Chapter I: Front Matter

"BACK FROM HELL"

Who went to the war, a pacifist, but returned a fighting American.]

"Back From Hell"

BY

SAMUEL CRANSTON BENSON

_Illustrated_

CHICAGO A. C. MCCLURG & CO. 1918

Copyright A. C. McClurg & Co. 1918

Published September, 1918

_Copyrighted in Great Britain_

W. F. HALL PRINTING COMPANY, CHICAGO

Dedicated

to

My Wife

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I A Former Pacifist 1

II Red Tape in Traveling 9

III How I Got into the Service 15

IV A Unit in Its Infancy 20

V The Northwest Front--Mud! 25

VI A Weird Night 30

VII The Red Cross 36

VIII When France Was First "Gassed" 42

IX When Jacques "Went West" 47

X "Trench Nightmare" 51

XI Calm Before a Storm 56

XII If an Ambulance Could Speak 60

XIII A Ticklish Attack 64

XIV The Death of a Comrade 67

XV On an Old Battle Ground 74

XVI The Verdun Attack--Life and Death 79

XVII Barrage, or Curtain Fire 93

XVIII The Ragpicker 106

XIX Camouflage 112

XX The Heroism of the Wounded 116

XXI The Treacherous "German Souvenir" 123

XXII The Nigger's Nose 128

XXIII Getting By the Consuls 132

XXIV A Close Shave 145

XXV Meeting Brand Whitlock 148

XXVI My Maps of Belgium 151

XXVII The "Cat and Mouse" Game 156

XXVIII Shadowed at Liége 159

XXIX Results of "Frightfulness" 163

XXX My Mental Processes 168

XXXI A Night in Louvain 174

XXXII Ruin and Death 178

XXXIII In the Palace of the King 187

XXXIV The Kaiser's Envy 190

XXXV Caught by the Huns and Tried as a Spy 196

XXXVI Threatened with Crucifixion 204

XXXVII My Escape and Return to Good Old France 210

XXXVIII No Man's Land 215

XXXIX Jean and "Frenchie" 223

XL The Psychology of France 228

XLI The Contagious Spirit of Sacrifice 233

XLII The Heritage of Hate 238

XLIII "Back From Hell" 243

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
Samuel Cranston Benson _Frontispiece_

American Ambulance Headquarters, Neuilly, France 22

Ambulance Ready to Leave for the Front 22

An American Woman Caring for a Little Wounded
French Child 38

An American Ambulance Ready for Duty 60

American Ambulances on the Road to the Front 80

Allied Troops Charging Through Barbed-Wire
Entanglements 102

A Dressing Station Set Up on Newly Captured
Ground 120

A Hurry Call 134

"Jumbo," the Biggest Ambulance on the Western
Front 134

The Burning of a French Field Hospital 170

Ambulance Men Working Over a "Gassed" Soldier 225

Destruction of a French Hospital by a German Bomb 238

American Hospital at Neuilly Transferred to General
Pershing 246

"Back From Hell"