word 
so often. 

It was one of our sentries just around the cor- 
ner. We jumped into the trench. 

"See anything tonight?" asked this officer. 

"Yes, sir," answered the Lewis machine-gunner. 
"About a half hour ago we spotted a Johnnie 
snoopin' around on the other side of that wire. I 
lets go a few rounds at 'im an' I ain't seen 'im 
since." 

"I'll be back about four A. M." he said and we 
departed. 

The next morning the men brought in a miser- 
able specimen of a Hun, whom they had potted 
just beyond our wire opposite the machine-gun 
post I had first visited the night before. He had 
four or five canteens hung on his belt. Appar- 
ently he had lost his way and strayed over towards 
our trenches. 

It's a miserable feeling to get lost up there. A 
few nights later I started out with my orderly, who 
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up to that time hadn't been in this particular front 
line. We had to bring a jar of rum up to B head- 
quarters. At one place I made a wrong turn and in 
a short time we were hopelessly lost. I don't 
hesitate to say I was dead scared. After innumer- 
able turns, my orderly leading the way, we came 
out to a place that was recognizable. Fortunately 
we had turned inside our own lines instead of out 
of them. 

The following Sunday morning I went over to see 
Morgan, who was with a battalion in the next 
quarry about three kilometres away. It was an 
awful muddy, chalky place, but the dug-outs 
were much better than ours. He wasn't in, but I 
left a message for him to come over to tea in the 
afternoon. I hadn't seen his cheery face for many 
a moon. 

He walked in about four o'clock, happy as ever 
and looking almost clean. Wliile we sipped our 
tea from our tin cups and ate bread and marma- 
lade, we swapped experiences. Both of us felt 
that we were having the time of our lives. 

"Aren't you sorry for those poor boobs at the 
base?" he asked laughingly. "When they sent us 

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out here, you would have thought we were doomed. 
I wouldn't go back if I could. This is the life. 
When I get home I suppose I'll have to preen 
around like a real hero." 

"I feel the same way as you do," I answered. 
"No one knows what real men are until they come 
out here. The Tommies have got me heart and 
soul, and there never was another Jimmie." 

"Except my boy," he said. 

"Hear what happened this morning?" he asked. 

"No." 

"Just after you left our place, I guess, a Boche 
plane came over and dropped a bomb right in the 
middle of the quarry. Killed three men and in- 
jured about half a dozen others. I had my hands 
full." 

"Got out just in time, didn't I?" 

The next few days passed rather monotonously. 
It was damp and foggy, and a chilly wind came up. 
I wrote letters home and read magazines from the 
vintage of 1812. One can't carry much litera- 
ture with him so he has to be content with any old 
scrap of printed paper. I got hold of a copy of 
the Strand Magazine, August 1908. I read all 
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the stories and all the advertisements and then read 
them over again. I almost got started on some 
stories of my own after I had tired of practising 
writing with my left hand. 

On the last day I decided to take a final tour of 
the trenches. I felt that, possibly, I would never 
see them again, so I wanted one long, last, linger- 
ing look. At B headquarters I met Stuart and four 
other officers, who were watching the Boche throw 
over some 5-9 shells into our wire on the left 
sector. 

"Wonder how the boys are faring over there?" 
one of the officers said. 

He had hardly got the words out of his mouth 
when we heard an ominous noise, a swish through 
the air in our direction, and then an awful crump. 
We were covered with flying dirt and shrapnel. 
Our tin hats saved us. The shell had landed less 
than twenty feet away from where we were stand- 
ing. It was a last farewell — for me. 

That night another battalion took over, and we 
were slated for the railroad cutting again. As 
my Maltese cart left the aid-post and rattled along 
the side road, the enemy gave us a parting salvo — 

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in fact, made things so hot that my men and I stuck 
close to the safe side of the wagon. That no one 
was hit was a miracle. 

On the following morning I was relieved by the 
regular M. 0. I bid a sad and affectionate fare- 
well to all these dear friends. I put on my tin 
hat, heavy coat and gas mask, picked up my walk- 
ing stick and, saying good-bye to my men, walked 
away. 



[268] 



APPENDIX 1 

HUN RED CROSS FIENDS 

Our Soldier's Calvary 

THOSE who believe that the Germans are a 
civilized people or that their men and women 
observe the ordinary decencies of human inter- 
course would be well advised to study a document 
which has just been issued by the British Govern- 
ment. It is a Report on the Transport of British 
Prisoners of War to Germany in August-Decem- 
ber, 1914. It contains the first-hand statements 
and depositions of forty-eight officers and seventy- 
seven non-commissioned officers and men, most of 
whom fell, wounded, into the enemy's hands. 

