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September 6, 1915.
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WITH THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE FIELD SERVICE IN FRANCE
 

On arriving at Nancy I was met by Salisbury, our Section leader, and 
after a very good meal in the most beautiful little town you could hope to see (and  where the Kaiser and ten thousand troops in dress parade were waiting on a hill close by to enter in state last October), we started by motor for Pont-à-Mousson. Some fifteen kilometres farther on, our lights were put out and we then entered the region under shell fire. It was a funny feeling listening to my conductor talking about how this shell and that shell hit here and there; and all along the route we passed torn-up trees, houses, and roads. At last we came to Pont-à-Mousson, a dear little village with about eight thousand inhabitants, and felt our way, so to speak, in the darkness and silence to the barracks which are now the Headquarters of the Ambulance.
 

I found that there were about twenty cars and twenty-two men here, the latter all enthusiastic about their work and the help the Section were giving the French. The day before I arrived a shell hit the house next door, and on first sight one would think it was the barracks itself which had been hit. These huge high-explosive shells are sent into the town every two or
three days, and everywhere one sees masses of brick and stone, all that remains of houses struck. The Germans have bombarded the town over one hundred and ten times....

After being introduced to the "boys," I went to my room which is someone hundred and sixty metres up the road --- nearer the trenches, but safer for all that. Here I found I was to share the house with another man, Schroeder by name, a Hollander and a very nice fellow, who has already lost one brother and has had another wounded in the French army. My bedroom is a quite typical French peasant room, very comfortable, and I felt grateful to know that I was to have a bed and not straw to sleep on. I went to sleep there my first night in comparative quietness, only hearing now and then a crack of a musket which in peace time one would think was merely a back-fire of some motor. In the morning I woke at six and went to breakfast in our barracks, which is always served at seven o'clock. Walking out of my front door I came into the main street. To the left is the way to the town and the barracks --- to the right the road goes straight on, an avenue of trees. My friend or housemate pointed out, about five hundred metres away, what looked like a fallen tree across the road. Imagine my feelings when he told me that they were the French trenches. To the right and left of this avenue are hills and on the left runs the River Moselle. On the ridge of hills on the right, one sees a brown line --- these are the German trenches, and walking down the road to breakfast, one gets the knowledge that a first-class rifle shot could pick one off. After breakfast I was asked by one of the men, Roeder, if I would like to look about the place, and I jumped at the invitation. We got into a Ford Ambulance (no one can realize the excellence of the Ford for this purpose until he has seen what they can do), and we started on a tour, or "petit promenade," as an officer told us we were doing....

Pont-à-Mousson was in the hands of the Germans for five days and our
Headquarters were the German Officers' Headquarters. The French partially blew up the bridge which crosses the Moselle at this most picturesque point, and for the last five days the Germans have been bombarding it, attempting in their turn to destroy it; many of the houses round it seem to have been hit, and the two places where shells have taken most effect are on the bridge the French have repaired with wood. The boys tell me it is a wonderful sight to see the water rising like a geyser when the shells hit in the river. To show how careless the few remaining peasants are, directly the Germans have "apparently" ceased firing, they get into boats to pickup the fish killed in hundreds by the concussion. We left the river (where we could be clearly seen by the Germans entrenched some thousand metres away),and I confess I sighed in relief --- for it is difficult to accustom one's self immediately to the possibility of receiving a bullet in one's head or a shell in one's stomach. We then went through the town, everywhere being told stories of how, on such and such a day last week, five men were killed there and three wounded here, etc. All the houses are left open, and one can walk into any doorway that looks interesting and do a tour of inspection. We left Pont-à-Mousson and started up the hill to our first "place de secour"--- X------, ---you will see it on your map some three kilometres from Pont-à-Mousson. Roeder, as we sped on, carefully explained that I was never to drive along this particularroad, but was to take a back way, as the Commandant had forbidden any one to use this route which was in full view of the German artillery and trenches. If he could have realized how I felt, he
would have taken me by the back way that time too.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
On the other side of the hill on our right extended the famous  Bois-le-Prêtre; but it is no longer a wood --- it is just a wilderness with a few brown stumps sticking up. "Would you like to go into the Bois?" I was asked. I felt I had been in as much danger as I was likely to get into, so I said yes, and we turned to the left and mounted a steep hill and entered it. Here the birds were singing and all was green and beautiful (it was a part where the artillery had not been) but one could see trench after trench deserted. Here was an officers' cemetery, a terribly sad sight, six hundred officers' graves. Close by were also the graves of eighteen hundred soldiers.

