Chapter III: Part I: With the Roosevelt Hospital Unit (2)

Some officers came over with the baseball team from Gondrecourt. They are a fine-looking lot of men. They are as disgusted with their lot as we are with ours. Everything is apparently at sixes and sevens, but at least they are apparently having much more activity and are able to move about the country and see things. I am terribly keen to be transferred into a Field Ambulance.

The Chaumont question is all up a tree. Apparently the French are not willing to turn the buildings over to us. At first they say, "Come on and we will do all in our power," then when you come, the path is strewn with every kind of petty annoyance.

I felt very proud of the United States to-day when I saw the Gondrecourt crowd. They certainly were a bully looking lot.

_August 14th._ My birthday. Rain. Yesterday we motored over in the ambulances to Bezoisir where Finney is located with Base 18. He is a delightful man and I enjoyed a nice little chat with him. He is much disgruntled, both personally and on the situation as a whole. In the first place he is at odds with ---- ----, and in the second place, the whole organization is all at sea. He thinks the Government is sending over hospitals in greater number than there is any immediate demand for; that they are furnished with no adequate quarters and given no work. In the third place, Finney thinks that the whole system is wrong; that where the best results are to be accomplished is close to the firing line, where the cases can be seen comparatively early; that there should be less handling and transportation of the wounded. The French are already trying to do this by cutting out some of their clearing hospitals.

We lunched at Neufchâteau, a small town of about, I should say, five thousand inhabitants, very charmingly situated in the valley with a small stream--I think the Meuse--running through it. We visited one very picturesque old church on a high rock. There was some military activity in the town, as it was on the main line. We also saw some German prisoners working with an armed guard.

In the afternoon played some tennis and then we gave the French officers a return champagne and cake supper. A terrible ordeal. I struggled with Genevet, who is the best appearing of the lot. He was sick and hard to talk to, and I simply could not squeeze any French out. After we got started the men came in and sang. The hotel guests were tremendously interested in this and crowded into the room to watch us. The men let it go in good old college fashion, and I am sure they regarded us as a lot of semi-maniacs, although they all enjoyed it hugely.

_August 15th._ Stillman, Russell and James gave me a fine birthday dinner at the Grand last night. It was mighty nice of them and we all had a good time. We opened up with sherry and bitters, Burgundy and two bottles of "fiz" and came home feeling comfortable. Old Mc was in bed. We pretended we were drunk and he dressed us down. In spite of the extra liquid, woke up feeling in fine form. Sunshine with tropical showers, but it is getting colder all the time. Great excitement to-day; we are going to Gondrecourt to hear a lecture on war surgery by Major Claude Bernard. We arrived there at three p. m. via Neufchâteau, then about fifteen miles further on to G. A dirty, sloppy little village simply packed with troops. On the road over, just as we were coming in, a tropical downpour, which was followed by brilliant sunshine five minutes later.

Gondrecourt is simply packed with men, geese and chickens. All seemed tumbling one over the other. All the officers and men that can be are billeted on the town, and consequently the little courts have improvised tables and racks for guns and accouterments. Besides, the 6th Ambulance Company has division hospitals. On the outskirts other regiments are encamped. We did not go outside the town, so did not see the latter.

Claude Bernard spoke in English. He was a clean-cut Frenchman of the best type, with a sense of humor. He spoke of the best disposition to make of the wounded. Experience is teaching them over here that the nearer the front the main hospital is, the greater its efficiency. It seems ridiculous that our best men should remain in the rear only for the old cases, while the younger and less experienced should have all the real work. Our Government is discussing breaking up or reorganizing our present system, and very logically so. It means three to four stages for a wounded man, whereas, if he can be received within twelve hours in a field hospital, there ought to be 80 per cent. better results. At least, so says Bernard.

My great fear is that we shall be broken up and that I will be sent inland to take care of a lot of uninteresting sick. And I want to see the real thing and not sit back twisting my thumbs.

On the way back we stopped at Domremy, the town where Jeanne d'Arc was born, and saw the little church where she made her First Communion. In a park right across the way is an old house with the upper story done over, which is supposed to be her home. It is a museum with busts and pictures of her. I doubt if any of the original house is standing, for in the wall is a small, worm-eaten bit of timber covered over with wire netting, which is apparently all that remains of the original structure. The church is of the simple village type without anything of special interest, other than its historical association.

We made rapid time home and got back in time to brush off some dust before dinner. Peck told me to-night that I would be sent up in advance to start the mess at Chaumont. This probably means Saturday or Sunday.

Higgins broke his leg yesterday. Haberman, the man with the pneumothorax, is no better to-day. They had the priest in yesterday.

_August 19th._ How can I tell all that has happened in the past three days? I left Vittel two days ago in the ambulance with four sick men on stretchers and a nurse. We jogged along through pleasant country, via Neufchâteau to here, where we arrived at about three thirty p.m.--fifty-three miles or thereabout. The country is charming, but cold stone barracks like prison cells, a great bare court over which dust swirls in clouds, covering the clothes, hands and face--in five minutes boots and gaiters are white--it drifts through into the rooms, covering beds and furniture and clothes. And then a blazing, dazzling sun, fairly blinding as it is reflected from the white earth. Only one little scrap of green can be seen in the whole surroundings, and that is toward the west. We are in the new Artillery Barracks, which, since the beginning of the war, have been partially used as a hospital. We are taking it over in part from the French, with the understanding that later we will be in whole charge.

