Class Book CopyrightN^. COPyRIGHT DEPOSnV THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK ■ BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO The Aftermath of Battle WITH THE RED CROSS IN FRANCE BY EDWARD D. TOLAND WITH A PREFACE BY OWEN WISTER N^m f ark THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1916 AU rights reserved -J.^ ^^v-^ Copyright, 1916, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped Published February, 1916. Nariwoob l^vtiz : Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. # /? FEB 3 1916 PREFACE MOST of these pages following are, like the photographs which go with them, torn fresh and hot, so to speak, from the diary of a young American, just as he jotted them down day by day in the war- hospitals of France. In those hospitals, from September, 1914, into February, 1915, with other young volunteers, many of them Americans also, he served the wounded Germans and Allies. He carried them upstairs and down, or in from the rain, he assisted at operations, he held basins, he gave chloroform, he built the kitchen fire, he pumped the water, he was chauffeur, forager, commissariat, he helped in what ways he could, as he was ordered, vi PREFACE and also as his own intelligence prompted in the not infrequent absence of orders. He saw the wounded die, he saw them get well, and he tells about them, their suffer- ing, their courage, their patience. He records one day, among other incidents, that "when we got to the Hospital we cut the clothes off most of the men and I tied them up for storage. While I was doing this for one of the Scots (of the Black Watch) who had a bullet through his chest ... he said, 'Will ye let me have a look at those kilts .^' I gave him the kilts and continued tying up his clothes. When I looked up he was folding them with his one arm, as carefully as a woman tucking her baby to sleep; 'see that they're not mussed, will ye?' he said. . . ." In the doings caught alive and set down here, a glimpse of war as it is, is given us: PREFACE vii aeroplanes sail by, shells explode and tear the earth, loaded trains arrive smelling of dead flesh; while, round the wounded and the walls which shelter them, life goes on with its birthdays and Christmas dinners, its diplomats, magnates, spectators passing on and off the scene along with doctors, surgeons, and trained nurses. From this short authentic document a long string of morals and conclusions is to be . drawn, and these, saving two remarks only, shall be left to the reflecting reader. First. After the brief introduction of the diary, wherein the writer narrates his voyage in the steerage to Liverpool, one is plunged instantly into the French chaos. As page succeeds page, written without art, yet with the efl'ect of high art, with the effect (for example) of De Foe's ac- count of the Plague, the reader ceases to viii PREFACE be looking at a picture, he is himself in the picture, its terrific realities surround him as if he were walking among them. Many such pages, most of them still un- published, have come from soldiers and other participants in the Great Convulsion. It is one of the several marked phenom- ena of the Great Convulsion that it causes people who are not trained writers to pro- duce pages which have the quality of the very greatest literature — of Shakespeare, of the Greek Tragedies, of the Old Testa- ment. I have seen some fifty letters from an American boy in the trenches to his parents. Lately I heard read three letters equally intimate: one from a French officer, telling how he led his men at night in an assault on the German trenches; one from a young Englishman telling how in his aeroplane he chased a Zeppelin through PREFACE IX the fog by night out over the North Sea; and one from an American lady telling how she went through and came out of the sinking of the Lusitania. Not one of these people was a writer: I have seen nothing whatever by any professional writer on the war that so touches the heights and the depths of emotion as did these private letters through their elemental, spontaneous simplicity. They seemed written not so much by men and women as by nature. This is one of the things which the Great Convulsion does to the human soul; if any human soul comes out of it, lives after it unchanged for the better — even those who walk American streets in safety here, they will have missed the greatest spiritual op- portunity that will ever meet them in this world. Second. Throughout the pages of this X PREFACE diary occur the names of Americans who have wholly or in part dedicated them- selves to serving their fellow man in the Great Convulsion. Whichever of them win renown, all who serve faithfully win the spurs of moral knighthood. These spurs they wear along with Dr. Strong and those colleagues of his who rid Servia of pesti- lence, or Mr. Hoover who has been a sort of godfather to Belgium, and with many more. And this host — for a host it is — of Americans thus dedicated to service in the Great Convulsion, helps to remove the stain which was cast over all Americans when we were invited to be neutral in our opinions while Democracy in Europe was being strangled to death. Owen Wister. CONTENTS PART PAGE I. Across in the Steerage 3 II. Majestic Hotel Hospital, Paris, September, 1914 19 III. Harjes Ambulance Corps at Ricque- BOURG 89 IV. Harjes Ambulance Corps at Mont- didier 131 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The Aftermath of Battle Frontispiece Facing page Very septic head case 26 Wounded Cameron Highlander 34 Another wounded Highlander 38 Turco with bullet in his chest 48 Dressing an abdominal case 62 Operating staff, Majestic Hotel Hospital. ... 70 Our first convalescents at the Majestic 78 Our chateau at Ricquebourg 94 Dressing wounded Senegalis 108 En route to Montdidier 132 The author 140 Refugees from Lassigny 146 Members of the French Cabinet visiting us . . 154 A lesson in knitting 160 Lieut. Bufquin on the road to recovery 162 zui THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE PART I THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE ACROSS IN THE STEERAGE WHEN the war commenced and the banking business shut down tem- porarily, I found myself with nothing to do. In a short time I made up my mind to go to Paris; my idea being simply to see the excitement and the French people in war-time. The prospect of an indeterminate holiday appealed to me strongly, as four years of engineering, and two years in the banking business, had given me but little time to myself, since leaving Princeton in 1908. I decided to cross in the steerage. The 4 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE idea came from Bishop Brent of the Philip- pine Islands, who a year previously had given me a description of a trip he took in the steerage. Accommodations were quickly arranged for, and with most of Philadelphia's visible supply of French gold strapped to my legs, and wearing my City Troop shoes and khaki shirt, I boarded the steerage of the S. S. Laconia in New York, August 19th, 1914. A brief description of the steerage may be of interest. My cabin had 6 bunks in it, 3 lowers and 3 uppers. The ceiling was 6}/^ feet high and the room measured about 9' X 7'. There were 6 life preservers, one under each pillow, 6 hooks on the wall, 6 towels, 6 straw mattresses and pillows, 6 rough blankets and that was absolutely all. This describes the average steerage cabin ACROSS IN THE STEERAGE s pretty well. They are put wherever space will allow, and hold from 2 passengers up to 20 or so. The dining-room contained long narrow tables, bolted to the floor, covered with oil-cloth and each seating from 6 to lo on a side. The meal hours were as follows: Breakfast 6 a. M. Dinner Noon Supper 5 P- M- All the inside deck of the steerage, includ- ing the dining-room, halls and cabins, is made of some composition that is water- proof and is drained so that it can be cleaned up by merely turning on the fire hose. Everything was kept quite clean throughout the entire trip. There were about six hundred passengers in the steerage, many of whom were going back to join the British Army or Navy. 6 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE We were met at Sandy Hook by a British war-ship, the Essex, which escorted us until dark. All outside lights on our ship were hidden, so each night on deck was passed in total darkness. The second day out the stacks and forward part of the boat were painted to resemble those of a Scandinavian vessel. I asked some of the stewards about previous voyages. One of them said, "You're lucky that you are not coming in from the Mediterranean with 2,200 of them Wops in the steerage! Dirty! It's perfectly sickening! Put down a dish of bread in front of them and they will all fight for it! One fellow he'll grab nearly all! Thinks it all they are going to get that day." I laughed and said I supposed it was pretty bad. "Yes," he said. "Why, they don't know ACROSS IN THE STEERAGE 7 what preserves are. They put the bloom- ing marmalade in their tea! We used to give them pepper and salt to put on their prunes. It did not make no difference, though, they'd mug it all." August 22nd: Very cold this morning and a strong breeze blowing. Fifty per cent of the steer- age are sea-sick. I am wearing my heaviest winter clothes. We are sailing far out of the usual course. Every night the sun has gone down at right angles to our port beam, so we are heading nearly due north. My fellow passengers seem to get sick very easily. The stewards tell me that when they have a boat load of Italians, Poles, etc., some of them will lie on the hatches for three days at a time without moving. 8 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE Calmer this evening and we had a little impromptu musicale conducted by Tom, the Irishman who plays the fiddle. He worked on the streets laying pavement in New York City, and has a nice face and a huge mustache. The fingers of his hands are so thick and calloused I don't see how he can play a fiddle, but he does. Some evenings we have a pretty fair chorus, consisting mostly of the stewards, who know all the Music Hall favorites, and the instrumental accompaniment is augmented by an accordion and a pair of bones. A young girl is on her way back to Eng- land. She has been earning her living by cooking. She said, "This is the way I look at it. You earn twice as much in America and your expenses are twice as much, but your savings are twice as much, too. I ACROSS IN THE STEERAGE 9 could never have supported my mother and little sister by doing that kind of work in England." I ask everybody innumerable questions. There is a great variety on the boat and it is tremendously interesting to observe the people. Instincts are at their nakedest in this class; there are no studied poses. We have one type which is found every- where; the tough athletic hero of a co- educational high school in the middle west. I met him in the lavatory, before breakfast, about the third day out, when it was quite crowded. "Hullo," he said, in a deep loud voice, "why, I haven't seen you before!" "Well," I replied, "I do not think I have seen you either." "Why," he said a little non-plussed, "I've been making more noise and kicking lo THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE up more rumpus than anyone else down here!" How many people there are, who want just this very thing thought of them, but how few would frankly admit it. Of course, I had both seen and heard him, but I couldn't let such an opening go by. "Really," I replied, *'I never no- ticed you at all." Still freezing cold. No one will say where we are, but we must be somewhere near Greenland. We are going in by the North of Ireland and will be escorted to Liverpool by some war-ships. Approaching Liverpool we went at a snail's pace and simply crawled into the harbor. They said that it was newly mined and that we could not use our screws without danger. The tipping system on the steerage is ACROSS IN THE STEERAGE ii simple. A soup plate is passed around the table at the last meal. The average con- tribution at my table was one shilling per capita. My trip from New York to Liver- pool accordingly stands me $35.25. General confusion and excitement in land- ing and getting through the customs. For people who know nothing whatever about travelling, it is amazing how well they man- age to make out. I spent the night in Liverpool and on taking a walk before going to bed, met Alec, the Scot, from Edmonton, and a half dozen of his chums, in the station. They were taking the 1.15 A. M. express North and suggested investigating some of the Ale Houses in the vicinity. Alec is a nice looking, big, powerful fellow, rather retiring and quiet. He is to join the Gordon Highlanders. I thought I noticed a sparkle 12 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE in his eye when I first met him, and as we walked down the street arm in arm, that he seemed more loquacious than usual. He soon said, "I do na talk much except when I take a dram. You must excuse me, mate." I slapped him on the back and told him to talk all he wanted. We sat down at a table in a small tavern where Alec had another dram and then made a speech to the company in general, about how he had been switched around Chicago by the railway and steamship agents; swindled by Jew money changers and clothing venders; stuck by the hotels; misunderstood on account of his accent, and in general played for a sucker. His descriptions were so funny; were given in such a loud voice and with such unique phraseology and Scotch accent, that he ACROSS IN THE STEERAGE 13 soon had nearly the entire tavern in hys- terics. I wish I could repeat it all. It was as good as anything Harry Lauder ever turned out. From there we went to a dingy sort of family place to get something to eat. There were a dozen stodgy Liverpool husbands and wives sitting about and Alec again took the floor, giving a second series which was just as funny as the first. There we stayed until nearly train time when Alec ordered the boy to "bring me a bottle of the best Scotch whiskey yeVe got." This I managed to have side-tracked, or Alec would never have got to Glasgow that night. So went the evening and I have seldom spent a better one. As we left the tavern Alec and Duncan drew me aside. I had paid the check at the last place (about three shillings). They looked very serious. 14 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE "YeVe been too generous, let's divide it up," said Duncan. "Yes, mate," said Alec, "it's uncommon good of ye, but we both know ye've been put to an awful ex- pense! II The time for parting was near at hand, and at i A. M. we stood together in the street for the last time, our arms around each other's shoulders, and sang "Just a Wee Doech and Dorris before We Gang Awa." Then we separated, never to meet again. Upon arriving in London I was informed that it was impossible to cross the Channel, as all the boats had been requisitioned for the transport of troops. I was, therefore, obliged to wait until September I2th, when the first passenger boat left for Havre. After spending 14 hours on the train be- tween Havre and Paris, I arrived there at ACROSS IN THE STEERAGE 15 seven in the morning, feeling somewhat used up, and went immediately to the Cooper-Hewitt Hospital, 21 Avenue de Bois de Boulogne. The battle of the Marne had just ended some thirty miles from Paris and the troops were fighting along the Aisne, a little further east. PART II ^ - p^L , Jv. "^ Ok ^ ^' U{ "^ Self-styled journalist " is freed to go to Paris after having bicycled across the lines. MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS September, IQ14: PARIS was deserted. Nearly all the stores were closed and the windows boarded up. When I turned into the Avenue de rOpera it was empty — one cart between the Opera and the Louvre, and not a soul on the sidewalks. Mrs. F., the Superintendent of the Hos- pital, had just returned from Montereau, an assembly point for wounded, and said that the conditions were something frightful. Hundreds of wounded men were lying on filthy straw, most of them not having had their wounds looked at for several days, almost all the wounds septic beyond de- scription, dysentery, gangrene and tetanus 19 20 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE prevalent throughout; no bandages, gauze, anaesthetics or capable surgeons and one nurse to about every fifty men. She said they had been looking at compound frac- tures with nothing but a candle. Tells me that the French officials in Paris do not seem to want wounded men brought in here, although there are some six hundred beds now prepared with first-class equip- ment and staff all ready and waiting for them; the reason being either that they are afraid the possibility of a siege is not over, or else that they are afraid the moral effect on the French public will be bad. The little hospital of fifty beds of which Mrs. F. is in charge, is beautifully equipped but as yet has no wounded. She says the only way to get them is to go out, collect them and bring them in yourself. A great many wounded have already been brought MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 21 into Paris in this way. If you wait for official permission, the French red tape is so abominable that you can never get anywhere. She was on her way to the Majestic Hotel Hospital on the Ave. Kleber near the Arc de Triomphe, and I walked over with her to see it. They had twelve patients, their first lot, who had been brought in from Monte- reau the night before. Just as we arrived, a half dozen more came in an ambulance and I helped carry them in. As soon as this was done, I was detailed to hold a delirious Prus- sian officer who had a bad head wound. He was just coming out of the anaesthetic and had to have someone beside him to keep him still; they had recently removed some three ounces of rotten brains. The patient in the bed on the other side, who had just been brought in, and who was not yet 22 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE undressed and washed, was wounded in the leg and, like the majority, was reeking with dysentery and septic pus. The Prus- sian officer was groaning terribly and roll- ing his eyes so that I could only see the whites of them. I