The little cemetery was quite impressive on the side of this lovely green hill with the great trees all around and the little plain wood crosses at each grave. As we waited a broken-down horse appeared with a cart-load of what looked like old clothes --- "Les Morts." I had never seen a dead body until that moment. It was a horrible awakening --- eight stiff, semi-detached, armless, trunkless, headless bodies, --- all men like ourselves with people loving them, --- somewhere, ---all gone this way, --because of --- what? I don't know, do you? A grave had been dug two metres deep, large enough to hold sixteen, and then we were asked to group ourselves around the car to be taken "pour souvenir." I managed to do it. I stood there by those dead men and tried to look as if it were a natural thing to do. I felt like being sick. Then one by one they were lowered into the grave, and when they were all laid out the identification started to take place --- the good boots were taken off --- and if a coat was not too bloody or torn it was kept --- "Surely we must be going said. "No, no! not before we have shown you the dead in the fosse there." "Good God," I cried, "I can't do that now"; and I didn't. We returned to Pont-à-Mousson for lunch at twelve o'clock and I felt a very different person --- and wondered how I could have felt faint the week before on merely seeing the photographs of wounded in our Neuilly Hospital; --- one becomes "habitué," they tell me. I was then officially handed over the car I am to drive, and I began looking over all the parts, as we have to do everything for ourselves here....

We soon left our friends and took our contagious case to the station. After
passing through wonderful valleys, hills, woods, and plains we returned home pretty tired --- wondering how such atrocities could be taking place in such a perfect country. We go regularly to X----- to get our "blessés,"and for two out of the six kilometres we are exposed to German view and the whole of the way, of course, to shell fire. On my first arrival at this little mountain village I was horrified to see two people lying dead in the road in huge pools of blood. Six German "150's" had been suddenly launched into the village which is full of soldiers, and killed six soldiers and wounded some thirty. Three of the six shots had landed actually in the road itself. Two of our ambulances were in the street at the time and only chance spared them. I asked where the shells had struck, and my stretcher-bearer looked around for a moment and then pointed under my own car, and there was a hole some nine inches deep and two feet wide. It made me feel rather rotten, I must say. Only five minutes before and it might happen again at any moment. I took down three "couchés," as the lying-down ones are called, and had to pass in front of a battery of "75's " which fired as I passed and gave me a shaky knee feeling, I can tell you. Then backward and forward for two hours carrying more wounded, and to add to the excitement it rained so hard that I was thankful I had bought myself two uniforms and could change. To-day is Sunday, and after a rather uncomfortable night in my clothes and a snatchy sleep, I have a day off....

Monday, the 28th. Yesterday we heard from "Doc," who wired to say that he would arrive at ten o'clock Sunday night. I have just seen him and he looked splendidly. I soon retired to my room to read the mail which he brought: Letters from you and H----- being the only American ones. Last night I was on duty all night at X-----, and it was a great strain riding backward and forward in pitch darkness up and down the very steep and narrow road. I had to go to Auberge St. Pierre at about two o'clock this morning. This road is in full view of the Germans and much bombarded, and shrapnel burst close by, which reminded me that a lovely moonlight night with trees and hills and valleys dimly shaping themselves can be other than romantic.
 