The country itself is beautiful. Situated as we are on the crest of a hill, by going outside the compound on the east and west is an extensive view, stretching away for miles over the valley on each side.

Well, I arrived here and all was chaos. We got some beds up, and I slept in a large cell alone, without a hook to hang anything on. No toilet or bathing facilities. Chaumont is two kilometers away, and if one were marooned on a desert island the isolation could not be greater. My job is the mess--always the mess. No kitchens except the general ones. No sinks, but I scratched around. We buy through the French. The endeavor is to keep down the prices.

The rest of the crowd turned up late last night, and we pulled off a good dinner in spite of many difficulties. Our same crowd is together again.

Captain Edmond Schwander, formerly an apothecary de première classe, is the Quartermaster in charge of the barracks. He is a real live proposition, and seems to be a mighty nice fellow.

Now we have the job of fitting up our rooms for the ordinary conveniences of life. Also, it is up to me to get maids to take care of them.

I took two meals at the French officers' mess. It was most amusing. A little room over an apothecary shop in town. I cannot describe the scene, but it was reminiscent of some of the scenes from "Trilby." The room was plastered in posters--some proper and some more improper--and the conversation was equally mixed. I was sorry to leave them and come out here.

We walk at least two hundred yards for our baths, across the court in full view of an admiring crowd--and here is when I take my first one.

_August 20th._ Mess! Mess! Mess! All is mess! New Job! Care of officer's quarters. Boss of four old ladies, three teeth among them--one has none--total sum of ages--four hundred years.

Telegram calling Peck and Russell to French front to observe. In town with the motor-cycle to do some shopping. Home! The orchestra is pounding away with a vengeance, surrounded by an admiring crowd of invalids--some healthy ones.

Broke the crystal on my nice little watch--otherwise, life a blank. No sensations except hunger. No emotions except disgust.

The French officers gave our officers a champagne breakfast at eleven a.m. this morning from which all returned in genial spirit. Such is life in Chaumont.

_August 24th._ Back to barracks after three days' absence. Monday last they brought in fifteen hundred patients in the twenty-four hours. Jim Russell and Peck had gone, and finally, in sheer desperation, I got on one of the ambulances and rode in to town. They were just finishing unloading and Peightel was talking through an interpreter with the Médecin Chef in charge of the train. The Médecin was asking him if he could not make a trip with him and personally see the hospital at the front. Trinder was standing by and thought it would be a good thing, but was sure that Hansell could not put it through. I told him I would go with him. Trinder said, "Go and see what Hansell will say." So back we rushed. Hansell, like a trump, said "Yes." So back we went over the bumpy old road, pitch dark, and found some "big gun" Major, who telephoned to St. Dozier, the military headquarters of the zone of the interior. Got permission, then walked back, threw a few things in a valise and carried it between us to Chaumont Station. It was about eleven o'clock then and everything had pretty well settled down for the night. We found the Commissaire de Gare was expecting us, and he had written out for us directions or orders to proceed to St. Dozier and report to the Commissaire Regulatrice, and she had been informed of our coming and would tell us what to do.

After many vicissitudes, as daylight was just breaking, the train pulled out, and about an hour later when we reached Robert Espagne the sun was coming up over the hilltop, the little town lay below in the valley with the mist still hanging over the river. On the right, explosions were heard, which we later found were from a party of recruits practising bombing. From the same hill two years ago the 6th Division of Artillery made a stand and drove back the Germans in their drive on Bar-le-Duc. If they had cut that line and taken Bar-le-Duc it would have divided the French Army. This was in the days of the Marne. The old Guard Communal, whom we met on the road, told us in a most vivid and simple manner how the Boche shells were pouring over the woods and how the French stood their ground. Later he went out and found a German flag.

Beyond Robert Espagne we were in the zone of the active army--miles of wagon trains going both ways and smothered in a cloud of dust. At Rivigny we entered on the military railroad, the regular line to Verdun having been cut on the Verdun drive. Also a little later we caught constant glimpses of the Voie Saire on the road that supplied Verdun after the railroad had been cut. There were still thousands of motor-trucks going both ways. Now and then soldiers' graves dotted the fields or lay along the lines of the railroad. The French had a helmet hanging on the cross, the Boche a little wooden fencing around it, which will soon break down and mean that many a poor chap will lie in an unknown grave in foreign soil. At Rivigny, or just beyond, here and there a half-destroyed village, or perhaps just the church. It seemed always the church that was marked.

At Évers the village was practically wiped out.