That civilized men and women should deliber- 
ately insult, torture and abuse wounded or dying 
captives seems a thing past belief. But the 
fact is established here indisputably by abundance 

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of evidence. The infamy was greater because — 
though this is not stated — it had been deliberately 
organized and prepared by the German Staff. 

It was the German Staff which spread the story 
that British soldiers carried knives of a peculiar 
pattern to gouge out the eyes of the German 
wounded. Precisely the same wicked lie was cir- 
culated about the Belgians, and two years later it 
was cynically wididrawn. It was the German 
Staff which pretended that the British soldiers used 
dum-dum bullets, supporting the charge, as Captain 
H. G. W. Irwin tells us in this report, by showing 
cartridges which "were in every case of Mauser 
pattern." 

For the British wounded the progress to Ger- 
many was a veritable journey to Calvary, and its 
miseries and agonies were cruelly enhanced by the 
merciless savagery of the German Red Cross 
women. Forgetting the symbol which they wore, 
they behaved as though they had been barbarians. 
Witness after witness testifies to this. Lieutenant- 
Colonel Neish says; 

At Cologne I saw a female with a Red Cross badge 
on her, after serving our escort (of German soldiers) 
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with coffee, deliberately pour the remaining contents of 
the can on the ground when requested to allow us to 
have some. During the journey to Sennelager — some 
forty-eight hours — we were given one meal (soup). 

Major A. S. Peebles states: 

At one station we asked two Red Cross ladies for a 
glass of water, saying it was for a wounded officer; they 
burst out laughing and said, "Nothing for you English." 

Captain Beeman says: 

The German Red Cross gave no food to prisoners, 
wounded or otherwise. At times it is shown to them 
and then withdrawn, with kindly remarks that it is not 
for swine. 

Captain Hargreaves gives an even more revolt- 
ing account: 

At Liege I tried personally to get the German Red 
Cross officials to give our wounded men water. They 
refused. I saw some German Red Cross nurses actually 
bring water in cans up to our men, show it to them, and 
then pour it out on the platform. This also happened 
to me personally. At Aix-la-Chapelle the excitement 
and anger of the crowd were indescribable. There was 
an elaborate Red Cross dressing station here. All 

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water and food were rigorously refused us. The Ger- 
man wounded in the train had their wounds dressed. 
This was refused us. 

Another officer, Major Meiklejohn, deposes: 

German Red Cross women refused us any food, call- 
ing us insulting names and spat towards us, telling us 
they would give nothing to the English "Schweinhunde," 
although we told them some of us were very ill and all 
were wounded — I myself saw one, and the other officers 
saw several German women, dressed as nurses and ladies 
and wearing the Red Cross, deliberately empty bowls of 
soup on the platform before us, saying something about 
giving nothing to "English swine." 

Other officers, among whom I understand was Captain 
Pelham-Burn, Gordon Highlanders, saw Red Cross 
women spit in the soup before offering it to them. 

Throughout this journey the conduct of the German 
women, especially those dressed as Red Cross nurses, 
was revolting and barbarous beyond words, and as a 
result of the continuous brutality of Red Cross women 
and officials many prisoners of war besides myself have 
still a repugnance to seeing a Red Cross armlet. 

In another case an officer tells hov\r a Red Cross 
woman brought him a glass of water and spat in 
it before handing it to him. 
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In this continuous record of cruelty to helpless 
and suffering men there is only one case given 
where Red Cross women showed any human sym- 
pathy. This was at Coblenz, where in the words 
of Captain H. G. Gilliland, "the sliding doors of 
the truck (in which a number of wounded had 
travelled for two days without water or food) were 
pulled open and two or three German women of the 
Red Cross came up and asked when we had food 
last. When they found that we had had none, 
they went off and got us some sausage sandwiches, 
but before they could give them to us they 
were prevented by German officers who said: 
"These are English prisoners and they are to have 
nothing." 