am not accustomed to this sort of thing and in five minutes I was groggy and the first thing I knew, I had fainted. When I had got my head clear, I took a walk for a few minutes in the air, had a drink of brandy and then came back. A nurse showed me how to keep from fainting, by putting my head down between my knees and holding it there until the blood comes back; this I did at intervals throughout the day. Three of our men have wounds in the head and why any of them are still alive, is more than I can understand. One Ger- man soldier has been shot through the top MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 23 and back of the head, the bullet coming out underneath the right eye, destroying its sight. All that side of his face is chocolate colored. I should not think he could live through the night. A Frenchman has a sabre cut across the top of his head, which has gone into the skull three inches. He is very restless but quite conscious. I left the hospital at seven o'clock in the evening to go home and get some sleep, as I had been up in the car all night, after having been told that if I came there the next morning, there would be plenty for me to do. The Metro was not running, so I walked from the Etoille to the Opera, where I lived. There was hardly a soul in the streets; hardly a light visible. The Place de la Concorde was as dark and still as a country churchyard, save for one huge search light on the top of the Hotel de 24 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE Crillon, which swept the sky for German aeroplanes. A rather sharp contrast to the Paris of last year. Tuesday^ September 75; Arrived at the hospital where I met Mrs. F., who said she had been called to Limoges to report on conditions there. The Frenchman who had the sabre cut in his head had died about fifteen minutes before I came in. The hospital is in charge of Dr. G., an Englishman, with three operat- ing surgeons and an X-Ray specialist and a medical man; all the nurses are English or Canadian and about half of them speak French. A couple speak German. There has been no attempt at organization as yet. Nobody has had any particular job as- signed to him, no one knows what he or she is to do, and there is general confusion MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 25 and disorder. The patients' dinner was very badly managed, with the head nurse running around looking after detail, instead of superintending the job. A French officer was brought in, in a private motor, by some friends about supper time. He had a flesh wound in his arm from a piece of shell, which he only got this noon. After the wound was dressed he took supper with us and was very interesting in talking about the day's fight. Said that the German cannon could be used at such range that the French could not return their fire. He had been wounded from a gun 11 kilometers away. I shall stay here as an orderly for the time being at least; help is needed badly and there is more work than we can at- tempt to do. 26 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE Wednesday, September i6: Five more Frenchmen brought in. All of- ficers and all but one quite badly wounded. The German who was shot through the back of the head has recovered in the most wonderful way. When we brought him his lunch to-day he hoisted himself up, swung his legs over the bed and said he could eat it himself. He is incidentally shot through the shoulder, too, and his right arm broken. The delirious Prussian officer with whom I had my introduction to the job, looks pretty bad. He has been continuously out of his head and has not eaten anything for three days. Hospital still in confusion. This place must be run so everyone knows what he is supposed to do and when he is to do it. The work in the wards is exceptionally hard. Nearly all the patients have dysen- be n o S ^ O 1) 2Si si 1-1 > OJ O o MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 27 tery and the wounds are all fearfully septic and require dressing two and three times a day. One Frenchman was shot through the chest and while he was on the ground a German bayonetted him in the stomach twice, someone else kicked him in the face and then he was walked over, and lay on the ground for two days before he was picked up. Both stomach wounds are dis- charging fecal matter freely. The French- man in the bed next to him has two broken legs and crawled around in a wood for five days before he was found. We have given him eleven litres of saline solution, but he is still nothing but skin and bones and his wounds are so septic that I do not see how he can live. This will give an idea of what the cases are like. To-night after supper, we got word that 28 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE a train of British wounded would pass through Villeneuve St. Georges sometime in the early morning where they would stop for breakfast. W., one of the surgeons, a very capable French nurse, and I, de- cided that we get there some way and see if we could take off some of the more seri- ously wounded. If we can get some of these men to the hospital, we can probably save several limbs, if not lives, as all these wounds are septic and by the time the men had got to the base it is probable they would be too far gone for hope of recovery. The thing that is most needed, is to get the men off the field and to a place where they can have some sort of attention. We were told that it was absolutely im- possible to get out of Paris in an auto- mobile, and, therefore, went to the railway MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 29 station where a train was leaving for Ville- neuve at midnight. It was then ten o'clock and the train was standing there with almost every seat taken. We decided that we would motor to the gates at any rate and see whether we could get through. We went to the gates where the little French nurse used her smile and supply of rapid French in such a way that in two minutes she had the guard hypnotized, and to our amazement we had been given permission to go through. Once through, away we went for Villeneuve, which was only eight miles outside. This ride was an exciting one. We were challenged by sentries, who halted us and pointed their bayonets at the radiator of the car. The chauffeur did not know the way; had no light; and was thoroughly scared. Each time we were challenged, he 30 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE stopped the car so quickly that we nearly went through the wind shield; but by use of Madame's smile and the papers we had been given by the guard, we were passed immediately on each occasion. Arriving at Villeneuve, we went to a large warehouse full of German prisoners and less seriously wounded on all sides. Sentries were posted and camp fires burning. We were told that the train was not expected until about six in the morning. It was then only about half past eleven at night, so the three of us climbed into a day coach that was on a siding and went to sleep. The commanding medical officer here, a Captain McKinnon, was very decent and said he would let us go through the whole train when they stopped to get breakfast. We managed to get some sleep and at half past five the train was an- MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 31 nounced. There Is no doubt about it — the English know how to run things. Every particular about the arrival of that train, what everyone should do, how the breakfast should be served, had been all thought out and everything went through without a hitch. Englishmen understand the value of discipline. The train consisted of about twenty box cars, in each one of which were some twenty- five or thirty men packed together upon the floor, lying on straw. About fifteen of the cars contained Scotchmen in their kilts. I had never seen such nerve as these fellows had. Not one of them would admit that there was anything the matter; they all insisted that they were all perfectly right and needed no attention at all and asked us to go on to the next cars "to see to the other lads." We got into each of 32 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE the cars, examining the men and found a dozen that were very seriously wounded. One fellow, a piper from the famous Black Watch Regiment, had his right arm nearly severed at the shoulder; all the skin and muscle on the back of the shoulder blade was hanging loose. Upon operating on him later, we removed the entire secondary head of a shrapnel from under the skin beside his backbone. It was about the size and shape of the cork of an orange marmalade jar. "Fm not much hurt," he said in the car, "I can go to the Base all right, thank 'e." Poor fellow! He is dead now. Tetanus set in in twenty-four hours after we got him. Those stony, taciturn Scots certainly have real courage. "Nothing the matter with us!" Yes, noth- ing the matter until they are dead the next day. This man carried his pipes right MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 33 into the hospital with a firm step and his head up. His name was Reed. I helped another wounded Scot from the Black Watch, from the car to the ware- house. "Ah, my lad," he said, "I've seen enough of war, and if ye'd seen the sights I saw Monday, ye'd be sick, too! A shell bursts be the side o' three o' your chums and after it's burst, there's not shell, nor man, nor nothing. All of them blown to rags! Don't tell me that the Germans can't shoot with their big guns, either! They can drop shells, one, two, three, four, just like that, right down our lines. There's not three hundred of the Black Watch left and Camerons is about the same." Little Madame is a genius for putting things through with French officials. She got hold of the station master and in about five minutes had hypnotized him into giv- 34 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE ing us a car and having it put on the train which left for Paris at 8.30 A. M. We got all of our wounded, twenty-two in all, into it; and got to Paris at 10 A. M. Went to the hospital in a horrible old rattle-trap of an omnibus and another big cart, which caused all the men much unnecessary pain. There are a good many motors which could be put at the disposal of hospitals, but it is quite hard to get hold of them. Mrs. F. tells me that nearly all the people of means who should be doing things here have acted in the most cowardly and selfish way. They promise machines, houses and money and then take their machines out in the country with them, promising to return them the next day. Not a machine comes back. Most of the people who had been counted upon, have gradually petered out and run away. MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 35 When we got to the hospital we cut the clothes off most of the men and I tied them up for storage. While I was doing this for one of the Scots, who had a bullet through his chest, another Black Watch man, by the way, he said, "Will ye let me have a look at those kilts?" I gave him the kilts and continued tying up his clothes. I thought he wanted to get something out of a pocket (although there are no pockets in kilts). When I looked up, he was folding them up with his one arm, as carefully as a woman tucking her baby in to sleep. "See that they're not mussed, will ye?" he said, as he handed them back to me. On this particular man, JoU, one of our surgeons, did a nice job. The bullet wound of entrance was under his left arm and there was no wound of exit. Joll passed his hand over his back and in a minute 36 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE located the bullet on the other side of his body, quite close underneath the skin. I could feel or see absolutely nothing. This he cut out without removing the patient from his bed or giving him an anaesthetic. We are short of men this afternoon and there are a great many operations neces- sary. I am to help in the operating room all afternoon and probably most of the night. We started in at two in the after- noon. The first operation was amputating the French captain's leg below the knee. The foot was entirely black and there was no chance to save it. This operation was the first major operation I have ever seen and by some chance, proved to be a most un- usual one. When he had cut the leg off, tied up the arteries and loosened the tourniquet, the blood from one artery still kept pump- ing out. Upon investigation, it developed MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 37 that a splinter of the bullet which passed through his leg had gone up and cut this artery about two inches above the place where he had amputated, and it was a question of taking the leg off above the knee, or getting up in some way and tying that artery. This JoU did after twenty minutes' work. Of course, I know nothing about surgery, but I do know that that man understands his business. It was one of the most interesting hours I ever spent in my life. I did not have the slightest feeling of faintness. The work in the ward has cured me of anything like that. No. I in Ward i is dead at last. The poor fellow had two mitrailleuse bullets through his head, and how he managed to keep alive for four days since we have had him, is incredible. He was so nice 38 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE while he was still conscious and kept apolo- gizing to lis for the trouble he gave. The next two operations were on Scots from the Cameron Highlanders. Both of them had terrible elbows, although not so septic as usual. One man had lost all the flesh on one side and the other had his elbow-joint and forearm splintered and broken in several places. The bullet which struck this last man had broken into sev- eral pieces and had torn the arm all to bits. This fellow is about as perfect an animal as I have ever seen. He said he was the champion sprinter of his Regiment. Beauti- fully made and beautifully muscled. Poor fellow, he is a cripple for life now. To-night we brought in a Frenchman who had a severe gunshot wound in the back of his head. He was quite delirious. In some way the bullet has stimulated the MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 39 part of his brain that he used when he was a child of about five. He seems to have forgotten everything else. He shouts, laughs and hurrahs and sings little nursery songs which he must have learned when he was a child. It is pathetic, but he is in such a splendid humor it is hard to keep from laughing yourself; he is a big hand- some fellow about 23 years old, evidently a man of good birth, although a private. We operated on him at one o'clock this morning, trephining the skull. Joll got about a teaspoonful of splintered bone out of his brain, which had been driven down from one to two inches, but said it was too dangerous to try to remove the bullet, although he located it with his telephone probe. How he can go digging around in the brain the way he does without killing the patients, seems marvellous. He says 40 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE there is not much chance for this man recovering his senses, and that he will prob- ably be a permanent imbecile. Friday, September i8: The hospital is entirely full now, and we want a place to put about six con- valescents so that we can make room for others. Two surgeons and six nurses of our staff arrived this morning from Mon- tereau, from where they have come bring- ing a barge load of wounded up the Seine. All these men are badly wounded, but comparatively few have dysentery, which is a relief. We operated on them nearly all day. Most of them are English and Scotch and have wonderful nerve. The men are all pretty well played out and under weight. It takes hardly any chloroform to produce anaesthesia. Many of them shout about i^M^^=^ X o S' OjS o *-' c o ., s M ti o ■=! rt 4_. PS w O 3 o S <" 3 >> > c_ii :Hj=-f= o l> o ^ S ^ -T3 Q. C CO (U • — i-i -§§ c c o J c £ 3 Vfc, tii Q O rt M aO -O 1- ^ 3 MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 41 the battle as they are going under. All of these men have been in action almost every day since the beginning of August. One old French captain kept shouting, "Allons, mes enfants, tous ensemble, en avant; en avant; en avan 1. A h!" One of the Scots told me that when the men deployed and lay down and they gave the order to commence firing, five minutes afterwards, you would only see about one man out of six firing, all the rest would be fast asleep. Three English officers were brought in to-night. Two of them are boys of twenty- two and twenty-three and have nothing at all the matter with them excepting that they are tired out. One was diagnosed as typhoid. One of them came in lying on a stretcher beside a Tommy. I got into the ambulance and started to take them out. 42 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE The Tommy said, "Get the Orficer out first, sir." The "Orficer" took this as a matter of course and allowed himself to be removed. I supposed that he was badly wounded. There was nothing the matter with him at all except that he wanted a rest. The first thing he said was, "Cawn't I have a bawth?" I was furious! I said, "I think we will attend to the wounded men before we give you any *bawths."' He then said, "I say, don't I know you?" "No," I answered, "I'm quite sure you don't" and turned my back on him. The Tommy who had asked me to take his superior officer out of the ambulance first, had his leg amputated at the knee that afternoon, got tetanus and died four days afterward. I want to say right here that these two MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 43 fellows are in a class by themselves as far as English officers are concerned. As a whole, they are the finest lot of men I have ever seen. An English boy upon whom we operated to-night, was hit on the right side of the jaw. The entire side of his jaw is gone. You could put an orange into his mouth through the cheek. What is left is horribly swollen and dripping yellow septic pus. I said, "That fellow really cannot live, can he?" But Joll said, "Oh, yes, there is no reason why he should die, if we can keep him from getting poisoned." The bottom part of his tongue is gone, so that he can- not speak articulately and if he holds his head back, his tongue falls backward in