Then as we approached Fleury toward sunset the air was alive with aerial activity. Planes were constantly flying one way or the other. The French can tell the difference between their machines and the Boche, by the hum of the motors. And now as far as the eye can reach, a long line of observation balloons. We could easily see twelve or fifteen, and as the train pulled in there was a terrific bombing, with dozens of little balls of white smoke in the clouds and a dozen aeros circling in that vicinity. The men cried "bloins," which meant that there was a Boche plane trying to get through.

The air was dead calm. The cotton balls slowly turned from white to black and then faded away. Suddenly a burst of flame which shot precipitately to earth, and murmurs of delight from the officers standing about. The Boche had been winged and fallen to earth.

We went through the hospital. I was not much interested. Salle de Tirage, where the cases were sorted--Salle d'Opération--Salle du Stérilisation--Salle du Pansement et Tisane. But it was all dealing with wreckage, and one wanted to go on and up where men were living and doing.

As dusk came on, flash, flash, some small, some large. Great blasts from a Vulcan's furnace that lit the skyline from horizon to horizon, and through the still night the constant purr drifted back.

The motors kept pouring back from the front, each with a load; driver covered with dust, its contents a mass of dust, grimed and plastered on, often with blood, but the eyes flashed--for they had been _there_.

Captain Félix Melin was shot through the shoulder circling the right side of Hill 304. His arm was in a sling, his coat hung about his shoulders, blood spattered down trousers and over suspenders, but he was the Real Thing. Several men of his Company file down the gangway into the train--soldiers of the 9th Company of the 303rd Regiment--they were his men and he had led them! A handshake and a pat on the back were waiting for each man. From all the line of wreckage--tired, weary men--never one word of complaint, but on all sides friends met, or members of the same command met and compared experiences. Many were going back for the second, third and fourth time--all had been out in the heart of things, and were coming back for repairs to make the trip again.

Finally we got our load and started back, but just before leaving, the cry of "Boche Aéroplane" was heard. All lights went out. The plane passed over us, then we went crawling back with our load. St. Dozier again, Montdidier, Brienne. There the men were fed meat, bread, wine and cheese. Piney, Troyes and Mesgrigny, where they were all discharged. It was with much regret that I saw Melin go, and his Lieutenant Broule. They were the best.

Then back to Troyes where we gave Major Costacy and his Adjutant Aubert a dinner at the hotel, and opened a bottle of "fiz." I proposed drinking it with dinner, but they seemed horrified with the idea and said it was for dessert only. So we had white wine first and then "fiz." They enjoyed it and mellowed out. It improved my French tremendously, and when we had finished dinner and gone across the street to the Café for coffee, I was talking fluently on war, petticoats, and soaring prices. However, we all walked out to the train, two kilos outside the town, singing the "Madelon." We climbed into our little compartment which seems like home now.

The Adjutant Aubert--I can't describe him. But to me he was fascinating and I could not keep my eyes off him. A face like Christ, with a full beard, even white teeth, a calm, serene face, but with an eye that flashed hell-fire when he spoke. Ten years in Algeria, through all the North African campaigns, and covered with a mass of decorations. Cora seemed the only thing in life he cared for. Cora was a fox-terrier picked up in the streets of Chaumont and Cora was everything to him. She followed him everywhere, slept on his bed, and he watched over her like a baby.

During the night we pulled into Joinville and then into Chevillon, where the train pulled into a siding for further orders. We took the train back to Chaumont and came down through a beautiful valley into the town, arriving just in time for lunch at the France. Then back to barracks. Jim and Peck had returned and we exchanged experiences, which were about the same.

Trinder and Hansell have gone to Paris for their examinations for promotion. I spoke to Hansell about being transferred to a regiment, and he said he would try and arrange it. I want to get into the real thing and be with real men, and not sitting around here just taking care of sick people.

_August 27th._ Life has settled down to the same old routine. A violent thunder-storm last night, but fine and clear and much cooler to-day. The weather has been fine now for the past ten days.

Hansell and Trinder are coming back to-night and we are preparing a spread for them--cocktails, sweet champagne. I have been tearing all over town to find some gin, which I finally accomplished at la maison of M. Henry, who was well stocked with every kind of wine.

There has been a lot of kick about the food. The men seem to be always hungry--an enormous breakfast and then howls for more lunch--then tears when the bill comes. I had a meeting two nights ago and told them they could have what they wanted, but they would have to pay for it. They finally voted a French breakfast, which began this morning. I did not come down till late, but I was told they were a doleful lot. However, they will get used to it later. Nothing but housekeeping. It takes from two to three hours to get the work straightened out.

_August 30th._ The dinner was quite a success. Every one limbered up, and laughter, loud and plenty, was the order of the night. Since then nothing worthy of note.

At last I have an orderly and he is working on my books. And perhaps life will now be pleasanter.

_September 3rd._ The golden morning sun came pouring in the window this morning and Trinder came smashing in the door at six thirty a. m. demanding the key of the storeroom.

Yesterday we took a nice walk, climbing the heights on the west bank of the Marne.

I went to Colonel Hansell this morning and asked permission to resign from the job of the mess. He immediately granted my request. To-night at dinner he made a very pretty little speech, thanking me for my work under very trying circumstances and calling for three cheers for the retiring mess officer, which were given with a hearty good will. It was a most courteous thing, and I was deeply touched. What a relief to have the thing off my shoulders!