The German soldiers were cruel enough, though 
here and there some of the escorts showed some 
sense of pity for the wretched victims in their 
charge. The ambulance trains which, under the 
Geneva Conventions ought to have been used im- 
partially for all wounded, were never employed for 
the British. Our men were thrown into loathsome 
cattle trucks. Thus Major Vandaleur, with fifty- 
one other wounded and prisoners, was forced into a 

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closed wagon from which horses had just been re- 
moved. 

So tight were we packed (he states) that there was 
only room for some of us to sit down on the floor. 
This floor was covered fully three inches deep in fresh 
manure, and the stench of horse urine was almost 
asphyxiating. We were boxed up in this foul wagon 
with practically no ventilation for thirty hours, with no 
food and no possibility of attending to purposes of 
nature. All along the line we were cursed, ofl&cers and 
soldiers alike, at the various stations, and at Mons I 
was pulled out in front of the wagon by the officer in 
charge of the station, and after cursing me in filthy 
language for some ten minutes, he ordered one of his 
soldiers to kick me back into the wagon, which he did, 
sending me sprawling into the filthy mess at the bottom 
of the wagon. 

One of die prisoners thus tortured still suffers 
in his eyes from the ammonia fumes generated by 
the urine in one of these pestilential wagons. 

In anodier case a train of British prisoners was 
deliberately left by the Germans under heavy fire, 
"presumably due to a sortie from Antwerp." 
"The Germans" (says the officer who experienced 
this treatment) "retired across the line and left 
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our train between the two contending parties. We 
were then moved slowly up and down in front of the 
Germans for about an hour; I suppose to draw fire 
(which we did) — I consider this use of a hospital 
train as against the Geneva Convention." 

Sometimes when food was given, it was given in 
the most loathsome manner. Thus one small jug 
of soup was allowed to a whole carriage of wounded 
and this "soup was useless as it was put into a jug 
used for urinating." Wherever the British were 
taken they were spat at or upon by German men, 
women and children. Bavarian troops distin- 
guished themselves by this loathsome form of out- 
rage. They seemed, says Captain Irwin "to 
specialize in expectoration." 

The German school children howled "hate 
choruses." Sometimes the wounded were threat- 
ened with knives and revolvers. German officers 
were prominent as bullies and as cads, showing 
not one spark of chivalry, but a mean and cruel 
revengefulness, and in at least one case allowed 
troops to strike a convoy of wounded with sabres 
and bayonets and to kick the cioitches from under 
the arms of the cripples. 

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Reports of crimes so atrocious and so inhuman 
should lead the Allies and the people of Great 
Britain to reflect on what peace with Prussianism 
would mean. We cannot live on peaceable terms 
with savages who behave thus. President Wilson 
never spoke more truly than when he said, now 
nearly a year ago, "The wrongs against which we 
now array ourselves are not common wrongs; they 
cut to the very root of human life." (Continental 
Daily Mail, February 26, 1918.) 



[276] 



HUN TORTURE OF PRISONERS 
A Soldier's Narrative 

GERMANS, coming along the trench in which 
I was taken prisoner, shot our wounded. 
They took deliberate aim and fired on anybody 
lying down. 

As the men got into the train for Schneidemuhl 
Camp (in Posen) the Germans hauled back any 
who had overcoats and took them from them. It 
was freezing hard, and we had to make the journey 
with only our shirts, trousers and boots. 

At Schneidemuhl, where there was an epidemic 
of typhus, the British prisoners were sent in batches 
of about fifty down to a receiving room, where 
they lay about on the floor among the Russians like 
rotten sheep. Men died there while waiting for 
the doctor. One man was lying down when a Rus- 
sian fell over him dead. About twenty or thirty 
British prisoners died of typhus and seven thousand 
Russians were counted as having died of it. 

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We were taken to one barracks and stripped and 
had our hair shaved off, and then were given a 
blanket each and marched, otherwise naked, 
through water about a foot deep to another bar- 
racks. If men got up through being delirious, 
wishing to go to the latrines or attempting to leave 
the hut, they were knocked down by the orderlies 
with knotted towels. When I went out I had to put 
on the clothes of a Russian who was being admitted 
to the hospital suffering from typhus. 

The general treatment of prisoners at Schneide- 
muhl Camp for the first six months that I was 
there was terrible. The Germans were constantly 
shooting somebody or putting the bayonet into 
them. 