his mouth and chokes him. He has to lie face downward and of course cannot take anything but liquid food. When he feels 44 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE like eating anything, he raps on the table with his feeder and we go to his bed, put a basin in front of him and a rubber cloth around his neck; then he pushes a rubber tube down his throat and we pour in beef tea, or milk, through a funnel. About every other swallow, it goes down the wrong way and he strangles for two minutes; then nods his head as if to say "all ready again." In the course of three-quarters of an hour feeding in this way, which must be exceed- ingly painful, he can get down about one feeder full of beef tea or milk, half of an ordinary glassful. I said, "My gracious! you've got more nerve than anyone I've ever seen." He made a quick motion with his hand, like an umpire waving away players at a baseball game, frowned at me and gurgled, "I'm all right." MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 45 On for the night to-night, although I have been on all day and got to bed last night at one o'clock, after having been up for two days and a night in succession. Took a walk with G. first. By the way, G. and N. are both professional singers. They have never done this sort of work before and are perfect trumps. The scenes that we experience in the wards daily are not exactly designed for artistic tempera- ments. N. nearly cries at some of the things he has to do, but he sticks right to it and finishes them out like a good one. My first night in Ward 2 was pretty bad. Nearly all of the men had been operated on either that day or the day be- fore, and their wounds were commencing to pain them fearfully. The Scotch piper who had the piece of shrapnel taken out of his back was in terrible agony. He is get- 46 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE ting a stiff neck and spells of breathlessness, which means lockjaw, and the poor fellow will be out of his pain before very long. I tried to comfort him and told him what we had got out of his back. "Thank God for that," he said, "it makes me feel easier," but the convulsions became more frequent and terrible and he died in agony at seven in the morning. We moved the officers into another ward, which was quite an undertaking, as most of them were badly wounded and two weighed over 200 pounds. More wounded coming in and operations as fast as we can do them. There has been terrific fighting along the Marne and the Aisne, all of this week. Williams is splen- did with his X-Rays. Nearly all the pa- tients are photographed before operating upon them. Williams has located a great MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 47 many bullets, pieces of shell, overcoat, etc., and makes first rate pictures of fractures. These, he develops in about three minutes and brings into the operating room so that J. and S. can see them before the patient is thoroughly" under anaesthesia. G. left for London this morning and before leaving drew up a very rough or- ganization chart, which assigns me as an attache of the operating room. This is splendid. I have been practically doing the work of surgeon's assistant there for the past 48 hours. Saturday^ September ig: Went to bed at ten in the morning and slept for three hours. Came back to the hospital at two in the afternoon, where we operated continuously until two in the morning. Four head cases, four fractured 48 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE femurs, three arms and a number of minor operations. Sunday, September 20: Slept until noon. Had some lunch at two and went out and walked in the Bois for an hour. It was the first fresh air I have had for some time. Had supper with F., who wanted to talk over the pros- pect of going to some of the field hospitals, which it is proposed to establish close to the line of battle. It has been my wish to do this sort of work, and I feel I could be of far more use out there, than in a hos- pital. If the men could only receive some sort of attention on the field, it would be a very different story when they are finally got to the hospital. Out of twenty-five patients in Ward I, fully half of them lay on the battlefield for three days with- MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 49 out food or water, before they were picked up. Some of them four and five days. Monday^ September 21: When I arrived at the hospital this morning I was informed that they had de- cided to put G. and myself on night duty for the coming week. This is something of a disappointment, but I shall be back again in the operating room at the end of that time. There were four deaths on Sunday. The Prussian with whom I had my introduction to the job; the man with the awful leg in Ward I, and two others whom we had just taken in and who were about dead when they arrived. One of them died a few hours after having his leg amputated at the hip. There really was not much use in doing it; the leg was so rotten that so THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE you could nearly have pulled it off with your hands; besides that, the poor fellow had fearful dysentery and had become so reduced that he looked like pictures of people In India who have died from famine. After lunch, went down town with Mrs. F. In her car, where we inspected the Ritz Hotel, which has been turned into a hospital. There are sixty-four beds there, splendid equipment; about twenty-five nurses, everything that could be wished, and no patients. The reason is, that the French doctors in charge will not move without authority from the officials of the Bureau de Sante. We told them that they would never get any patients if they waited for authority from them. Mrs. F. has been making a list of available beds now waiting for patients in Paris, and says she is sure there are over nine hundred, yet the French MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 51 red tape and petty officialism is so abomi- nable that nothing is done, and wounded men are lying at the gates of Paris amid conditions that can hardly be described. At Limoges — in the center of France — two weeks ago, there were over nine thousand wounded, and accommodations for about half that number; there was absolutely no provision for their care at all, and they are dying like flies in the autumn.* The French management of wounded trains is so shocking that it can hardly be spoken of. Men are crowded into box cars where they lie about on the floor, dead and living together, for three or four days, in filth that is beyond description. All the men have dysentery, * It must be remembered that this was at the very beginning of the war. They had no time in which to organize themselves or make any preparation for handling the wounded. All their efforts had been di- rected toward saving Paris. 52 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE all the wounds are septic and, of course, they cannot remove any part of their clothes which have been on their bodies for weeks. We have spoken to the Bureau de Sante but they say, "We must consider this one of the horrors of war." JoU said that in one place the wounded were in such numbers that the French surgeons merely amputated above the wound in every case where careful dressing would be required. W., who went out to Villeneuve with us, came in from another expedition for wounded to-night; they had been out along the Marne River in our ambulance with its white body and Red Cross painted on the sides. As they were passing a wood about one hundred meters from the road, twenty or thirty Germans sprang out of it and opened fire upon them with their MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 53 carbines. This is the first time I have really had first hand information of Ger- mans firing upon Red Cross ambulances. They put six holes through the cover of the car, but fortunately did not hit any- body in it. There are considerable numbers of Germans who have become lost during this rapidly moving line of fighting and are prowling about the country, hiding during the daytime and ready to take any means of rejoining their companions. It is not an uncommon occurrence in the suburbs of Paris these days, to find a stranded German soldier in the early morn- ing, trying to rob your chicken roost. German atrocities have been, of course, much overdrawn, but there is no doubt that many of the stories are true. A Belgian who had been in the Home Guard of Brussels and who had fought at Louvain, 54 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE told me that he had seen Germans kill wounded men on the ground by smashing them on the head with the butts of their carbines. I said: "Did you actually see them with your own eyes?" "Oui, Mon- sieur, pas une fois, mais douze foisl" he replied. Other French soldiers have told me, however, that while they lay wounded on the ground, the Germans stopped and gave them water to drink out of their own canteens. As Mr. Burke says, "You cannot draw an indictment against a whole nation." Tuesday, September 22: A busy night to-night. There were three head operations. We got the bullets out of two. We brought in a new wounded man to-day, who has two fingers of his right hand gone and a very septic wound. He is MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 55 a fine looking fellow, a private in the Cold- stream Guards, and the first man I have seen yet, either officer or private, who has talked coherently about the tactics of the fighting. He knew what his regiment and the other regiments with his, were trying to do in most of the actions they were en- gaged in, naming nearly all of them. He was very interesting and had been in action almost every day for four weeks. Said they had only been landed in Ostend for fifteen minutes, when they had their first skirmish with a German patrol which ran into them without knowing they were there. Said that at Mons the slaughter of the Germans had been terrific; that he had seen men shooting from behind piles of dead Germans three feet high. Said that a good deal of the work had been hand-to-hand mix-ups. Said that about 56 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE August 1 2th they had nearly the entire right wing of the German army surrounded, and that if the Germans had not broken through the Belgian left, they would have captured or killed all of them. As it was, the Germans lost about twenty-five thou- sand. They then asked for an armistice for twenty-four hours to bury their dead, but this armistice was not granted, as the real purpose of asking was to give them time to reorganize themselves. Said that the Germans fired on Red Cross organiza- tions consistently, that the first time they had sent out a detachment of the R. A. M. C. in the daytime near Mons, the Germans almost annihilated them. Out of two hundred and fifty that went out, only about ninety returned. Since then all this work has been done at night. One of the first wounded we got in MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 57 from the Marne, is a little aesthetic looking Frenchman, whom we call "Peeping Tom" because he is always peeping like a little chicken. I don't blame him, for he has a nasty septic wound on the thigh and frac- tured femur, but he is a nuisance and is always asking for this, that or the other thing, whether he needs it or not. The Sisters had him in a private room at Mon- tereau and he was well spoiled by them. He is only about twenty-two. A couple of days ago he was making an unusual amount of racket about the "jambe," and I went over and asked him what was the matter. "Oh, ca fait mal; ce n'est pas bien place," he moaned. I raised the knee slightly as he directed me to, and when he said that it was easier, I put a china soap cup which was lying 58 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE on the table beside the bed, underneath it to keep it in that position. "Oh, la, la; Oh, Docteurl" he shouted. "What's the matter? Is it hurting you worse?" said I. "No," he replied. "Well, what's the matter then?" I asked. He clasped his hands in front of him, holding them out toward me with a look of supplication. "Oh, mais c'est si froid!" he wailed. "You shut up!" said I, laughing, and he had to even smile himself. Got to bed at ten in the morning and slept until one. Back again at two in the afternoon for another week of day duty. Thursday, September 24: We need some system here badly. The nurses may be very good technical nurses, MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 59 but not one of them knows the first thing about organization or management. After half a dozen lunches where everything was in confusion — three people doing one job and no people doing two jobs, — I thought it was about time to outline the work a bit myself. So I drew up an organization chart assigning everybody definite duties. The head nurse said she hadn't any objections to my trying it, so we put it into operation. The meals, at least, will run smoothly now, although the difficulty about running a place like this is that it is not on a hiring and firing basis, like other business or- ganizations. If you have inefficient help you have to keep them, and do the best you can. A boy was brought in here this morning with a hand and arm like nothing I have ever seen before. He already shows the 6o THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE first symptoms of tetanus. We have kept the arm in a bath and given him the maximum amount of tetanus serum. His hand is a slimy green thing, the size of a mop, with the poor fingers like rotten cucumbers. It cannot be described on paper, one has to see it to get an idea of what it is like. Another man who has been shot in the leg has something the matter with his stomach, too, and has been vomiting steadily since nine o'clock this morning. They have given him medicine, but it does not stop, and he is so reduced and exhausted that he does not look as if he could live long. We have another bad case. A young English sergeant with a piece of his spine shot away. He has been married only six months and his wife is in Paris and at the hospital now. It is very pathetic. He MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 6i cannot live, and to hear them talking about what they will do when he gets better, al- most makes one cry. There is no use tell- ing her that he is going to die. To-night JoU gave instructions to have four patients in Ward No. 2 sent into the theater, in a certain order and at a certain time. The day shift went off duty and the night shift came on duty without being given these instructions. As a result, when he was ready to commence work, no one in the ward knew anything. JoU was furious; sent upstairs and got the head nurse out of bed and had her come down and point out the patients. He is quite right; she must be made to understand that it is necessary to systematize her work. Very interesting operations again to-night and I stayed at the hospital until i A. M. 6z THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE One operation was the injection of Stovane serum into the spinal column. It renders the part of the body below the point of injec- tion insensible to pain for twenty-four hours or so. Within ten minutes after giving this injection, Joll cut into the patient's leg, hooked out the sciatic nerve and injected anti-tetanic serum into it. The patient was sitting up and talking all the time with- out any feeling of pain at all. This was wonderful work. The sciatic nerve is almost in the middle of the thigh and Joll got down to it in about one minute with- out cutting a muscle or losing more than a few teaspoonfuls of blood. Friday y September 25: Saw Mr. Bacon, the former Ambassador to France, this morning and had an hour's talk with him. He says there isn't any MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 63 chance of getting to the front. The Eng- lish and French armies won't have any outsiders messing about their work. I think they are quite right, but it Is a dis- appointment. Mr. Bacon has been to the general staff, so there is not much use in trying anything after that. Dinner and supper went off in first rate shape to-day, and we cleaned up the ward and pantry and got everything that wasn't working, out of the way. The man who was vomiting all day yester- day, died this morning shortly after I came in. It was rather a sudden death. He had seemed easier and was talking to a nurse beside his bed — asked her to get him some- thing; she went away and when she came back again — within one minute — he was dead. We don't yet know what he died of, except that he was generally all in. 64 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE The young sergeant who had had the section of his spine shot away, is also dead, and his poor little wife is in a pitiful state. N. took her out riding in an automobile. He can talk to people like a father; and she needs a change of scene and fresh air or else she will break down, too. Saturday^ September 26: M., the little French nurse who went to Villeneuve with us to get the wounded, is suspected of being a German spy! I do not know what to think. I cannot size her up exactly. She is certainly very smart, and doesn't look like a French woman. Mme. P. who sent her to us from the Union des Femmes de France, told us she didn't know much about her, and sug- gested that we watch her. N. is a good authority on languages, speaking French, MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 65 English and German perfectly enough to pass for any one of the three. He says he knows she is not French by the way she pronounces certain French words, and that he is almost certain she is German on ac- count of other distinctive pronunciations. I do not know what to think. I told little M. that there was a report going about to the effect that she was a German spy. She had been told this be- fore, and I wanted to see what she would say. She seemed quite angry, and said that people could be put in prison for making assertions of that kind without cause. I told her that it was all nonsense, of course, and that none of us thought there was anything in it and that we all knew she was French. She said she could prove it easily enough. (Later on she did.) Our