I walked to town with my wash and felt like a boy out of school. Cave joined me and we went down to the new headquarters. Everything was humming with activity. Tents line the road on both sides. Motors and motorcycles are flying in all directions. Engineers stringing wires and newly-made majors swaggering about, greatly impressed with their own importance, all looking very debonair and rather foolish. They are rather a fine-looking lot on the whole, the Western type easily predominating.

We lunched peacefully at the Hotel France.

Peck told me Bradley had asked for teams to go to the front for a two weeks' tour of duty and McWilliams had chosen me as a team mate. Hurrah!

_September 13th._ Haven't written. Little to write about. The evening of the 10th, Kildare and I walked along the canal to a little town called Luzy. There we made a find in the form of a nice, good-natured, well-nourished woman who keeps a little restaurant near the station. She cooked us a good omelet with potatoes and salad, with plenty of bread and good butter. Eating it in the court in front of the house, it was all right, and fired me with a sporting spirit of adventure and a bit of life in the open away from all this chaos and turmoil. So, on returning, I proposed to the room that we take a walking trip. Henry James was the only one who took me up and so the next morning, having obtained permission, we started with no definite destination other than to get lunch at Luzy with Madame and then push on to any old place.

Madame at Luzy told us that Nogent-la-Haute was an interesting old town about fifteen kilometers away, so we started off with full stomachs to reach it. We strolled along the canal with its sides lined with beautiful Lombardy poplars. The afternoon was hot, but, other than an occasional fisherman who never seemed to catch anything, there were no signs of life alongside the canal. The Marne babbled over the stones, here and there turning a water-wheel, and great gray cattle grazed peacefully in the meadows, and we breathed a deep breath of freedom, and joy of the open road crept into my bones. It seemed once again that care and responsibility had rolled away and that I was a boy with nothing to do but to wander where the spirit willed.

Then an idea struck us. How nice it would be to board a canal-boat and just idle along with it. But none came. Then a plan for taking a train and going to Belfort and from there out to the French, but at the station the timetable said the last train that day had gone, and then again the distance was given as one hundred and fifty-four kilometers, much too far in the short time at our disposal. So finally it was decided, at Faulein, to take the little narrow-gauge road to Nogent-la-Haute. So narrow-gauge it was; and it puffed up hill for twelve kilometers to a snug little village perched on a high rock surrounded with gardens and the biggest pine-trees I have ever seen. The tower of an old castle spoke of seigneurial days when "barons held their sway."

I looked forward to a nice, quiet, cozy little dinner and a good sleep and a morning's loaf, strolling about the town to the wonderful view from the great precipitous height on the west. But nothing of the sort. As we descended from the train a dozen urchins cried, "Les Américains!" and in half the time it takes to write it, a dozen more sprang up, taking up the cry, so that walking along the main street there was a troop of urchins crowding about us and from the windows heads appeared, the whole town coming to life. The urchins ran into the hotel and told Madame "les Américains" were on the threshold. Madame rushed out all a-flutter and courtesied us in. Mother and sister courtesied. Were we spending the night? Did we eat? We assured her we ate and were spending the night. Then, what would we eat and where would we eat it? This latter point was unfortunately settled by the chief permanent boarder, acting as a delegate and asking the honor of having us join them. There was no alternative. We simply had to dine with them, and we marched bravely in.

Talk! My God! My God! There was no end to it! Words rolled out in avalanches. Special brands of red wine were ordered, coffee, liqueurs--but always talk. Now, if you are not a professor of the French language and you are tired after a day's tramp, and if it is up to you to appear half intelligent (for James was lucky enough not to speak a word of French and so it was up to me), it is exhausting. Those moments were like sitting on a chair and having hot needles stuck all over one's body.

Talk! Talk! The war! Every one had a son or brother, or at least a brother-in-law, killed or wounded. We were doctors, so a minute account of their deaths or how they acted after they were wounded. Then what the war had done to them, and what they had done to the war. Then politics. What America would do. How independent the Americans were. They smoked cigarettes with their meals. They only smoked them half through, etc., etc., etc.

It seems we were the first Americans since one Gillette, of safety-razor fame, had established a factory there some twelve years ago. Gillette! Gillette! We heard all about razors till I wished Gillette shaved into fragments. We must see the factory in the morning. We must visit Collin's surgical instrument emporium.

At seven thirty in the morning they were on the job, but we stayed in our room and watched the market going on in the public square.

_September 14th._ A fine driving rain and a beautiful cold in the head, and all the rooms have a dampness that drives to the bone. Finished my twenty-four hours as O. D. at nine this morning--nothing happened.

_September 16th._ Time drags interminably. It is a glorious day, but absolutely nothing to do, either in the way of play or work. I feel as if my brain were jellifying, or that if something did not happen I must simply run away. Army life! It squeezes every inch of individuality out of a man. Its rules are those of the Medes and Persians, and no blue-black Presbyterian could be more strict in their observance. In the fighting line it is all right, but in the "administering angel" job it is Hell.