It was a sad trip for me --- a boy about nineteen had been hit in the chest and half his side had gone, --- "très pressé " they told me, --- and as we lifted him into the car, by a little brick house which was a mass of shell holes, he raised his sad, tired eyes to mine and tried a brave smile. I went down the hill as carefully as I could and very slowly, but when I arrived at
the hospital I found I had been driving a hearse and not an ambulance. It
made we feel very badly ---the memory of that faint smile which was to prove the last effort of some dearly loved youth. All the poor fellows look at us with the same expression of appreciation and thanks; and when they are unloaded it is a common thing to see a soldier, probably suffering the pain of the damned, make an effort to take the hand of the American helper. I tell you tears are pretty near sometimes. I send you some photos taken by a little camera I bought, as my large one is too big. All my love to you and to those who make the memory of America so dear to me....

On Friday I again took down a German wounded ---this time a German of the Kaiser's or Crown Prince's Bodyguard (the German Crown Prince is against us here). He was dying. Picture to yourself a fine, truly magnificent man, --- over six feet four --- wonderful strength, --- with a hole through both lungs. He could not speak, and when I got to the hospital, I asked in German if he wanted anything. He just looked at me and then chokingly murmured, "Catholic." I asked a soldier to fetch the priest and then two brancardiers (stretcher-bearers) and the doctor---the priest and I knelt down as he was given extreme unction. That is a little picture I shall never forget--- all race hatred was forgotten. Romanist and Anglican, we were in that hour just all Catholics and a French priest was officiating for a dying German--- a Boche --- the race that has made Europe a living hell. I came back about seven o'clock at night to the hospital with more wounded and asked if he still lived. "Yes; would I care to see him? " I went in and although he breathed his last within an hour after, his look showed recognition, and that man died, I am sure, with no hatred for France....

I could tell you a multitude of stories --- stories so horrible I cannot
forget, so pathetic that tears are not rarely in my eyes. On Friday night, I
was on Montauville duty ---and a new regiment arrived --- "Bon camarade" to me at once --- "How many wounded?" etc., --- they asked. I could not tell them that they were going to a place where between their trench and the German trench were hundreds of mangled forms, once their fellow-citizens, --- arms, legs, heads, scattered disjointedly everywhere; and where all night and all day every fiendish implement of murder falls by the hundred ---into their trenches or on to those ghastly forms, --- some half rotted, some newly dead, some still warm, some semi-alive, stranded between foe and friend, --- and hurls them yards into the air to fall again with a splash of dust, as a rock falls into a lake. All this is not exaggerated. It is the hideous truth, which thousands of men here have to witness day and night. Saturday night they came back, some of those poor fellows I spoke a cheery word to on Friday --- no arms --- no hands --- no feet --one leg ---no face --- no eye --- One glorious fellow I took had his hand off, and although it was a long trying drive to Dieulouard he never uttered a word. I touched his forehead when I arrived and whispered, "Bon courage, mon brave!" He looked at me a moment and answered, "Would God he had taken my life, my friend." To-day I went to take three wounded officers to Toul, some thirty kilometres, away, and before starting I went into the hospital to see if I could do anything for any of those butchered by "civilization." I saw a friend --- the man who had offered me a German bayonet. He beckoned me with his eyes and then --- "Have they forgotten me? I have been here for five hours and both my legs are shattered." It was true that every bed was full of wounded waiting to be dressed, but I went straight up to the medecin chef and told him that a friend was over there with both legs broken and could he be attended to? "Ah, we have been looking after the others first, as he must die, but I will do what I can." I stood there and watched his two legs put into a position that looked human and then I bade adieux to a new found friend. I think I am glad he will die. I would prefer to die than to be crippled for life, and if my turn comes I only hope I may not recover to be helpless....

Monday.
I have just received the mail with lots of nice letters. It was so jolly hearing from you all. I am glad to tell you that this Section is to be mentioned by Order of the Army, and it will probably receive the Croix-de-Guerre, which our Section Commander will wear, of course ---we may all get some sort of medal some time as well, perhaps. If my letter seems too horrible, just don't send it on to the friends who might otherwise care to hear. My only object in writing so fully is that I do want you all to realize the futility, the utter damnable wickedness and butchery of this war.