relations with the management of 66 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE this hotel are decidedly unpleasant. I am quite sure that the only reason the hotel was given as a hospital was as a sort of insurance proposition. When the Germans were at the gates of Paris and their entrance to the city imminent, a hotel containing wounded soldiers, espe- cially wounded Germans, would be less liable to be looted and damaged. Now that there is no chance of the Germans getting in here, I think they would jolly well like to kick us all out. The French manager is an impossible little fellow, and has been given instructions by someone else to cut down expenses to the last cent. He runs about having electric lights turned off, and hiding cups, plates, knives, forks, etc., and making it generally uncomfortable for us. I had to go out this morning and buy three dozen drinking glasses for the MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS e^^ patients in our ward; it saved time to get them that way rather than fight with these people. The little Scotch boy with the awful hand is beginning to have convulsions. It is terrible to watch him, but he is kept so full of morphine that he does not feel much. He has such a nice gentle face. Sunday, September 27; Four bombs were dropped on Paris at noon to-day; one of them landed in the Avenue du Trocadero, about 300 yards from the hospital, and blew a little girl's leg off. It also came quite close to Mr. Herrick, the American Ambassador. Not much other damage done, however. The boy with the awful hand is somewhat better. JoU says he is likely to live, as the convulsions extend only above the 68 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE waist. He hasn't yet had any that extend over his entire body, where the head and heels are bent backwards like a bow un- til they almost meet. I do not know why a hand and arm like that are left on him, but the nurses tell me that when a patient has tetanus, they don't operate. Helped to dress the captain's leg to-day with Dr. S. and Tom. ... It is wonder- fully improved. A terrible septic shell wound in the thigh and fractured femur. The first time I saw that leg I thought: What is the use of keeping it on? The man had been in a German hospital for two weeks, where the leg had received prac- tically no attention, although he said they did what they could for him. "When I first picked it up, the skin parted at the heel like wet tissue paper, and yellow slime ran out, while the wound on the thi^h looked MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 69 and smelt like rotten fish. Now the flesh is good and red, and although there are enormous incisions on each side which go clean through, he will probably be able to walk on it before this time next year. We take almost a basinful of stufling out of it every time it is dressed. It reminds me of a conjurer pulling guinea pigs and things out of a hat. There seems to be no end to them. Monday^ September 28: Had breakfast at the Hotel de TEmpire this morning, as the hospital one is ir- regular and bad, — one waiter for fourteen men, and twenty-five nurses. The other morning we came in and found only six cups on the table. Upon asking why there were no more, we were informed that the management had not left out any more. 70 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE It appears that they had set aside one cup each for the patients, and one each for the staff, etc., and that some of the cups were mislaid. Williams ran and got the manager and told him he would punch his head, if he didn't get us other cups in five min- utes. We have a new head nurse in Ward 2 now. Miss W. She is fine, the first woman we have had here yet who knows how to give orders. Miss A. is a nice girl, and, I suppose, a fairly good nurse, but she knows no more about management than a babe in arms. This new nurse will soon have everything in shipshape. She accomplished more this morning than the rest of them have done in a week. The boy with the awful hand died this morning. It was a shame to have him go; he made a splendid fight for life and we all Cu^^jjjjBp >«» 1 ^^0^^^^ »J r ;1^^ ^ J w^ ^ _?J n t # S. •4-.^ ■ \. o. o O MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 71 thought he was going to get well. There is not much hope for tetanus, though. I believe the mortality is over ninety per cent. I have bought a pair of gloves and a linen coat. I am afraid to handle patients like that with my bare hands and have them touch my clothes. If you should have anything open on your hand and get any of that stuff into it, it is an even chance that you will get tetanus yourself, and I handle dirty cases hourly. Had a little conversation with my friend Jock Constable, the Black Watch Scot, who has been in the ward for some ten days. He said that when he first got hit (they were charging the Germans with the bayo- net), it turned him end over end, and he was unconscious for about an hour. He said when he came to, he was lying in a little depression on the ground with some 72 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE other wounded men. Beside him was a German whose head was blown off. At about dusk the Germans came up. *'I saw them a comin', so I closed my eyes," he said, "but I could na help from smiling hearin' 'en say ^Yah, yah, yah' to each other." The Germans went over them and took their bully beef and hard tack, which they immediately devoured. They left soon afterwards, and it began to rain and con- tinued raining all night. In the morning he heard some soldiers coming up, and when he saw they were English, he said, "Is the coast clear.?" They answered, "You're all right, Jock, they're all ahead of us now." So he got up and got to the rear himself and sent the stretcher bearers up for the others. MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 73 Tuesday, September 2g: Our ambulance brought in seven new cases from Noisy-le-Sec, all of which are pretty bad. One man has a bullet through the left side of his face which has taken out nearly all of the upper row of canine and molar teeth. The face is badly swollen and there is no wound of exit. He is conscious, though, and Joll says he will probably get well even if we do not remove the bullet. Face wounds look terrible but they are generally much less serious than they seem. I would a great deal rather have a face wound like that than a frac- tured femur. Another boy — one of the little chasseurs Alpines — has a bullet wound passing sideways through his wind-pipe. He was just able to breathe. Joll did the tracheotomy operation on him with local anaesthetics in about ten minutes, and had 74 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE him back in the ward breathing through a silver tube stuck in his neck above the collar bone. They say he will be all right in two weeks. Another man has a shrapnel bullet which came down on him from above, cutting through his neck about four inches, but not breaking the jaw. It then passed into the shoulder at the point of the scapula, breaking the bone and lodging under the skin at the neck of the humerus. Took out the bullet and sewed up the wound. The face wound is merely superficial. The next man had the largest assortment of wounds that I have seen yet. All of them were over ten days old and you could smell him from across the room. He had a cut on the top of his head four or five inches long, with the skin hanging loose. His right shoulder and the upper part of his arm were the color of morocco leather MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 75 with blood infusion under the skin, and the shoulder badly broken. He had been thrown violently against something. The right arm had been almost completely severed at the wrist, all tendons were cut and the hand chocolate colored and smell- ing like rotten meat, which it was. Three fingers were gone from the other hand and a piece of flesh missing from the calf of his right leg as big as a mutton chop. We went over him in the theater; the scalp wound proved to be superficial and the skull not damaged. The septic arm had to be amputated below the elbow, as there was no possibility of conservative treat- ment. The rest of his wounds were cleaned and dressed. The man was French, a fine looking and well-educated fellow, although a private. He got out of bed and on to the stretcher himself and talked to us cheer- 76 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE fully, although he must have been in ter- rible pain. I asked him if he had not knocked over a cavalry charge, but he said, "Non, un obus seulement." Several fractured femurs are being treated in a rather peculiar way. A tenpenny nail is driven into the bone and the leg hung from the nail. J. says it is the latest and best way of supporting a fractured limb. It does not seem to hurt the patients, but it looks very queer to see the head of an ordinary nail stick- ing out of the flesh with a string tied to it. Dressed the Captain's leg again. He has to be put under chloroform each time. The leg is wonderfully better and hardly smells at all now. Wednesday, September jo: The new head nurse — Miss W. — is fine. She has the place running like a machine MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS -j^ now, and there isn't so much to do. After lunch this afternoon, I took Jock S., one of the Scots, out in an open carriage in his kilts, for a drive through Paris. He only- had a fracture of the humerus and is now convalescent. He has been brought up in a little country town in Scotland all his life and had never been in a big city. I took him past the Arc de Triomphe; down the Champs Elysees; past the Louvre and to Notre Dame and told him about Revolu- tionary French history. We had tea and a couple of large sized portions of his na- tive Scotch whiskey. He had a good time, I think. He kept repeating — "Ah, ye don't know what this means to a bloke like me. Ah, but I wish the missus was along. It's the best afternoon I ever spent in my life." I had to run into Brentano's for a mo- 78 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE ment and left Jock in the open barouche outside, on the Avenue de FOpera. When I came out I found him surrounded by a crowd of at least fifty people, who were all asking him questions in both French and English. Jock looked terribly unhappy. When I got into the carriage and we started off, he put his hand on my knee and said, with a look of unspeakable relief, "Lord, I was just a prayin' for ye to come." We have a large flock of visitors now daily. Every afternoon between four and five o'clock a lot of philanthropic old ladies, together with relatives of the wounded, arrive, bringing cigarettes, chocolate, books, etc. Last week one old lady appeared and suddenly from under her cloak produced a squirt gun, about two feet long, loaded with cologne, and started around the ward with it. One of the first men she got to was MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 79 Jock Constable, of the Black Watch. She marched up to him, held the nozzle a few inches from his nose and soused him with perfume. Jock had never been up against this sort of thing before and didn't quite know what to do. You could see he didn't know whether to duck or not. He, never- theless, submitted with good grace and escaped uninjured. Thursday, October i: Mr. Bacon stopped at the hotel this morning and asked me if I would come with him to the American Ambulance. He has been using his own car as an ambulance and has brought in a number of special cases direct from the field. We went to Neuilly in his automobile and he told me that I could get work there which would offer me more opportunities than the Ma- 8o THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE jestic Hotel Hospital. I said that anything which would get me near the front could have me. The American Ambulance is located in a huge new public school build- ing. They have three hundred and fifty patients there now, with immediate capacity for five hundred, and an ultimate capacity for one thousand. I forgot to say that about ten days ago we called them up and asked if they could get us some patients with their automobiles. They told us they could get us twenty wounded which they were bringing in from Villeneuve that night. I do not know the details of the case, but there was some inexcusable mix-up on our part. They arrived with the twenty and we were ready to take only five. This was at three o'clock in the morning and it was raining. They had to take the rest of their patients away MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 8i to put them anywhere they could. I was on duty that night and remember it well. Their head ambulance man was very angry and rightly so. I met him at the American Ambulance this morning, and spoke of that night. He said: "I am done with the Majestic. When I got there that night, you know, the first thing I did was to spend fifteen minutes trying to find somebody who knew anything at all. Finally I got hold of some man who said 'he thought they were to take some wounded, but that the only man who knew was the chief surgeon.' I was then shown in my street clothes into the operating room, where the chief surgeon was at work on a patient who was lying on the table with his brain exposed. As I was getting ready to leave, some dub came out who said that we had given them four pa- 82 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE tients and not five and wanted me to come into the ward and count them. I think he was drunk." (That was N. and he wasn't drunk.) Nevertheless, he is more or less right in what he says. That mix-up was inexcus- able and was entirely due to G. not having organized the hospital. J. and W. are not supposed to be organizers. They were brought there to operate and have been busy doing it all the time. Well, the place is all right now, and there will never be anything like that again. Mr. Bacon introduced me to Dr. De Bouchet, the head of the Ambulance, and Dr. Gross, the chief medical man. They told me that they would put me in the Ambulance Corps if I wanted to come. They are about to take on five more Ford MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 83 Ambulances, to operate from various bases, twenty miles or so from Paris. This is more like the work I have been wishing to do. Another proposition, which seems even better, Mr. Bacon spoke of to-day: It seems that there is being organized at this moment, an ambulance service to operate in direct conjunction with the British and French armies in the field. This is being run by Mr. Harjes, of Morgan, Harjes & Co. Of course, it is exactly what I want and Mr. Bacon will get me into it, if he can. Back to the hospital in time to serve the patients' lunch. Went out for a walk at five and upon returning, find a note from Mrs. Harjes asking me to call upon her to-night to talk over going to the front with their Am- bulance Service and Field Hospital. "Am- 84 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE bulance Mobile de Premiers Secours," as it is called. Friday^ October 2: I called upon Mrs. Harjes this morning, who tells me that they have definite au- thority to work as they had planned. They already have a half dozen automobiles, nearly all their equipment, two operating surgeons in Paris, and Mr. J. P. Morgan of New York has cabled them that he has sent over four more. They are now on the ocean. Dr. W., an American, is their chief surgeon, and I had a half hour's talk with him. He says that the thing is absolutely settled and that we are going to start just as quickly as we can get all our equipment together. We shall probably leave Sunday afternoon. MAJESTIC HOTEL HOSPITAL, PARIS 85 The idea is to follow up the lines of battle, get the wounded men off the field and bring them to a point as close to the rear as we deem safe, where we will give them first aid and send them on. He has accepted my offer to help in this work and this diary will stop here for the time being. Note: The subsequent writing was not commenced until three weeks later. PART III HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS AT RICQUEBOURG October g: WE left Paris at six o'clock in the morning in two automobiles, the party consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Harjes, the chief surgeon, the head nurse, R. and his chauffeur, and a French caporal who is to represent the army and keep military rec- ords, etc. We all have uniforms something like the English, and good warm overcoats. We had all the necessary papers and authority, and the purpose of the trip was to find a suitable place to locate for the time being. We first went to Compiegne. It was a clear, crisp morning. The little town was 89 90 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE jammed with British and French troops. Automobiles were tearing about the streets. Everything and everybody was at high tension and the atmosphere was charged with excitement. Twenty minutes by mo- tor, would take us into the German lines. An aeroplane was heading directly at us. "Is it a taube?" everyone was asking. "No, it is English," was presently an- nounced, and we found ourselves cheering the aviator with the crowd. We were informed that the local am- bulance was of sufficient capacity and no help was needed. We went to Pierrefonds and a couple of other places, with the same result. The next stop was at a place called Ricquebourg, which was close to the firing. There was a concealed French battery on the hill, not more than three hundred yards from the automobile, which suddenly fired HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 91 a dozen shells at the Germans. We waited in terror for their reply, but nothing came. There was an ambulance located in a chateau nearby, but it seemed too close to the line of battle for comfort or wisdom, so we turned back and went to a couple of other small towns. At one of these places was a General B., the medical head of the Red Cross Division, whose territory we were in. We asked him if he could put us anywhere, and he said that Ricquebourg, the place we had just left, would be a good base; that, although close to the front, the French positions were very strong, and we would have plenty of time to evacuate should the Germans advance. We, therefore, turned around and went back to Ricquebourg accompanied by the old general in his automobile. The French ambulance in the chateau had practically 92 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE nothing to work with. They had neither cotton nor gauze, and were using strips of the chateau's sheets for bandages. All of their equipment was promptly packed into two dress suit cases and they were moved out; we taking their place. The head nurse and I were left on the premises to get things ready. The waste of war was forcibly illustrated on our way from Paris to Compiegne. All along the road were evidences of the great battle of the Marne, which had just taken place. Automobile trucks smashed to pieces, automobile trucks burnt, supply wagons broken down, dead horses, parts of equip- ment, trees cut down and shot down, vil- lages burnt; devastation everywhere. The Germans had no time to save any- thing that went wrong. If one of their automobiles got out of order, they simply HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 93 took It to the side of the road and touched a match to It, so the French would not get it. Senlls was almost leveled to the ground, many blocks of houses had been syste- matically destroyed, blown up and burnt. The story is that the Mayor of Senlis when asked to pay an enormous ransom to the Germans, refused to do so, at which the Germans took him out, forcibly made him dig his own grave, and then stood him in it, and shot him in the presence of his wife and children. Senlis is about twenty-two 'miles from Paris. Our chateau at Ricquebourg is a most beautiful place. It belongs to the Vicomte de Labry, who is now in the Army. His wife ran away when the Germans came through the first time, and the chateau was then requisitioned by the Government as a hospital. 