The men are playing baseball and the Frenchmen Rugby football. James, Cave and myself lunched at the France, but it was deadly. The streets contain only old women with few teeth and look bedraggled out of all proportion.

_September 20th._ Tuesday night Kilbane and I dined at the Signal Corps quarters. They are in the Château of Chaumont, down under the hill. It is a wonderful little place, resplendent with a hundred memories, for the place was built by Louis XV for a hunting lodge, and, to all appearances, remains unchanged to-day. It is built on a court, only two stories high, and much of the old fittings still remain. The garden is overgrown with weeds and the flowers are sadly neglected, but in spite of everything one's imagination harks back to former times, for the atmosphere is all there. As we were shown around by Major Dodd it seemed almost sacrilegious to turn it over to the unappreciative hands of officers.

Colonel Churchill was the Commanding Officer. He impressed me very much as a gentleman and a personality of much charm.

_September 24th._ Two glorious autumn days with wonderful sunrises and sunsets. Only small bunches of clouds are appearing, which in all probability means trouble for tomorrow.

Everybody is getting very restless and unless something happens to break the calm tranquillity of the daily routine, something is going to blow up. Saturday the officers played the Johns Hopkins unit at Bazoirs and, although they were beaten, they came back full of enthusiasm over the good times they had and the hospitality shown them.

Last night a telegram saying, "War Department offers you commission gastro-enterologist, rank Captain, base hospital here. Only thirty-two appointments. Will you accept if transfer possible. Cable immediately." I answered, "Prefer France."

I do not want to leave now because, in spite of the awful waste in time and money, the game is just beginning, and I want to see it through.

There is a rumor that Brewer will be here for lunch. I hope so, as it means a little news of what is going on around us. Steiner and I are planning to go to Troyes for Saturday night for a bit of a change.

_September 25th._ Brewer arrived about noon and after lunch recounted his adventures at the front. They were exciting and they all had narrow squeaks. He was on the British lines East of Ypres and while he was there the Evacuation Hospital was bombed three times.

Darrach was asked to join in a poker game one night. He said he was tired and did not want to play as he had been operating all day, but they kept urging him and as he was ahead of the game he finally consented. They had not been playing fifteen minutes when there was a terrific crash. Darrach went out to see what had happened and found a bomb had fallen squarely on his tent. Nothing remained but a few fragments of his overcoat; there was a hole six feet deep and about ten feet in diameter.

A few moments later, when Brewer was in bed, a second crash followed by a shower of fragments. He rushed out and was told some of his nurses were hurt. A bomb had fallen right in front of the kitchen, blowing it to splinters. A fragment had struck Miss McDonald, his former operating nurse, just below the right eye, and fragments of shell wounded two others. There were seventy people wounded that night.

He then went on to recount many little instances of life in an Evacuation Hospital. How the officers finally dug themselves in. They did not like to do it at first, as they were all new at the game and no one wanted to show that he was nervous. They heard Boche avions passing overhead frequently, and at those times they would climb in the dugouts. O---- had a narrow escape. They heard bombs in the neighborhood. He rushed in his tent for his helmet. His servant was there and as soon as they found it they both rushed out. As they ran along, the servant about twenty feet in advance, crash--and the servant was wafted off the face of the earth.

All day and all night shells were passing over them. Also he told us an authentic story of one of his patients who was wounded in a charge, the wound proving to be a compound fracture of the thigh. He crawled into a shell-hole where he met another man with a compound fracture of the arm. They remained there using their rations and water. Then the man with the arm crawled out and brought in food and water from the dead that were lying about them. And so they existed until the forty-ninth day. On that night the arm man failed to return and was never seen again. So the leg man waited two more days, catching some water in his helmet, and then realized he must get out or starve. So starting in the direction in which he knew the British lines to be, he crawled across no-man's-land when, to his surprise, he came up to a trench and found it filled with Germans. He then realized that this trench had been built while he was lying out there and to get home he must cross it. So he waited for a time, until a moment when there were no Germans near him, and jumped it landing on his good leg. Crawling further he at last arrived in front of his own trench where he was seen and a big fusillade opened. He escaped this and finally by yelling in English they realized it was one of their own men and he was taken in. This was after fifty days. Brewer states the story has been corroborated in all details and is true.

Stillman has sent McWilliams a letter in which he says there are altogether too many shells flying around and very little to do.

I am looking forward to the day when we will get up there and see some of these things for ourselves.

Later the order came. It reads that we report in Paris at nine a. m., Saturday, September 29th, report to the 2nd Army, British Expeditionary Force for a period of fourteen days.

_September 27th._ _Paris._ McWilliams and I came on last night, leaving Chaumont at five thirty reaching here ten p. m. The city was better illuminated than the last time I was here. We are stopping at the Continental Hotel--not as nice as the Ritz and more expensive. The breakfast room here this morning was filled with ambulance drivers, doctors and nurses.

Called on Henry Clews and Lillie Havemeyer. Both out.

Paris to-day looked actually down at the heel.