I was present at a flogging in one of the dug- 
outs. A barrel was brought in by command of the 
Captain, and the man was laid over it with his 
shirt off. Four or five Germans got hold of thick 
sticks and the officers told the men to thrash him. 
They hit him over the head and over the back and 
knocked him unconscious. I should think that they 
gave him thirty or forty strokes each. He was then 
taken up and tied to the wires for two hours. All 
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the Englishmen were formed up under a strong 
guard and a battery of guns was turned on us to 
witness it. 

After a prisoner had been shot in the camp his 
body was put in a coffin without a lid and was taken 
round the camp for exhibition. 

Prisoners from the reprisal gangs returned to us 
in a very bad state. One had been injured when 
working down in a coal mine. He was descending 
a ladder about forty-three yards long into the mine, 
when a German civilian working there came down 
after him. The prisoner was a little man and 
could only go down one rung at a time. He said 
that the German followed him down after he had 
gone down three or four rungs and purposely trod 
on his head and hands, with the result that he fell 
to the bottom of the shaft unconscious and he al- 
most broke his back. He is suffering from a curva- 
ture of the spine in consequence of the fall but is 
still working in a lager at Friedrichsfeld. 

Reprisal prisoners complained that no parcels 
reached them. Until recently the parcels of the 
other prisoners were opened and the contents put 
into one basin. Tooth powder, dubbin, cotton, 

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tooth tablets, pepper and cigarettes were removed 
from the parcels and confiscated. English news- 
papers were not allowed. (Continental Daily- 
Times. April 19, 1918.) 



[280] 



THE MOST THOUGHT-OF TOWN 
IN THE WORLD 

THIS town today is the most thought-of town in 
the world. It is on the lips and in the 
thoughts of millions of people, for every one knows 
that it is there, for a great preliminary, the German 
club blow is aimed — or, as the French stylist would 
term it in the language of Balzac, the German 
coupe de massue. 

Just before the battle started the town might 
have been likened to Brussels the night before 
Waterloo, for it is a gay place, full of animation 
and burning life — though, unlike Brussels in those 
days, it does not go in for dances in war time. The 
Germans reached it in 1914. They stayed there a 
little more than a week, and the Hotel du Rhin 
had to take the paper money of their officers. But 
they departed hastily. 

It was almost their utmost throw West, and soon 
afterward they were in flight at the battle of the 

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Mame. When, after the Aisne, our expeditionary 
force swung north, it was included in the British 
zone, but with this peculiarity — it was left, and 
remains to this day, under French sentinelship. 

The entente between France and Great Britain 
is perfectly symbolized here; entering or leaving 
you must slow up at the challenge. You must 
salute the French grey as well as the British khaki. 
Since the German retreat in 1917 from the Somme, 
it has been largely immune from the visits of enemy 
aeroplanes at night — though not wholly, for they 
hovered over early last December, but not for 
destructive purposes. 

Before the enemy retreated, however, he bombed 
this town for a while almost nightly. He scattered 
his "eggs" at random, but not a one struck the ca- 
thedral. The cathedral, as every reader of Ruskin 
knows, is one of the most beautiful and wonderful 
things made of stone. It is badly placed; it is 
hemmed about by a mass of poor architecture, but 
the thing itself is matchless. Rich decorations in 
perfect taste, ethereal heights and dreaming spires! 

The enemy has not yet swung his huge club upon 
it, but we know his passion for registering his 
[282] 



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heavies on a Norman tower or spire. It is in 
grave peril today. It has kept its sprightly French 
civilian life all through the war, as has perhaps 
no other town in the British zone. It has — be- 
sides a famous hotel — the most famous restaurant 
in a northern French town today. Tens of thou- 
sands of British officers have welcomed the chance 
of an hour or two there, snatched from the horrors 
and monotony of trench life and meals. It was 
always gloriously worth while to motor the best 
part of fifty miles from and back to the mire and 
shells of the Somme to sample the menu and to see 
a white tablecloth once more. 

This town has done a roaring trade for several 
years past — in fact, since it was rid of the Ger- 
man incubus. It deals in comestibles chiefly, but 
the photographs of the new model army in khaki, 
the picture postcards, the endless souvenirs from 
somewhere in France — what British, Canadian, 
Australasian town or country district has not had 
its share of these? 

A glance at the map by the veriest amateur in 
war reveals instantly the importance of the place. 
The Somme, here usefully navigable, feeds it as 

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well as do four railway lines. Observe too the 
position in relation to it of Abbeville. Indeed, the 
value of the town strategically is basic. The ten 
or eleven miles of country which now part the 
enemy from it gradually drop from steep switch- 
back into plain. (Continental Mail, March 14, 
1918). 