94 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE It was originally built on piles in the manner of the chateau at Chantilly, and is still surrounded by the moat which has been turned into a beautiful pond, with swans and old fat carp. The place is thor- oughly fitted out with modern improve- ments, and the grounds are very extensive and well kept. We sat down to supper, with the officers, in the beautiful old dining-room amid the roar of cannon, the brilliant French uni- forms, the old silver and candles and ma- hogany. I felt as if I were living in a Meissonier picture. The excitement and kaleidoscopic change of scene that we had been through during the day, made it impossible for me to sleep; so at 2 A. M., I gave it up and went down stairs and talked to the two sen- tries. HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 95 October 10: The head nurse and I spent the morning fixing up the place for a hospital. We had six French soldiers to help us, and the three men servants of the house. We moved everything out of the four large rooms on the first floor, which we wanted for wards, and stored the furniture on the third floor. The curtains were taken down, the walls draped with sheets, etc. We had a busy day of it, and our French soldiers were a stupid, lazy lot. At four o'clock in the afternoon, three of our ambulances came up bringing two other nurses, and a great deal of material. This was unloaded and stored away; the am- bulances returning to Paris with the chauf- feurs, leaving the two nurses. By six o'clock we had finished, and one of the French officers asked us if we would 96 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE like to see some of the German shells burst- ing. We all said we should, and went out along the road with him for about a mile and a half, where cutting into the fields, we ascended a long sloping hill with a small patch of woods on the top. The officer said we should be able to see the position of the French batteries half a mile away, where the German shells were bursting, as soon as we had reached the crest of the hill. We had just crossed the summit when suddenly he exclaimed: "Listen, here comes one now!" We held our breath and waited to see our first German shell. There was a sound like the roar of an express train, coming nearer at tremendous speed, with a loud singing, wailing noise. It kept coming and coming and I wondered when it would ever burst. Then when it seemed right on HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 97 top of us, it did, with a shattering crash that made the earth tremble. It was ter- rible. The concussion felt like a blow in the face, the stomach and all over; it was like being struck unexpectedly by a huge wave in the ocean. It exploded about two hundred yards from where we were standing, tearing a hole in the ground as big as a small room. That was close enough for me; I thought of the wounds I had seen at the Majestic; of my home and mother, the girl I left behind me, and everything else. The officer said it was from one of their 202 m.m. guns (eight inches) and that it had been fired from a distance of about ten kilometers.* * When shells come from a long distance, as these did, they lose some of their spin and steadiness of flight and begin to turn on their long axis. The re- sult is a very curious sound, wow — wow— wow — wow, which increases in intensity as the shell comes nearer. At short ranges, the shell travels faster than sound; 98 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE I said, "Suppose they send the next one a little wide — it might come right on top of us." "Yes," he said, "but it is not likely; they don't often put them over this way." While we were talking, another one came in about the same spot. It nearly took us off our feet. I looked at the officer. Nobody was smiling now. "Look here," I said, "let's get out of this." And we got. October ii: We completed the work of installing our equipment. M., one of the nurses who came last night, is a good executive; she but at long ranges, when it has lost its initial velocity, the noise of an approaching shell is audible for several seconds before it arrives. This has enabled many men to save their lives. The force of these big shells is tremendous; there are several instances of death caused by concussion alone. HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 99 knows how to give orders to those slipshod French soldiers, and gets lots of work out of them. At 2 P. M. all the rest of the party arrived with nearly everything that we possessed. J. and DeQ. also came from the Majestic, as I had arranged for them to come and help us out during the first week. We unloaded the ambulances and had supper. As we were finishing, a general artillery and infantry battle began on the hill two miles away. There was incessant firing of cannon and rattle of small arms. As soon as we had finished, the French officers came up and asked if we wanted to see some of it. All the new men were, of course, crazy to get there. They all wanted to "see some action." It was almost dark, but off we started. We walked for a long way closer and 100 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE closer toward the firing; it was through a narrow road in the woods, and as dark as a pocket. I asked the ofiicers when we should get out of the woods so we could see something, and they did not seem to know quite where we were. We finally got very close to it. The ofiicers began to get nervous and suggested that we had better be careful about sentries as they did not know the password, and that if we were challenged and did not give it right off", we should be shot at. R. and I were slightly ahead of the rest, and we stopped and hid in the bushes by the side of the road. In a moment they had all come up and were about to pass us, when we jumped up and shouted, "Qui vive?" at the top of our lungs. The effect was tremendous. "La France, La France," yelled the officers. HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS loi "Don't shoot," yelled someone .in Eng- lish. N. and G. flung themselves on the ground to escape the expected fusillade and the rest stood rooted to their tracks. That sobered everybody up thoroughly, and we turned around and went home. It was a sort of wild goose chase, anyway; we had just been looking for trouble and it was not our fault that we did not find it. J. said that when he heard that "Qui vive!" every particu- lar hair on his head stood straight up on end. October 12: Six wounded soldiers, our first patients, were brought in at about 10 o'clock this morning, all of them pretty bad. Every- thing was ready, and three of them needed operating. 102 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE The first man had a gunshot wound, the ball traversing the front of the abdomen, apparently without having penetrated much deeper than an inch below the skin. There were no fractures, the mouths of both wounds had been seared up with iodine, but the man had been lying in a dressing station in his clothes for five days. He had a temperature; a high pulse; had been vomiting, and looked bad. When we took the bandage off, W. said: "Oh! well! I guess we had better leave that alone, hadn't we?" "My inclination would be to open it up and see what is there," said J., "but, of course, do as you think best." "All right," replied W., "it won't do any harm." W. took the knife and started to cut across the body, cutting with the blade of the HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 103 knife upward and upon a guide. After he had been at work two minutes, he had gone about two inches. J. said, *'I think that incision ought to be carried about six inches further this way. Just give me that knife a moment, will you, old chap?" He took the knife and from that moment conducted the operation himself. The min- ute we got the abdomen open, it was quite plain that J. had been right. The large intestine had been perforated in several places, and the entire inside of the man was chock full of fecal matter, rotten blood, and pus. "For Heaven's sake, light a cigar, Toland," said J. We took all the intestines out and put them in a basin wrapped in hot towels and did what we could; washing and cleaning out everything inside of him, but J. says I04 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE that he has been too long without attention to have much chance. The next man was a German officer — a Prussian who had been hit below the knee by a piece of a shrapnel casing. He had been between the lines, and had lain on the battlefield for seven days without food and water. How they stand it, I cannot see. The leg was, of course, beyond hope of repair; the bone was smashed to pieces four inches below the knee; the leg nearly off and turned out at an angle of 15° and so rotten that it was black. W. was busy, so J. had me give him the anaesthetic. It was the first one I had ever given, but with J. there to tell me what to do if any- thing happened, I felt quite confident; giving a chloroform anaesthetic and watch- ing the condition of the patient is not a difficult thing to do. HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 105 October /j; We now have about as many patients as we can hold, mostly colored troops from Sene- gal. I was on night duty last night. At about five o'clock in the morning, just as it was beginning to turn dawn, a little French caporal came in to the chateau, and said that there were some wounded outside for us. I supposed they would be brought in in the usual way — on stretchers — and started around the wards to see that everything was all right. I suddenly had a feeling that somebody was looking at me. I wheeled around and there was an enormous black man, stand- ing on one leg by the side of the door, staring at me. I did not know whether he spoke French or Swahali, but upon address- ing him in the former language I found he was pretty good at it. I went to the door. io6 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE There was a heavy fog hanging over the place and through the gloom of the early- October morning, I saw two of the old fashioned beet carts with their huge wheels and long bodies. From these, men were climbing down. No waiting to be carried for these fellows! Two of them were com- ing up the stone steps on their hands and knees; another was crawling on his hands and knees along the gravel walk; several were walking; and a couple hopping on one leg. Most of them had bad wounds, and one was still bleeding freely from the shoulder. There were forty-one all told, and they all had been wounded In the night attack which we had been hearing ever since midnight. One of the first we attended to, had a shrapnel bullet through his shoulder. There was no wound of exit, and, just as J. was HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 107 starting to bandage him up for evacuation, he said, "Hello, here is the bullet, right here." He put my finger on a spot on the man's arm. There was an imperceptible little bump, but he said that it was the bullet, and very close under the skin, too. "I'll get that out right now," he said, and took his knife and, without giving the man either a local or general anaesthetic, made a two-inch incision. "Oh, la, la," shouted the blackamoor, "mais qu'est-ce que tu fais.^" "Restez tranquil, Monsieur; je vais oter la balle," replied JoU, with a grand gesture and magnificent accent. "C'est bien," he answered, "allez done." JoU cut a little more, put in a probe and out came the ball — a couple of stitches, and it was all over in certainly less than twenty seconds. These fellows have good nerve; io8 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE the man never budged after the first start. They tell me that the Senegalis charged here with the bayonet last week, and when they had their hands shot off, they kept on and bit the Germans with their teeth. There is a story that at Montereau some time past, a Senegali was brought in wounded. When they undressed him, he had something large under his coat which he was hiding; he did not want to take it out, it was a little souvenir he had got from the battlefield — a German's helmet, and the head of the German was inside it! Some of them have also collected strings of Ger- mans' ears. The French boys who work in the cha- teau are perfectly hopeless; they are willing enough, but too simple to do any real work. One of them filled the kerosene lamp HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 109 with gasoline the other night and lighted it. I arrived just in time to save the house from catching fire. You start them on one job and ten minutes afterwards they have dropped it and are doing something else or nothing else. We have no organization or system. Our material is not classified and nobody knows where anything is. It is very annoying and makes a great deal of un- necessary work. Besides that, nobody has had any definite work assigned to him, no instructions are given to anyone, and the place is in a chaotic state. I was on night duty to-night again with S. and had a terrible time. The place was packed with men, and six nurses with four orderlies would not have been too many. Four men were dying — one delirious and yelling at the top of his lungs. It was ghastly. I know that neither of us sat no THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE down for more than ten minutes the whole night. It was a continual run from begin- ning to end. The supplies not being sorted out and arranged, made it twice as bad. Nothing could be found when it was needed. No kerosene, not enough candles, no mack- intosh. The morphine could not be found at all. The furnace fire went out and I had to go down and rebuild it. The kitchen stove fire went out and I had to rebuild it, too. We had about ten men who were out of their heads, and who should have been watched. There were men all over the house, in the first, second and third stories; five out of ten men had dysentery, so it can be imagined what it was like. One French soldier died during the night; he did not have any chance, it was an abdominal wound which had gone through everything. He was quite conscious all HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS iii the time and before he died, called me to him, and gave me some little messages for his wife. He was only about twenty-four. Another head case died at 7 in the morning and two more will probably die during the day. The head case that died had oral aphasia; he could understand what you said to him, but could not talk himself. He tried hard enough, but the words meant nothing. He could only talk gibberish. We cannot have another night like that. It is not right. We have got to do one of two things — get all the patients on one floor, or else have three divisions of nurses and orderlies, one for each of the three floors. I got to bed at noon and slept till five o'clock. When I came down stairs I was met in the hall by the little French priest. "Oh, Monsieur," he said, "there are six 112 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE poor Germans out there in a little outhouse, and, oh. Monsieur, they are so cold, and cannot you have a fire made for them, or do something for them?" I said that I did not know that there were any Germans in the place, and asked when they had been brought there. He said he thought they had been there a couple of hours. I asked: "Has nothing been done for them-f* Is nobody down there.?" "No," he replied, "and, oh. Monsieur, it is so damp and cold and they are suffering ter- ribly, please have something done for them!" I went into the operating room, and there was W. with the six new surgeons who had just arrived, watching J. operate. "Doctor," I said, "the priest tells me that there are some Germans down in the barn who need attention." HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 113 "Oh, yes, yes," he said, "that's so." "Well," I continued, "the priest says they are very cold and that there is nobody there." "That is right," he replied, "I guess there isn't. Well, you just go down there and fix them up and superintend all that, won't you?" "I didn't know they were there until five minutes ago;" I said, "what do you want done — are you going to keep them there all night, or move them up to the house?" "Oh, well," he answered, "I can't quite tell about that yet, but you just go down and do