_September 28th._ The following medical clinics are held at Paris: Heart Diseases--Hop. St. Antoine Vacquez; General Medicine--Hop. Cochin Vidal; General Medicine--Hop. Cochin Chauffard.

Lunch with Lillie Havemeyer. Called on Dorziat and met General Brook, who is a son of Lord Warwick. D. asked him to give me letters to some of the officers with the Second Army Corps, which he has promised to do.

Last night was a real party. McW. and I started out for dinner, met two British officers at Henry's bar. We had a few, and then went around to Géney's for dinner. It was fine. We all sat down in a little room. Dinner was served at seven thirty to all. There were several very nice girls in the party and we had a very jolly evening.

Dined with Henry Clews to-night.

_September 29th._ Reported at nine a. m. at Medical Headquarters, 10 Rue Ste. Anne, and there got our orders. We leave at one fifteen for Amiens. Spend the night there. The following morning proceed to Albert, arriving at six fifty-five a. m. There report to the Liaison Officer at Headquarters, 2nd British Army, and then to Director of Medical Service at the same place. A pass has been issued to us and so we are all ready for whatever comes.

Saw Pool and Colonel Winter, who was very cordial. Now to pack and lunch.

We packed up, caught one fifteen train, and a few minutes before six p. m. pulled into Amiens.--On July 30th, 1914, Helen and I spent the night here and met Sir Seymour King in the Hotel Rhin. How well he conceived the magnitude of the whole thing. That evening after dinner he said, "This will be a veritable Armageddon, in which you will be eventually involved." And here we are now after three years and two months.

McWilliams and I dined at the Hotel Rhin and sat in the garden. How memories come back. The dinner was poor and the price high.

Just before dinner we visited the Cathedral. The carving on the outside and inside is piled high with sandbags and was invisible. There were absolutely no lights in Amiens and the streets were simply crowded with Tommies. We managed to get a nasty room in the Belford near the station.

_September 30th._ We were called at four forty-five a. m. after a horrible night of little sleep from screeching railroad whistles, and in the dark hurriedly shaved and dressed. The porter brought a cup of coffee and slice of bread, for which they had the nerve to charge two francs. Then carrying our own bags we started for the station. In spite of the early hour the place was crowded, both with military and civilians. It was pitch black, but the train was found and we all piled in and started for Albert. As day dawned a thick mist prevented any range of vision, but just before reaching Albert it began to lift and ruins of villages, or villages partly in ruins, could be seen. Then the train pulled in.

The station was full of shell-holes, in fact, half demolished--but we stored our baggage in a shed and started down the street to find the Liaison Officer. But the city was in ruins. The walls were pockmarked by machine-gun fire and only about one in ten habitable. And then as we turned a street corner we saw the Cathedral, or rather the shell of what it once was. From the top of the shell-shattered tower the Virgin and Child were suspended at right angles, the Child extending far out. As the mist lifted the sun struck the gilding. It was like a miracle and one fairly gasped. We were all much impressed and somewhat awed, for there was silence for some minutes afterward.

The Cathedral was totally destroyed, only the four walls and tower standing, and large holes through all the walls. For blocks around there, no houses were left standing and only a block of stone and a few piles which marked doorstep and entrance hall. Some houses had no roofs and some roofs had no house, but remained suspended when all the remaining structure had gone. It was like wandering through some recently excavated city.

At Albert one first comes in contact with English efficiency and there is only one word to express it, and that is "Marvelous." The gaping windows and doorways of shattered houses are wired across to keep out marauders. The streets are fairly polished, signs posted in English--regarding roads, officers' quarters and different staff traffic guards, but above all, one is amazed at the wonderful neatness and order.

After wandering about for about an hour we finally found the S.F.C., Rest House and Mess-Room. The roof was gone and the whole top story, but that was boarded up and a little mess-room made, and around the garden, which had been cleaned up, were rooms for stray officers. We got the first good breakfast there I have had since leaving home. The touch of England was everywhere. A Sergeant received you and gave you a check in the hall. There is a parlor and reading-room, etc. Certainly they know how to do things. But writing this twenty-four hours later, what we admired then we marveled at now. For that same hand of quiet efficiency is everywhere. No wonder they are the most wonderful colonizers of the world. But more of this later.

There was no Liaison Officer, so we went to Medical Headquarters (D.D.M.S.), and speaking about D.D.M.S., one needs a dictionary to understand these initials. Everything is initialed. I am struggling to get on to them, but it is very confusing to a beginner.

From D.D.M.S. we were sent forward in two ambulances, one for baggage and one for ourselves. We left Albert on the Bapaume Road, and now all power of description fails. One looks with mixed awe, wonder and admiration.

The battlefield begins on all sides. As far as the eye can see are trenches, shell-holes and graves. The country is one vast barren stretch. Scarcely a tree remains. Not a habitation is left standing. Barbed-wire entanglements run across the country for miles.

On all sides English soldiers are working, cleaning and salvaging the French lumber and wrecked building material and remaking the roads. The sites of previous hamlets are marked by a sign in many places, and by signs and bricks and a few remnants of walls. In other places literally not a fragment remains of what once was a little French village.