Extract from a letter written to his sister by a 
Canadian medical officer, who was in England when 
the war broke out, and joined the Imperial Forces: 

I wonder if I told you that practically every man, 
both N. C. O.'s and an occasional officer, are lousey, 
and it is almost impossible to get rid of them. You may 
use blue ointment. Well, I was lucky enough to get a 
pound, but you will understand how far short that 
would come of the requirements with a town in Canada 
of a thousand population, all sleeping packed close to- 
gether, with a blanket each and a great coat to cover 
with. Their underwear, although changed twice a 
month, is soon infected from the tunic, great coat and 
blankets, so that any vermicide would have to be issued 
in about a hundred gallon lots twice a month for it to be 
applied. The tunics are all lousey as well as the under- 
wear, but these with the trousers and great coats are 
only exchanged when worn out, so you see that each 
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soldier carries his leaven of vermin, to infect his fresh 
clothes, or any one that has by some individual method 
got clean. I have told you of getting infected myself, 
and it is no easy matter to get clean. You change under- 
wear and get a bath but find yourself infected next day. 
You change again but find you are still infected, and 
have now to chase around to get your clothes washed 
to put on. I have money and clothes to work with, 
while the Tommies in the majority of cases have only 
one change and no money. Often he has thrown away 
his change to lighten his pack, so he is always lousey. 

It has become a forgotten nuisance to both the men 
and the Army, but of late some are working to get a 
system instituted that will clean them and keep them 
clean. I have done a lot of kicking and created a 
nuisance of myself in doing so, but it is beginning to 
take effect with the kicks of others as well. I think in 
1919, or possibly the winter of 1918, we will have a 
system like the Boche, and our men will be clean or 
will be sent away and cleaned. 

Some cases of infection are beyond description, and 
one of the peculiarities is that after a time being in- 
fected by vermin they become careless of it, and the 
clean ones lose hope of staying clean and also become 
careless. 

If I see this one change I will feel that I have done 
a lot for the Army. For our own regiment we try 
by any means possible to get them frequent baths, about 

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once a week, and if possible get where there is a 
sterilizer, so that when they are bathing they have their 
clothes sterilized, and then they get a clean start till 
some dirty fellow comes along and infects them again. 
Yesterday I got seventy-two done and will get more to- 
morrow. 

You ask, "Why not do them all?" Well, that would 
be done if we could get the sterilizer, but there is only 
one in a division of 20,000 men, and it is always busy 
on contract work, i. e., work arranged for weeks ahead 
so that we can't get it when we are near it, and even if 
we do get it we only get two hours when we need a 
whole day. So you see the whole remedy lies in the 
supply of more sterilizers, but there are many, many 
people that have to be interested in one way or another 
before the supply will come. 

Letters of recommendation when the author ap- 
plied for a commission as Major while with the 
British Forces. (Without his knowledge, the com- 
mission had already gone through American chan- 
nels). 

O. C. No. 1 Presbyterian (U. S. A.) General Hospital, 
Etretat. , 

The attached application for Capt. H. Hays, M. 0. R. 

C, U. S. A., is forwarded to you for necessary action 
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please, as this officer is under orders to report to you 
forthwith. 

While he has been in this Division, Captain Hays has 
proved himself to be a most valuable military Medical 
Officer. 

H. S. RocH, Colonel, 
A. D. M. S., 36 Div. 
24. 2. 18. 

A. D. M. S. 36th Division. 

Memo. 

Application for promotion from Capt. Harold M. 
Hays, M. 0. R. C. forwarded. I consider that this 
officer is in every way qualified for the rank he is apply- 
ing for. While serving under me he has shown excep- 
tional ability and keenness. He understands what is 
meant by discipline and has a knowledge of regulations. 
D. deC. O'Grady, Lieut.-Col. 

110 Field Ambulance. 

24. 2. 18. 

To Surgeon General A. E. F. 

Capt. H. M. Hays was attached to this Battalion 
for a short period as M. O. During this time he per- 
formed his duties in a most conscientious manner 
showing great keenness in his work. He was always 
most anxious to give me any assistance in his power — 
such as holding his medical inspection at inconvenient 

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hours, etc., and in every way I found him to be a most 

excellent officer. i-, r. r. ^r . 

R. R. Rose, Major, 

Commanding 2nd Royal Irish Rifles. 