what you can." I went down to the stables, and there were the six poor devils lying on stretchers. It was a little one-story stone house, with no floor, so they were on the ground. There was a cold drizzling rain falling and 114 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE moisture had collected all over the walls. The place was damp and clammy as a sewer. The next room had an old broken stove in it, and was chock full of furniture and rubbish. I did not even know whether the stove would burn. I went back to the operating room and said, "Doctor, I will have to have two or three men to help me do that work, or I won't get it done for two hours." All of the four new aides immediately volunteered to help. We cleaned the room out, swept the floor, hunted about until we found some kindling and coal, and finally got the fire going. In the meantime, those Germans were lying on the ground with practically no clothes on; two of them had their legs entirely bare as their trousers had been cut off when the wounds had been dressed. They were in a bad way from the cold, apart from HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 115 their wounds. I got a dozen empty claret bottles, filled them with hot water and sent up for hot bouillon and blankets. One of the new men is Neil Stevens, Yale '11 of Morristown, N. J., who was with me at St. Paul's School. We were so busy working, that we did not recognize each other for fifteen minutes. The other aides are Edwin Pyle, Williams '11, of New York, Benjamin R. Allison, Dartmouth 'ii, of New York, and Mather Cleveland, Yale '11, of Denver. The idea in putting the Germans down there was from the little French General B., who said that all septic cases must be con- fined to a separate building. We have not sufficient staff to give those Germans any attention where they are now, and putting them there is quite unneces- sary. All French hospitals put septic cases ii6 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE in with their other patients. The poor Germans are a pathetic lot — two of them, boys of about seventeen. I took two big heavy blankets and wrapped them round the bare legs of one of the men. He took my hand and kissed it! One of the lads in the chateau here told me that when the Germans were in it a month ago, the men slept on the kitchen floor. When the officer came to wake them up, he just walked in and kicked them. The woman working here said that when Von Kluck's army marched along the road in front of the chateau, which they did for fourteen hours, an officer walked be- hind the lines and hit the men on the heads with a little stick if they were out of line. One fellow had gotten out of step. A close- cropped officer ran up and spat in his face. HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 117 Poor fellows, they are like a lot of ill- treated animals, not knowing whether to expect a kind word or a kick. Our organization or lack of organization is shocking. Generally speaking, no in- structions come from the chief surgeon or head nurse about anything. There is no regular assignment of duties to anyone except the chauffeurs, of whom R. is in charge. In the medical department we need one or two first-class operating surgeons, and four extra nurses to do this work. There is no history of our work, or our diagnoses, sent on with the patients to permanent hospitals. This is unbusiness like, and the information which we have gathered is wasted. In the cuisine, the meals are irregular and a la carte; that is, people come down ii8 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE at any old time and order any old thing they want; there is much unnecessary work, due to lack of uniform practice. The chef has no help and works from 6 A. M. to II P. M. He has the French boys, but they are hardly any use. In the transportation department there has been no work done in planning the routine for breaking and making camps. This is of vital importance. If we were to be told to-night that the Germans were coming in three hours, the only things we could get out of the hospital, would be the automobiles and the personnel of the staff; every bit of our equipment would have to be left behind. They have got a French battery on the hill behind us now, which sends shells al- most over the roof. We are within easy range of the German cannon. I think the HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 119 place is getting too hot to hold us. Last night when they were shooting, a candle fell off the table. The house often shakes, so that it seems impossible for the windows not to break, but none has as yet. October 15: J. and I took a short walk this morning after dressings and saw a German aero- plane being fired on by the French batteries. It was about two miles from us. The Ger- man aeroplane flew over the French lines and dropped three smoke bombs about a hundred yards apart. They explode quite high in the air, leaving a trail of smoke. This gives the German artillery their line of fire. The last bomb had hardly dropped, when the French batteries opened on it. We could see the shrapnel shells of the batteries explode near the aeroplane dis- 120 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE tinctly. They leave little puffs of smoke, which remain hanging in the air. I don't believe they came very close to it, though. The aeroplane was not hit, and continued on. It was quite high up. DeQuelen, who is a Frenchman, had an adventure in the ambulance last night. They were stopped by a sentry. He said: "In my best French, I was unable to satisfy him with my pronunciation of the password. He said that I spoke with a German accent. Both of them immediately pointed their guns at us full cock, and it was only by my thorough knowledge of French cursing that I was able to convince him of my na- tionality." This is a bit dangerous as some of these fellows are pretty quick on the trigger. There have been lots of people shot by sentries in England. These French territorial sentries are a HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 121 dumb lot; when I was at Montdidier, an officious old boy, who had evidently just been put on, halted me. I gave him the "Mot," but he had to see my "Carte d'identite" too. He scowled at the photo- graph, scowled at me; looked back and forth comparing my face with that of the photograph and at last said suspiciously, "You were younger when that was taken?" "No, sir," I replied, "I was older." "Bien passez!" he grunted. The Ambassador of the United States, Mr. Herrick, came out to pay us a visit this afternoon. It just happened that the old General B. arrived at the same moment, and we asked him whether the Germans could not be moved from the little out- house, up to the chateau. Yes, you bet they could be moved; and there was noth- 122 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE ing the old boy would not have done for us while Mr. Herrick was there. When we brought the Germans Into the chateau, there was an unexpected scene; a couple of blackamoors almost sprang from their beds. The sight of the Germans put them in a frenzy of excitement and they commenced jabbering at each other in their native language, with their eyes almost popping out of their heads. I guess a couple of them would have been out of bed and at the Germans, if we had left the room. They cannot understand why, if they can kill the Germans on the battle- field, it is not all right to go for them, when you have them in the same room and down on the floor. After an hour, we thought it best to move the Germans into another room. To say that they felt re- lieved, is putting it mildly. HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 123 Fifteen patients were evacuated to Com- piegne to-day and four died during the night. It seems to me that some of those fellows we evacuated were pretty sick men. October 16: Neil Stevens and I got together and drew up an organization chart this morning and made out a schedule showing details of regular routine: meal hours, dressings, day and night shifts, etc. We showed it to the chief surgeon, who approved it. We may have a little regularity at last. We are pretty full now and this morning we had to move the old Prussian officer, to whom I gave the anaesthetic, from the second floor down to the first floor. We thought he would like to go in with some of his own German soldiers, and accordingly took him into the ward where there were 124 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE six of them. When he saw where he was going, he said in French, "What are you bringing me in here for?" I said, "We thought you would like to see some of your comrades from the Vater- land." "H'm," he muttered, "I would rather have stayed where I was." He thereupon turned his back upon his own men, refusing even to speak to them. An hour or two later, he called the nurse over to him. "Come here," he said in a rough voice, "these men over here are asking a great deal too much, do not pay so much atten- tion to them. They are imposing on you. Of course, if I ask you for anything it is a very different proposition, but these fel- lows are not worth it, don't bother about them." HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 125 One of the new surgeons has his eye in- fected and it looks alarming. Very much swollen. We have to be careful. R. will not even pick up the end of a stretcher now without first hunting up his gloves and putting them on. Everything about this place is infected and smells of wounded soldiers. It is no joke to have a cut on your hands. October 28: We have now been moved to Compiegne by order of the general staff and have been here two days. The Palace is being used as a hospital for pneumonia and typhoids. All the bridges have been blown up and we cross the Oise on pontoons which are crowded with con- tinuous lines of troops. Most of us went to the English Church 126 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE Service this morning. While we were sitting there a German aeroplane flew over Com- piegne and dropped six bombs on the town. One of them landed in the street 150 yards from us. We think it was caused by Cleve singing tenor to the hymns! The Germans can put up with a good deal, but when they heard that, they couldn't stand it any longer. The one that landed close to us was a shrapnel bomb, and one other also; the rest were "bombes d'incendie," which fell in places where they did not cause any "incendie." There must be a good many kinds of aeroplane bombs. This one only tore a hole in the street about eight inches deep, and two feet in diameter. There were no windows broken and no damage done to the adjoining property worth men- tioning, and nobody was hurt, although there were some people within fifty yards HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 127 of where it fell. The one which dropped in the Avenue du Trocadero in Paris, however, almost wrecked the entire block; every window for a hundred yards each side of it was broken, and I saw stones the size of my little finger nail, driven an inch into a tree, eighty yards from the point of ex- plosion. On the whole, however, aeroplane bombs are ineffective; they never hit what they are aimed at, and the number that can be taken up is limited. Mrs. Depew, an American living near here, has turned her chateau into a field hospital. It is beautifully equipped. Compiegne is a pretty little place and while we were there the leaves were all turning red and golden; the air was crisp and cool, and there were continuous streams of every kind of troops passing through the place; in fact, that is why we were 128 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE delayed there. The Front was changing and it could not be well determined where to locate. We saw aeroplanes every day, French and German both. Saw them fired on by batteries of both sides. The artillery used to unlimber and hide under the trees on each side of the road during the day and do their marching at night — this on account of the German aeroplanes which would see them if they were moving in the daytime. PART IV HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS AT MONTDIDIER November i: LAST night Mr. Harjcs arrived from I Paris with orders for us to join the Fourth Army Corps at Montdidier, where, we are told, there are a large number of wounded to be looked after. At ten o'clock in the morning we started off with our six ambulances, two private cars. Dr. W. — a new surgeon, — a new chauf- feur, and two additional nurses. We arrived at our chateau a couple of hours later. It is in the country two miles from Montdidier, and belongs to Monsieur Klotz, the present Minister of Finance of the Republic. He does not live in it often, and, I have since been given to understand, 131 132 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE uses it only as a sort of voting residence, as it is in his district. It is a shabby old house, without modern conveniences, and none too clean, especially after having been lived in by both the French and German soldiers for some time. We got our equip- ment out of the machines and distributed it in good order. The place is fairly well arranged for a hospital. There are three big rooms, all adjoining each other on the first floor, with a small hall between them. These three large rooms we will use as wards; they will each hold about ten patients. There are two other small rooms leading ofl" them which we will use as operating room and medical supply room. We eat in the kitchen, as usual, and the rooms for the staff take up the second and third floors. None of the staff's rooms are heated, and a-. U HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 133 there is running water only in the kitchen and a couple of rooms on the first floor. All of the water has to be pumped by hand. November 2: This afternoon we had an inspection by the Medecin Chef of the local district — that is, Montdidier and some ten miles on each side. He seems to be a good executive and disciplinarian. He brought with him L., the chief surgeon of the big hospital at Montdidier. They went over everything in the hospital, and spoke right up and told us what they liked and did not like, made a few suggestions, but said that on the whole our installation was excep- tionally good. November 2: Went to Montdidier this morning to get patients to fill our hospital. Upon return- 134 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE ing after our first trip to the chateau, the Medecin Chef told us that all our ambu- lances would be needed immediately for urgent work on the field, as he had just received a message that there were over a thousand wounded at various points all along the line between here and Roye. All our automobiles were immediately brought to the station, I driving No. 6, a Packard 30. Here we received instructions to go to some six First-Aid Stations directly behind the trenches. We first were sent to a place called Fecamps. It was a little cluster of about twenty houses, barns, etc. . . . and there were some three hun- dred wounded there, who had been and were being brought in from the trenches one-half a mile away. The worst cases were lying on straw in the small outhouses, barns and cottages that the furniture had HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 135 been cleared out of. There were about twenty dead already. Two more were dying and there were several others with awful undressed wounds. One with a leg nearly off at the hip. Another blind in both eyes and his chin shot away. It was too horrible to enlarge upon. If it had not been for the Harjes Am- bulance Corps that day, they would cer- tainly have been up against it, on handling two hundred and fifty lying down cases. The people at Montdidier had no equip- ment to speak of, for handling lying down cases, while our five 6-stretcher Packards brought in thirty on each trip. If it had not been for us, half of their lying down cases would have had to stay there over- night, and half of those that stayed, would surely have died. It was very cold. There were wounded men everywhere! Every 136 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE road we took, we would pass men coming in on donkey carts, beet wagons and every other available vehicle in the surrounding country that could be pressed into service. Sixteen hundred wounded were sent into Montdidier that day, and two hundred and fifty of the worst were brought in by us. If we do no other work, to-day justifies our existence. I think we have saved the lives of at least one hundred men. A Ger- man aeroplane was directly over us at one place, and quite low down; it was being fired on by the French batteries and mi- trailleuses the whole time. Some of the shells came very close to it. We were quite near enough to see the flash of the powder in daytime. Unfortunately it escaped. At a place called Wassy, there was a little church where we got a lot of wounded. It was just like a scene in a play. The HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 137 pews were piled up against the wall outside; the whole floor was covered with straw; and the wounded men were lying about everywhere; a little priest giving the last rites to a dying man in the corner; the place dimly lit by candles; the little china Madonnas standing on the shelves. The mud, the uniforms, and everything else, was just as you would expect to find it; and up at the end of the street not a hun- dred yards from us, was a company of French infantry in position. In the after- noon, before it grew dark, you could see over the valley where some French infantry were along a fence three-quarters of a mile away, and every once in a while the little puff of smoke of a bursting shrapnel would appear above them. It seemed like a dream, and I could hardly realize that war was going on right under my eyes and 138 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE that those men out there were doing the same thing and getting the same wounds, as the ones who now lay in front of us on the straw. It was a big day at Montdidier station. The station itself is a First-Aid Hospital, and literally every square foot of the plat- form, interior and all about it was packed with men on stretchers, while the