Words can never paint a picture of what unfolds before the eye. You feel that at the top of the near crest this desolation must end and life begin again, but it goes on and on, mile after mile, a dreary waste of torn-up ground and blighted tree stumps.

And the English. No words can tell of their wonderful efficiency and sanitation. Water-tanks, horse troughs, latrines, water for washing, water-tanks where canteens may be filled, manure dumps where all manure is collected and covered with earth to keep flies away. It all speaks for wonderful order and efficiency.

At crossroads a traffic man stands to regulate vehicles.

Crosses of white, crosses with the tricolor of France, and black crosses, mark the graves of English, French and German, respectively. Here and there little cemeteries of white crosses are scattered through the fields where they have been able to collect their dead.

Fifteen kilometers to Bapaume, which is a mass of wreckage, and on to Battencourt. Here we met Colonel Westcott, who looked us over, and then shipped us to the 2/1 Field Ambulance of the 62nd Battalion at Fevreuil. We get out here, our baggage is unloaded and we enter our shelter. Now a shelter is a round piece of corrugated iron with a wooden floor and serves for winter quarters.

_October 1st._ I sha'n't attempt to describe a Field Ambulance personnel. Everyone has explained it to me and that is sufficient, because I didn't understand it and probably never shall. Only, it is in three sections and each section is in three parts, so we are part one of second section. Thus 2/1.

We are comfortably quartered and the men are all nice fellows. The colonel is on leave and Captain Pope is in command. The officers are all fed up on the war as they have been at it since the start and have all seen trench service.

All morning we rode around with the Sanitary Officer inspecting camps and sanitation in general. The English make a separate sanitary service under trained sanitary men and not doctors. In the course of the morning we met Major English, a charming fellow, not over thirty, who took us over his battalion of Lewis guns. They had just come back the night before, but quiet, order and cleanliness reigned everywhere. Truly a remarkable people.

In the afternoon we motored over to Péronne with the same Sanitary Lieutenant (Hafflin), and again a vast track of devastation as far as the eye could reach in all directions--trenches, barbed wire and graves. Literally, not a habitable house left standing. Péronne has a school of sanitation where the men are detailed for two or three days for instruction in general camp sanitation. It is a remarkable institution. Every bit of waste material is utilized. Petrol cans make wonderful stoves. Boxes are sawed up into latrine covers, wash benches, meat-safes. Tin cans are cut up and reshaped into many utensils. Hinges are improvised from bits of leather, pieces of tin and wire. It has all been carefully worked out and nothing left to chance. Then again all wagons, bits of equipment, harness, etc., are groomed with just as much care and attention as they would be at home. Autos are washed, shined and polished. It is all simply a marvel.

Péronne is a mass of wreckage like everything else. Evidently a once charming little Cathedral lies in a mass of wreckage, and on the doors of the Hôtel de Ville is scribbled in chalk "Eintritt fur 40 Sanitatespersonnel." The destitution of the Cathedral is so complete that it must have been blown up.

_October 3rd._ Yesterday morning about nine o'clock we started for Écoust-Longatte, going out in the motor ambulance about four kilometers. We were fitted out with steel helmets and two gas-masks, the second as an emergency in case anything happens to the first. After going about two kilometers there is a sign "No traffic beyond this point." Here the steel helmet is adjusted and the gas-mask drawn up in front, the bag opened and everything made ready for immediate adjustment. Then over about a two-kilometer stretch of road in full view of Fritz and under the range of his guns. The road is lined with small dugouts. Here and there empty shells are hung, to be rung in case of a gas attack. The condition of the wind is noted on boards as "Wind dangerous" or "Wind safe" depending upon the point of the compass from which it blows.

We crossed the two kilometers on the crest of the ridge. On all sides not a sign of life. This absence of all visual signs of life is almost appalling, for on all sides as far as the eye can reach not a cat is seen. Yet there is the creepy feeling that some one is always watching you.

At Écoust is A. D. S. (Advance Dressing Station) in the cellar of a ruined brewery. The men sleep, eat and live at least twelve feet below the ground. At the doors are two sets of curtains soaked in a solution of hexamine to be lowered on the sounding of the gas alarm, also with apparatus standing near to keep them sprayed with the same solution. After speaking with the officer in charge we set out on foot through Longatte, which is a small suburb of Écoust. Here the road for a strip of two hundred yards is in view of Fritz and it is camouflaged with wire netting to which small particles of green cloth are tied. We passed two enormous mine pits in the center of the road which the Germans blew up on their retreat to the Hindenburg Line. Bullecourt could be seen about three miles in front of us. All that remains now is a pile of white rubbish. The English line runs up to the suburbs of this town.

Now, at this point we took to the communication trench. It is called Bullecourt Avenue, and we followed it for about three miles. It is just wide enough to walk in and the floor is covered with duck boards. And now shells begin screaming overhead. The first desire was to duck, but it is surprising how soon one grows accustomed to the sound. In a quarter of an hour we paid but little heed to them. Occasionally we passed little groups of men working their way back, when one or the other of us had to stand and flatten ourselves against the side and squeeze past. Twice we met groups of officers on inspection. One was General Lord Harnbleu. In about twenty or thirty minutes we came to a trench running at right angles. This was Railway Avenue, paralleling the railway embankment. In front of this were only outpost points, so we were practically in the front trench and about fifty yards from the Boche at places.