21. 2. 18. 



108th Brigade. 
23. 2. 18. 



Dear Hays, 

I wish to thank you for all the good work you did 
for me while I was commanding the Battalion. I en- 
joyed your keenness immensely and I hope you dis- 
covered much knowledge from your tour in the trenches. 
We must meet again sometime and I hope soon. 

Yours sincerely, 
Patrick A. Cox, Colonel, 
Commanding 108th Brigade. 

To Surgeon General A. E. F. 

Capt. H. M. Hays, M. 0. R. C, was on the strength 
of the 110th Field Ambulance during the period in 
which I was in command. I formed a very high opinion 
of his executive and administrative abilities and he had 
a very good command of men. 

A. W. S. Christie, Capt. R. A. M. C. 

110 Field Ambulance. 
24. 2. 18. 

The last letter written to the author by Lieutenant 
Morgan. 
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March 19, 1918. 
Dear Major Hays, — 

Ah — your Majority has arrived at last. I was mighty 
glad to hear of it, for certainly you should have had it 
long ago. Dave told me in a recent letter that you had 
withdrawn from the 2-bar class. Knowing that you 
were spending leave in Cannes, the enclosed clipping 
from the Mail caught my eye, and I was interested to 
see your name, together with those of Stevens and 
Cassamajor. I'm sure you're having one wonderful bit 
of sport down there, and I must admit I'd much like to 
be in the crowd. Dave and Art and I expected to put in 
a week or so of leave there. Cannes is a regular Monte 
Carlo, they say. 

As it happens, I am still with the worthy 9th, in re- 
serve right now at Grand Seracourt. Our tours in the 
line have been simple enough lately and casualties 
rare. It has been good sport, however, for the weather 
recently has been absolutely perfect, giving wonderful 
observation. I've seen plenty of Boche and have missed 
his machine-gun bullets successfully. One night the 
C. 0. and I went all around the line about twelve 
o'clock, going out into the saps and wandering about 
in No-man's Land. Incidentally a machine-gun turned 

near us and d near cut the grass between our legs. 

The Boche is quiet these days, however, and he hardly 
replies at all to the rather heavy strafing he gets night 
and day. One thing certain now is our guns are not 

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afraid to speak. The best sight I have seen recently 
was watching the tremendous shell of a 12-inch 
howitzer flying off into space. It is very remarkable 
how one can see the shell for fully a minute or two from 
the moment it leaves the muzzle until it goes out of 
view. 

I hope I may see you before long as I have applied 
for leave, going to England by way of Havre, stopping 
a day in Etretat if I can arrange it 0. K. I'd much like 
to see these poor unlucky devils who had to stay around 
the Base while we were having the only real sport in 
the war — at the front. You and I certainly had it on 
the rest of the crowd. I applied for leave yesterday, 
and if it goes through all right I expect to be in Etretat 
in a couple of days. I surely hope so. My very best 
to you. 

Yours, 

Syd. Morgan. 

Letter from Padre Gill written to the author on 
April 4, 1918. 

2nd Irish Rifles. 
My Dear Doctor, 

Many thanks for your letter. I am sorry to say we 
have had a bad knock. We were in it, as you may 

1 This was written two days before the spring offensive on 
March 21st, 1918. 



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suppose. Dobbin, Lynch and McFarren got killed on 
the first day. Keating was wounded the third day and 
about the same day the Battalion was completely cut 
off, holding Cugny "at all costs." Thompson, Moore 
and Marriott Watson were with them — so that we are 
in doubt as to their fate. Major Rose was badly 
wounded the first day but he is pulling through all right. 
Beyond a mouthful of gas and a rather narrow shave 
of being with the Battalion when they were surrounded, 
I got through the ten days' retirement all right; but it 
was very fatiguing and even now I feel pretty tired. 
The whole thing was very sad. The Battalion did 
splendidly and fought to the end. Gibson, your 
predecessor, and a section of a field ambulance were 
taken prisoners. We are again up to strength as far as 
members go, but of course it is all different. I expect 
we shall soon have some of your men near us. Thank 
you again for your kind note. The old 2nd, I am glad 
to say, has many friends. We often speak of you, and 
I hope we shall come across each other again. May 
God bless you and yours. 

Yours very sincerely, 
H. V. Gill, Catholic Chaplain 
att. 2nd Irish Rifles, France. 



THE END 



[291] 



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