other wounded men walked and hobbled about, or sat on the curbs waiting for the trains. The old Medecin Chef was right on the job all the time, and nothing moved without his orders. He had the whole situation at his finger ends. They tell me that he had every soldier out of the station at twelve o'clock that night except about twelve cases that transportation undoubt- edly would have killed. All the wounded were sent from here to Creil, where they HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 139 are redespatched to permanent hospitals all over France. The Medecin Chef says that it is the one great drawback of the system, in so much as that when he puts them on the cars here, he does not know whether they are going to travel for twenty- four hours or eighty-four hours; all he can do is, grade the wounded, — from the most serious to the least serious; and send them through with that information. All the hospitals in Montdidier, including ours, are, of course, loaded to capacity, and there is no more room for anyone else in this town. November 6: There has been another big battle last night. I could hear the guns from about quarter to eleven until after one continu- ously, — the mitrailleuse and rifle fire were I40 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE as steady as the roar of the ocean, and the heavier cannon firing was incessant. Each shot from the soixante-quinzes costs ten dollars, and from the one hundred and fifty-fives, thirty-five dollars! Steve and I got up at four this morning, and reported to the Medecin Chef at five thirty, as per order. There is no firing now. We are again sent to Fescamps, but there are not as many wounded as we had ex- pected, only about forty, and only half a dozen of them serious. The men said that the Germans had attempted an ad- vance which was repulsed; and that they had lost heavily, while the French losses had been slight. The Germans, they said, got into the French barbed wire entangle- ments, where they stuck and were shot by the French on one side, while their own artillery dropped shells among them from The Author. HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 141 the other side. This is not uncommon, many men of both sides are wounded by their own shells. The Medecin Chef kept all our automo- biles waiting at the station all day long, in case he should receive further orders, but the orders were not forthcoming and we did nothing. We hear that thirty of the one thousand and six hundred died on the trains before reaching Creil. It is terrible, but there was nothing else to do — every- thing here is loaded to capacity. November 8: Helped with the dressings this morning. We certainly have a prize collection of bad cases here; nineteen out of twenty-three are thoroid cases, with half of them para- plegia — that is, both legs paralyzed. We have one German soldier. The poor cuss 142 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE IS like most other soldiers of Von Kluck's army that I have seen — worked to death! He is as thin as a rail and his body is covered with eczema and other varieties of skin diseases. Besides that, he is shot through the kidneys and spine, and has his skull fractured. W. wants me to take charge of hospital stores entirely and to act as purchasing agent. The stores are in a mess, and need someone to straighten them out and keep them in good order. November g: Helped at the dressings again this morn- ing. W. trephined the German who had a large gutter fracture of the skull. There were very few loose fragments and the operation can hardly help him. He will surely die in a day or so, he is absolutely HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 143 "all in"; both of his legs are paralyzed, too. Moved all the stores from the first floor to the second, where there are three small rooms better suited for them than the present one; classified them and disposed of the stuff that we do not want. Had a splendid meal this evening. One of the biggest assets we have, is our chef. You can go into the best restaurants in London or Paris and not get one bit better food than we are getting in this old dirty chateau. The chef is a wonder; he works from six in the morning until eleven at night, and seems to be perfectly O. K. November 10: Saw the poor German before I went to bed. He had been moved to a little room by himself and is there alone, dying, in a 144 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE strange country among strange people. He was semi-conscious, and as I stood beside him he looked up at me in a dreamy way and murmured, "Ah meine arme, arme mutter!'' He is cold and has hardly any pulse, so it is only a question of a few hours. November ii: Slept badly and got up at 4 A. M. and read "Pan-Germanism" in the kitchen. At 6 A. M. Cleve, who is night orderly this week, came and said that the German had just died, and asked if I would help take him out to the mortuary. I suppose I have handled about forty or fifty dead men since I have been here, but this was the most extreme case of rigor mortis I have seen. Cleve said that the man had only stopped breathing fifteen minutes ago. He was absolutely as stiff HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 145 as a poker. I put my hands under the back of his neck, and Cleve took his feet, and we lifted him from the bed to the stretcher as though he had been a log of wood. Cleve said that this is usually due to degeneration of tissue through fatigue and bad condition. We took the poor fellow out in the gray dawn to the little outhouse which was being used as a mor- tuary, and laid him at his last rest beside a French soldier. To-day is the first clear day we have had for a week. The weather has been dis- agreeable and rainy ever since we have been here. November 14: About three in the afternoon the Medecin Chef sent for all of our cars again, and as we were short of a chauffeur I was detailed 146 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE to car No. 9. When we got to the station they had fifty men to take to Breteuil — twenty- two kilometers west of us. We got them there in two trips, and I hope I never have any more like them. I almost froze, but the patients told me they were not cold. They were pretty well protected from the weather, and the interior of the ambulances kept warm by the heat of their bodies. The French sergeant who went out there with me was telling me about the trenches. He said that most of the men have been in the same positions for a month now and have made them almost like under- ground houses; that you can drop a shell right on them and not hurt anybody. When they hear one coming they all duck inside. They have mattresses and beds in some of them, and it is practically impos- sible for either side to dislodge the other. .Z-J HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 147 I don't believe there is going to be much doing until Spring; there have not been any wounded to speak of in our Army- Corps since November 5, and the 13 th Army- Corps next to us gets only a few. November ly: In Paris to purchase supplies and drive out a new car. Shopped all morning, and most of the afternoon, and then stopped in at the Majestic Hotel Hospital to see Joll, who is now in charge of it. He took me through the wards and showed me all the old patients whom I had left there six weeks ago. I don't know when I have felt so strongly as at seeing these men again. It was mar- vellous! Most of them were almost well, and all of them were far on the road to recovery. The boy with the side of his 148 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE face half gone, I did not know, when he spoke to me. The swelling had entirely disappeared, and he spoke as clearly as I do. JoU said the wound had nearly closed. Harry Bell looked like a different man. His leg was in a patent adjustable splint that Joll had recently invented, and was nearly well. Joll showed it to me in detail — an unusual but evidently effective device. Two spikes or nails were driven through the leg; one through the bone of the femur and the other through the joint of the knee, on each side of the fracture. Either a longitudinal or rotary movement could be accomplished by turnbuckles. There was no shortening of the leg at all now, whereas, when I left, the leg was be- tween two and two and a half inches shorter than the other. It is wonderful! Two head cases were up and walking HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 149 about the wards, and another man was pushing a chair. He spoke to me and I did not know him. It was the French soldier with the broken shoulder and the two bayonet wounds in the stomach that were discharging fecal matter, — now en- tirely well. vJTears came into my eyes as I shook his hand, I hadn't expected ever to see him alive again. The little English boy with the perforating wound of the left thorax had put on ten pounds and waved at me from across the room, as if he had never known what it was to be sick. Every other bed had a new face on it, and the men who had been there when I left, had got well and had been sent home. The last man I saw was the English Captain Seabrooke with the terrible leg, that I helped dress every day for two weeks. Joll said I would be surprised when I saw ISO THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE him; but I was hardly prepared for the rosy-cheeked, splendid looking fellow in the bed I had bent over so many times. He too had put on at least ten pounds. A lump came in my throat and I could hardly speak to him. The wound that they used to take a basin full of stuffing out of, is now only two inches long on each side. His wife was there, and she is going to take him back to England in a couple of weeks to walk again, within six months. It was a very impressive hour. There in front of the eyes of those men and women were the tangible results of the work that they had been faithfully doing, day and night for two months past; the realization of their training and toil. Suffering alle- viated, hearts gladdened, and limbs and lives saved. Can there be greater satisfac- tion in any vocation? HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 151 November 21: They have at last got a plumber from Montdidier to drain the cesspool at the east end of the house. It had overflowed into the cellar where it is four inches deep, under Ward No. i. I discovered this on November 14th, a week ago, and called attention to it then, but nothing has been done until to-day. Our drinking water comes from a twelve-foot well in the cellar fifty feet from this cesspool. There is also another cesspool fifty feet from it, on the north side of the house, and a waste drain- age well in the yard, fifty feet to the south. The soil is sandy and porous. Our drinking supply is, therefore, in the center of three waste wells at short distances from them; one of which is now overflowing. I con- sider this situation dangerous. Everything about this old place is filthy, and there is 152 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE no telling what the Germans did when they were here. November 22: Out of kerosene, coal and gasolene all at the same time. G. drains a couple of the other cars and is despatched to Com- piegne to replenish our supply. We run short simply because W. will not appoint anyone housekeeper, and therefore no one looks after these things. It is very annoying and unnecessary. November 2/1.: We ran out of coal again last night. G. had only bought five hundred pounds two days ago, and at nine o'clock at night, it was discovered that there wasn't another bit in the house! Steve and G. searched everywhere, but half a scuttleful was all they could get. It looked as if we shouldn't HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 153 get any breakfast in the morning, and there wouldn't be any fire in the furnace for the patients after midnight. The chef, wise man, had, however, fore- seen just such an emergency, and had hidden away enough coal for just one meal — about two scuttlesful. This he produced at the psychological moment, and the pa- tients and ourselves got a hot breakfast, although the furnace fire did go out. For- tunately, the cold snap has abated some- what, and the wards, although chilly, were not cold enough to be dangerous. November 26: Thanksgiving Day and busy all the day long with all sorts of odd jobs about the house. We are to have a big Thanksgiving dinner to-night, and M. and I made a big pitcher of apple toddy for the occasion. 154 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE Nearly everyone congregated in the medical supplies room in front of the fire, and the pitcher kept going the rounds for almost an hour before supper. At half past six we all went together to the kitchen for our Thanksgiving dinner which was mag- nificent. The chef outdid himself. B. had brought out two turkeys, which were specially selected for us by the head waiter at Maxim's. Toasts to Mr. and Mrs. Harjes and the chef were drunk, and the feast went off with great eclat, December j-8: Nothing of particular interest has hap- pened. Have seen Dill Starr of Phila- delphia who tells me he is going to join the British Army and will leave for London in a week. He is to be with one of the armored motors. 3 a> Wo HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 155 Last night there was a bit of domestic excitement. The chef got so drunk that he was hardly able to cook supper. I don't blame him a bit! The man has been under quite a strain for the past two months. He has been working sixteen hours a day, under very irritating circumstances and is nervous and upset. What ought to be done is to let the chef go to Paris for a week and have a good spree and change of scene. He has been on the job steadily since the beginning of October, doing work that is enough to drive anyone to drink. We don't want to fire him, and there is no necessity for it. If we keep him on, it will just mean repetitions of this sort of thing, until he gets it out of his system. I say let him go to Paris and get so soused that he won't want to do it again for six months. IS6 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE December I'j: I was talking to Offert last night, and he told me about how he got wounded. It was in the big advance on Andichy, in the early part of November. The story is characteristic of the infancry advance against entrenched positions in modern warfare. He said the men were ordered from their trenches about ten in the morn- ing, in broad daylight, and told to ad- vance. They got up and went toward the German position in extended order, with the usual interval of about five or ten feet, advancing by rushes. He said that they never saw a German; they never saw any smoke; they just walked into one continual hail of bullets and shrapnel. Most of the men did not even fire their guns off. There was nothing to shoot at. They kept on for some six hundred yards, and when they HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 157 had lost two thousand men, gave it up and came back. First got hit in the ankle. "That's enough for me," he said to himself, and seeing a dead horse fifteen yards away, thought, "If I can get behind that horse, I will be safe." lie tried to crawl there, but before he could, another bullet went through his spine. Of course he hasn't any chance. Complete paralysis below the waist, and he will die within a few months.* A wounded German was brought into Montdidier to-day, who had some dum-dum bullets in his pockets. He had split the points of each bullet halfway down, so that it would fly into pieces when it struck anything. They stood him up against the wall in short order. *He died about January isth. iS8 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE December i8: Mr. Benjamin R. Allison is the author of a stirring piece of poetry, which he com- posed on night duty last ni^ht. It is en- titled Just Call an Aide^ and is as follows : If there's anything Beneath the sun Thou would'st have done, Just call an Aide. If in the morn for any cause Thou would'st arise E'er darkness flies, Just call an Aide. Or in the morn if water warm Thou'st none to shave, Don't be dismayed, Just call an Aide. Then when the patients all are fed. Their faces washed, and made their bed, The floors all scrubbed, and backs all rubbed, The dressings made, the lunch-times come, And still there's something left undone. Just call an Aide. HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 159 Now, if a patient has colique And wants le Basin tres tres vite, What should he do? Just call an Aide. Or if the furnace fire is low And house gets cold, To make it go Just call an Aide. When Docs all sicken of their stunt Of exercising at the pump, And tank goes dry; what should they do? Just call an Aide. Or if there're bandages to burn, And the chauffeurs can't decide whose turn It is to do the job. Just call an Aide. And if the nurses want some wood, And cannot find their Mr. Goode, What must they do? Just call an Aide. Or if the chef should cook some meat Not fit for Soixante Quinze to eat, What? Waste it! No! Just call an Aide. i6o THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE Or when it's time to go to bed, And still a job there's left to do, Don't think that it is up to you — Instead Just call an Aide. Mr. Benjamin R. Allison also was this afternoon arrested as a German spy! Why? Oh, it was quite evident! He had his hair brushed like a German! Allison can't speak French and was marched down the streets of Montdidier between two soldiers, followed by a crowd of a hundred people. The fear of German spies has now reached such proportions, that the whole French na- tion is hysterical on the subject. Everyone is suspected of being a German spy! It would be as much as a man's life was worth now, to go into a restaurant and order beer and weiner schnitzel. He would probably be stood up in front of a firing squad, before he even had time to explain himself. 