The most surprising thing was the few men that one saw. At intervals of about one hundred feet were sentries while scattered along in little bunches of two or three were men eating or sleeping. Every here and there gun points or men stationed with Lewis guns or Victor automatic.

The sunshine was warm and pleasant, so we stood around, chatted, looked at the maps and looked at the German positions through the periscope. A wonderful thing, because it was absolutely similar to peeking through a hole in the embankment. Not a sign of life from the Boche, except the constant whiz of shells both coming and going, but they all appeared to be dropping on our left. Every little distance were deep dugouts, twenty-five to thirty feet under ground and well timbered. On this line were two Regimental Dressing Stations. It was like living in a mine shaft. There were quarters for officers, officers' mess. The men cook their own food and get good hot stuff. What cannot be cooked is brought up in large cans built on the principle of thermos bottles.

From Railway trench into Tower trench, where we inspected another R. D. S., and then back to the railway embankment. From one line of this trench where the ground sinks there is an open road leading back to Écoust. Captain Pope said that Fritz seldom troubled small numbers of men walking back and that this road was frequently used by the stretcher-bearers. So we started back over it and after about one hundred yards one could turn and look full into the German trench with its wire entanglement in front of it. Standing there I fully expected to be fired at, but nothing happened, although our shells were breaking on his parapets not four hundred yards to the left, throwing up big columns of dirt. So we spread out and started along the two-mile stretch.

The whole ground was pocked with shell-holes, a fallen aeroplane was lying there, a dead horse, but all the bodies had been apparently gathered in as I saw none. All the time shells kept screaming overhead. Some English battery would fire a salvo, and then Fritz would reply, trying to find out where our guns were.

We finally reached the A. D. S., had lunch at three thirty, and then climbed out on an old crumbling wall and watched one of our batteries shell Fritz's trench. It was a fascinating sight to see the shells throw clouds of earth in the air. I walked home with the Padre, Michael Moran, an R. C., a bully fellow. On our left was Vaux. Like all the rest it was a heap of rubble. Below was Beaumont Hamil. All this country was the scene of the wildest, bloodiest fighting of the war.

Below I note some of the Boche's tricks and his ways as given by the British Padre, Reverend Michael Moran of West Riding Field Ambulance:

Dugout Traps--

Branch in front of dugout connected with mines.

Spade wired to mine.

Pictures, vases, helmets, fountain pens, books on tables, nails in wall, loose boards in floor, things on verge of falling, and piano connected with wires; clocks connected with mines, bells connected with mines timed to go off by a rod in acid.

Mining of churches and other buildings which have not been touched. This was pulled off at Bapaume where sacristy was left untouched. When French Mission collected vestments, bombs had been connected and exploded, killing eleven.

Bombs up chimney with fire all ready to light.

Slip trench with false bottom letting men through on spikes.

Church furniture used to make crosses for German men.

Poisoning wells and roots of young trees. Some trees left sawn halfway in.

Poisoned wine bottles, one out of several poisoned.

Left perfect latrines. First time chain pulled, exploded.

Tank traps, making hole before the tank. The crater is also mined.

Party of Boche went around with English motor-car inspecting dumps. Spoke English perfectly. Few days later dumps blown up. Boche also use English aeroplanes.

Not safe to walk over grass or earthy grass as bombs are strewn everywhere.

Bombs in potato-mashers.

Boche military police on duty for five weeks in English front.

Smoke bombs to blind tanks. Barrage of gas shells before our batteries, so gunners have to work twelve to fifteen hours in gas-masks.

Town hall at Bapaume blown up three days after occupation by British troops, due to acid bombs.

Umbrella left in stand attached to a mine.

Gas clouds sent every ten yards apart in bunches of three (three each ten yards).

German deserter's family at home deprived of rations and separation allowance.

Boche found carrying machine-guns on stretchers to lines.

_October 4th._ The above facts were given by the Padre last night from notes he had made. He has been in the thick of the fighting and has gone right along with his men all the time.

Yesterday morning rode around with Lawson (Quartermaster) visiting the Ordnance and Army Service Corps (Captain Bateson) dumps. Then to the water head where the water is supplied to this section. Lunch, and after that the Padre, McWilliams and I started out in the ambulance for Vaux--a mass of wreckage. The Padre took us in a garden of a once-château. The grounds were overgrown with weeds, but flowers still struggled out of their old beds. The château was a pile of bricks, beautiful trees were half cut through and left to die. Nothing but two gateposts and a small segment of the outbuildings were left standing. Such wanton destruction is simply appalling to see. About one hundred and fifty shells were dropped on Vaux last night and from the edge of the town one is fairly in sight of the German lines. The Padre lived in the garden during the bombardment, and we saw the dugout that he and his servant had built.