1 j^^^^ v^iissi -v r i 1 A lesson in knitting — and incidentally in French too. of these Algerians can talk only Arabic. Most HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS i6i December 2^-26: Nothing doing until Christmas Eve, when we had a very pleasant party. We had some apple toddy for everyone before supper and then we all visited the wards, which the nurses had decorated very nicely, and the quartette, consisting of Cleveland, Allison, Pyle and myself rendered a few Christmas carols, including "Old Black Joe" and "The Marseillaise." The pa- tients enjoyed it hugely — all of them coming in strong on the last mentioned. There was only one really sick man in the chateau, and he was by himself. The others are all more or less convalescent, and are a pretty jovial lot. After a fine dinner served at seven, instead of six, we went up to the sitting room where W. unveiled a little Christmas tree, that Mr. and Mrs. Harjes had sent us, which had i62 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE very nice presents for everyone hung on it. Christmas Day was not very different from other days, excepting for a fine mid- day dinner. In the afternoon Miss L., Miss MacC. and I took the little car out to distribute small packages of candy to the children in the neighborhood, but we had no sooner started, when an order came to get out three ambulances for Breteuil. We took twenty-one "malades" over there, and had supper in a small cafe, with a genial party of French soldiers and gendarmes; lib- eral hot grog (which we certainly needed) and good song. A very pleasant evening. February 7; I arranged yesterday to go out to spend a day in the lines near X, and left bright and early in the little car. Lieutenant Bufquin, his wife, and Miss MacCullagh, on Christmas Day, 1914. He had been hngenng between hfe and death for six weeks. Kidney perforated and spinal column grazed. Recovered and discharged. HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 163 At Gerbigny I met Captain Gain who was at our hospital. He commands the 155 m.m. battery in front of the town, and he took me all over the French positions. Gerbigny is not in the best of repair, as every few days a big German shell arrives there, but no one seems to care much. I was most agreeably surprised to find how well organized and equipped the French artillery and infantry are in that neighbor- hood. The artillery is all marvellously hidden — you can go within 50 meters of a battery of four pieces without seeing them. I do not believe the Germans have an idea where the majority of them are. Some of the guns have been in the same position for three months. The French, on the other hand, seem to have the German positions located. They have splendid maps which the aeroplanes make of their trenches and i64 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE batteries. The Germans are not in a very good position, being all on a more or less level plain, whereas the French are splen- didly placed. First we went to a battery of four 155 m.m. cannon which were behind a steep hill with a marsh in their rear. It would be almost impossible to put a shell on them unless it came down vertically. They either hit on the top of the hill, or go over it into the marsh where they usually fail to explode. The guns are beautifully hidden by curtains of brush- wood, trees, etc. They are pointed very high in the air, an angle of 40° giving them their maximum range. They are sighted by knowing the angle made by a fixed point on their flank, their own position and the enemy's battery; they sight on the fixed point and adjust the guns accordingly. From each gun runs quite an elaborate little HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 165 telephone system; It connects with every- thing, even wireless on the aeroplanes. This particular battery had seven "postes d'observation " to the front, which tele- phone them how their shells are going and correct their fire. We then went to a bat- tery of "120 m.m. long" cannon. They were in a wooded swamp and wonderfully hidden. You could stand within fifty yards of them, and not know there was anything there. This particular battery has been in position since November without the Ger- mans ever finding it. The quarters of the men were excellent, and they are very comfortable, well-made dug-outs and thatched shacks, and the insides perfectly dry. I was much impressed by the spirits of the men and their good condition; also their discipline; a sharp contrast to the slouchy reservists and stupid medical men 1 66 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE at the rear. I took a good many photo- graphs, and we spent some time talking to the soldiers. Went back to lunch at Gerbignv with Captain Gain and his two lieutenants — all of them intelligent and agreeable. They told me some amusing stories of life in the trenches. At points where the trenches are very close together, they shoot messages over to each other with bows and arrows, and when there was snow they threw snowballs at each other; said that in one small village there were trenches on each side of the main street occupied by the French and Germans, and that chickens used to come and feed between them, and that both sides would throw out grain to them, to try to make them come near enough to be caught. At one place they said that a calf came HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 167 walking along between the two lines. He was promptly transformed into a sieve. A German then jumped out of his trench waving a white handkerchief and ran for it, at which a Frenchman did the same thing. They both had a good-natured tussle for it and a boxing match, and finally ended up by cutting it in halves, and each taking a piece back to his comrades. Lieutenant Kula told me that In Belgium, they put their battery in a certain position and almost immediately the Germans located it and a dozen shells came right on top of them. They quickly moved to another place. The next morning bright and early, a dozen more shells landed within one hundred yards of them. *'Ah, mais c'etait tout a fait degoutant," said Kula. They had to move again. The next morning there was another i68 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE volley of shells right on the range! One of the men noticed a dead German lying on the field some distance from them and thought he saw him move. They investi- gated him. He was not dead nor wounded, and underneath him was a telephone! There he had been lying for three days correcting the fire of his friends. After lunch we again walked out along the river bottom toward Andichy, where the Ger- mans are, and inspected a new one hundred and fifty-five piece that had just been placed there to fire on a supply station that the Ger- mans had recently been working from. We then went up to a battery of four "soixante- quinze" guns, which were within two thousand yards of Andichy, or, rather, what is left of Andichy — for there is hardly a house standing. Throughout most of the afternoon there HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 169 was a general exchange of artillery fire, and while we were there the Germans fired upon us; we replied, and I found myself in the middle of a real battle. Our battery was wonderfully hidden in a little ravine and had only been in position four days. It was just on the crest of a rise and hard to get at. The German battery we were at- tending to was in a small apple orchard just on the edge of Andichy. We could see their position easily. It was direct fire. There was no question about the su- periority of the marksmanship, and the greater effectiveness of the shells of the French battery. They poured shells into those Germans so fast, that they did not know whether they were going or coming; they can shoot twenty-six a minute with these guns and there were four of them. Four times twenty-six is one hundred and 170 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE four, so it can be imagined what it was like. They say it is the best light field piece in the world. The recoil of these seventy-five millimeter guns is so perfectly absorbed by a special hydro-pneumatic cylinder, that it never has to be repointed after the first shot. They can stand a full glass of water on the wheel when they are firing, and not spill a drop. The German seventy-seven millimeter guns on the other hand jump slightly at each shot and have to be repointed. They can only fire six to seven shots a minute. We would fire steadily for ten seconds or so, and then stop and see what had happened. The Germans, I don't believe had more than two guns, and did not seem to be good shots. At any rate our volleys of shells made their fire very wild; some of their shots missed us by three hundred yards, and the HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 171 closest they ever got was about one hundred yards. Their shells all exploded upon im- pact, and were not much good anyway. They were loaded only with ordinary powder and were not powerful. When they exploded they just sent up a little cloud of blue smoke, like an ordinary rock blasting charge, whereas the French shells, loaded with melinite, sent a column of black smoke fifty feet into the air, and tore up every- thing around them. Our first shot sent a tree down over one of the German pieces. At the end of three-quarters of an hour the German fire was silenced. I don't know what we accomplished. All I do know is that I should have hated to be in that orchard, where they were. The Germans are now using aluminum to make the screw heads for their shells. They are short of copper over there and have been requisl- 172 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE tioning it everywhere. I picked up some pieces, and the officers told me about it. Afterwards we sneaked up along the side of a hill and got up on a ridge to the right where we were about one thousand and two hundred yards from the German trenches; one could see wonderfully from that point, — the trenches of both sides right in front of us with both batteries firing and the shells bursting. There are about six hundred yards between the French and German trenches here. The German infantry, how- ever, saw us and kept shooting at us, so we had to get out after a few minutes. The men's quarters and commissary are wonderful; regular underground palaces, with sculpture of "Guillaume le Cochon" and Queens from Montmartre done in mud, that ought to go in the Louvre after the war is over. HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 173 I was much impressed again by the good spirits of the men and their condition and healthy look. "Oui, ils sont tres gais dans les tranchees," said the captain; and they are I The officers' quarters, general mess, ravi- taillement, etc., are just around the corner of the hill where the "soixante-quinze" bat- tery was; they again are almost impossible to hit, unless a shell is dropped vertically on them. The shells either land on the crest of the hill or else just miss, and go two hundred yards into the valley below. They have been there for three months and the place is like an Adirondack summer resort. They live in luxury. Brick walks, flowers, terraces, rustic benches, etc. The Commandant has a little Italian pergola which he has biiilt out of odds and ends of stuffs, a telephone, an iron bedstead, and, in fact, everything 174 THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE that goes to make life comfortable, and right over the crest of the hill, fifty yards from his house, are big holes from the shells in every direction. I talked to the Commandant and some of his officers and they again were intelli- gent and very agreeable. During the afternoon I saw a couple of men working in the field when a shell dropped fifty yards from them. They just looked up at it and then continued with their work. I stayed out there until it was dark, and then went back and took my automobile for Montdidier. It was a most interesting day, and the captain said that I was very lucky to see so much firing. All the way between X and Y there are secondary trenches all ready for the artillery, bomb proof, etc. The impression that I carried away with me was good. HARJES AMBULANCE CORPS 175 I was also surprised and pleased to find that the Germans were not so terrible as I had thought. The defence of modern warfare is so much stronger than the offence that it is simply suicide to advance, but generally- speaking the French seem to be the stronger, here at X. I should say they could hold the Germans indefinitely. Modern warfare is a good deal more a question of ammunition and equipment, than of men. A couple of machine guns in a trench are as good as a regiment. How long it will last, is not for me to say; it seems to be an absolute standoflF all along the western front. Some social, or economic development, I believe will be more likely to end it, than actual fighting. Printed in the United States of America. *HE following pages contain advertisements of Macmillan books on kindred subjects. The Pentecost of Calamity By OWEN WISTER Author of "The Virginian," etc. Boards, i6mo, 50 cents The author of "The Virginian" has written a new book which describes, more forcibly and clearly than any other account so far published, the meaning, to America, of the tragic changes which are taking place in the hearts and minds of the German people. Written with ease and charm of style, it is prose that holds the reader for its very beauty, even as it impresses him with its force. It is doubtful whether there will come out of the entire mass of war literature a more understanding or sug- gestive survey. "Owen Wister has depicted the tragedy of Germany and has hinted at the possible tragedy of the United States. . . . We wish it could be read in full by every American." — The Outlook. Russia and the World By STEPHEN GRAHAM Author of "With the Russian Pilgrims to Jerusalem," "With Poor Immigrants to America," etc. Illustrated, cloth, 8vo, $2.00 At the outbreak of the present European war Mr. Graham was in Russia, and his book opens, therefore, with a descrip- tion of the way the news of war was received on the Chinese frontier, one thousand miles from a railway station, where he happened to be when the Tsar's summons came. Following this come other chapters on Russia and the War, considering such questions as, Is It a Last War?, Why Russia Is Fighting, The Economic Isolation of Russia, An Aeroplane Hunt at Warsaw, Suffering Poland: A Belgium of the East, and The Soldier and the Cross. "It shows the author creeping as near as he was allowed to the firing Une." — London Times. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PubUshers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York A Journal of Impressions in Belgium By may SINCLAIR Author of "The Three Sisters," "The Return of the Prodigal," etc. Cloth^ i2mo, $1.50 Here is recorded the story of the effect of the war on the celebrated English novelist. Miss Sinclair went to the front with a field ambulance corps and in this journal she tells what her impressions were of the things she saw and experienced. It is not so much a war book as it is a May Sinclair book, the revelation of the mental condition which the ter- rible conflict produced upon one of the great literary minds of the day. The journal covers the most tragic period of the invasion, the seventeen days between Septem- ber 25th and October 13, 1914. Miss Sinclair in her introduction says, "Each day of the seventeen had its own quality and was soaked in its own at- mosphere; each had its own unique and incor- ruptible memory. ... I have set down the day's crude emotion in all its crudity, rather than taint its reality with the discreet reflections that came after." THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York With the Russian Army By ROBERT R. McCORMICK Illustrated, i2mo, $2.00 This book deals with the author's experiences in the war area. The work traces the cause of the war from the treaty of 1878 through the Balkan situation. It contains many facts drawn from per- sonal observation, for Major McCormick has had opportunities such as have been given to no other man during the present engagements. He has been at the various headquarters and actually in the trenches. One of the most interesting chapters of the volume is the concluding one dealing with great personalities of the war from first-hand acquaintance. The work contains a considerable amount of material calculated to upset generally accepted ideas, comparisons of the fighting forces, and much else that is fresh and original. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PubUshers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York The Military Unpreparedness of the United States By FREDERIC L. HUIDEKOPER Maps, 8vo, $4.00 Preparedness is one of the vital issues of the day. It will be a vital issue in years to come. No unin- formed person has a right to hold opinions, whether antagonistic or confident, as to the policies of his government. Frederic Louis Huidekoper of Wash- ington, who is perhaps the foremost authority on military topics in the United States, has written a book, "The MiUtary Unpreparedness of the United States," which is an authoritative commentary on the history of the United States Army from Colonial times to the present, with expert analysis of the tactical significance of the handling of the forces in the field and of the military policy of the govern- ment. Historians of former wars have placed em- phasis on the glories of our victories; there have been but few courageous truth-seekers to draw lessons from our defeats. Mr. Huidekoper has been studying our military blunders with a view to the measures which are necessary to prevent them in the future. " The author has performed potentially one of the greatest services to the nation that lie within mortal power. His knowledge of the subject is encyclopedic. His logic is impregnable and irresistible. His facts are beyond con- troversy. We could wish that every American citizen who is intellectually capable of thought and reason and who is morally capable of patriotism might carefully read and ponder every word of this book." — New York Tribune, THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue N^w Yock Deacidified using the Bookkeeper pro< NeutraJizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: ^fj^ 2Dtt PreservationTechnologi A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRBSERVA 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066