Latest / Letters from the American Ambulance in France / 006 - Part 5
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Part five of with the American Ambulance Field Service in France.
- 0:05Speaker 1: Personal Letters of a Driver at the Front by Leslie Buswell.
- 0:08Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. September fourteenth
- 0:14Speaker 1: to day, the section and our section leader were decorated.
- 0:18Speaker 1: The ceremony took place in the garden, and the Cooi
- 0:21Speaker 1: de guerre was pinned on Salisbury's breast. The double kiss
- 0:25Speaker 1: given with dignity and a few words of congratulation to
- 0:28Speaker 1: our section by the Metissin de Visionaire ended the notable event.
- 0:33Speaker 1: So we now have hanging over our mantel piece this
- 0:36Speaker 1: coveted insignia. The section is not going to move from here,
- 0:41Speaker 1: the General says. It is one of the most active
- 0:43Speaker 1: parts on the line, and lately, although the wounded have
- 0:46Speaker 1: not been so very numerous, the trench bombardments have been
- 0:50Speaker 1: so heavy that I anticipate more action. Did I tell
- 0:54Speaker 1: you of the marvelous escape George Ridder and Walter Lovell
- 0:57Speaker 1: had yesterday? A shell dropped eight or ten yards away
- 1:01Speaker 1: from them in the road and did not explode. I
- 1:05Speaker 1: wonder they didn't die of surprise. I don't know what
- 1:08Speaker 1: our section would have done without those two but everything
- 1:11Speaker 1: happens to George, and he still has a whole skin.
- 1:14Speaker 1: Thank God. No letter from America has come to me
- 1:18Speaker 1: for over two weeks, which is not very stimulating. Out here,
- 1:22Speaker 1: mole hills are mountains, and mountains impassable. And although it
- 1:26Speaker 1: is of no real importance whether one gets a letter
- 1:29Speaker 1: or not, or whether the letter one may get is
- 1:31Speaker 1: cold or warm, yet these small and seemingly insignificant things
- 1:36Speaker 1: are sometimes enough to send away sleep. I suppose the
- 1:41Speaker 1: truth is I really need a rest and change. It
- 1:44Speaker 1: has seemed to me lately that modern warfare means even
- 1:47Speaker 1: more of a nervous expenditure than a physical one. The
- 1:51Speaker 1: nights are getting cold, dark and damp. The leaves are
- 1:54Speaker 1: falling underbrush turning, the icy hand of winter stretches out
- 1:59Speaker 1: nearer and nearer, and the trials of the poitieu are
- 2:02Speaker 1: doubling every day. Yesterday I talked with a priest. He
- 2:06Speaker 1: and most of his calling, voluntarily accepted at the beginning
- 2:09Speaker 1: of the war, the fearful task of burying the dead.
- 2:13Speaker 1: It sounds very simple, doesn't it. Do you realize what
- 2:16Speaker 1: it means. It means handling terrible objects covered with blood
- 2:21Speaker 1: soaked clothing that once had the shape of human beings.
- 2:25Speaker 1: It means taking from these forms all articles of apparel
- 2:29Speaker 1: that might prove serviceable, and searching through these red stained
- 2:33Speaker 1: clothes for any letters or identification. Some of these shapes
- 2:37Speaker 1: are hardly of human outline, very stiff and cold. Some
- 2:42Speaker 1: are mere fragments, no longer of any recognizable form. That
- 2:46Speaker 1: is a little of what burying the dead means. I
- 2:49Speaker 1: spare you more detail. And this is the work the
- 2:53Speaker 1: priests of peace are doing in France. Wonderful, you think, No,
- 2:58Speaker 1: it is French temperament, French courage. The musician is now broncadier,
- 3:04Speaker 1: the artist, the poet, the potter, familias of age, past
- 3:08Speaker 1: military obligation, all digging trenches or any work they can
- 3:12Speaker 1: lay their hands upon. That is why France lives, and
- 3:16Speaker 1: has lived through all her agony. How often have we
- 3:19Speaker 1: heard said, poor France, she will never stand this great calamity.
- 3:24Speaker 1: She will stand a hundred such calamities and always come
- 3:28Speaker 1: to the top again. Sunday, and for a Sunday quite quiet.
- 3:34Speaker 1: Of course, we had our usual bombardment, but only shrapnel.
- 3:38Speaker 1: About four thirty they started to arrive, and a call
- 3:42Speaker 1: for two cars followed. I had to go to M
- 3:45Speaker 1: and on the way up there, at the ex I
- 3:47Speaker 1: saw a horrible sight, two dead, three wounded and a horse.
- 3:52Speaker 1: A shrapnel shell badly timed had fallen exactly in the
- 3:56Speaker 1: middle of the road and made a great mess. Schroder,
- 3:59Speaker 1: her and Willis were there, so I continued up to
- 4:02Speaker 1: M where I got seven wounded. The American mail has
- 4:08Speaker 1: arrived letters from you, Joe and s A feast. Monday,
- 4:13Speaker 1: serious bombardment of three villages. Schroeder and I were at
- 4:18Speaker 1: dear Lois, so for the first time missed it. It
- 4:21Speaker 1: was a pleasant miss for us. Those who pretend they
- 4:24Speaker 1: like to be in bombardments are either humbugs or have
- 4:28Speaker 1: never been in a real one. Having experienced them more
- 4:31Speaker 1: or less for four months, I dislike the sensation now
- 4:35Speaker 1: as much as on my first day. It is an
- 4:38Speaker 1: interesting fact that while the villages about here are under
- 4:42Speaker 1: constant bombardment, many of the oldest civilians cannot be induced
- 4:46Speaker 1: to leave their homes, preferring to risk death in their cellars.
- 4:50Speaker 1: The other day a very old woman at Monteville had
- 4:54Speaker 1: an amazing escape. A one fifty high explosive shell fell
- 4:58Speaker 1: into the bedroom of a cottage where she she was sleeping.
- 5:01Speaker 1: The small room was entirely shattered, but its occupant was
- 5:05Speaker 1: not even injured. When I saw her soon after, she
- 5:08Speaker 1: was in an intense state of resentment over the destruction
- 5:12Speaker 1: of her personal belongings, but her own escape did not
- 5:15Speaker 1: seem to appeal to her. I heard a story yesterday
- 5:18Speaker 1: which I have every reason to believe is true. I
- 5:21Speaker 1: give it to you as I got it. Early one morning,
- 5:24Speaker 1: a soldier appeared in a Bolleaux communication trench near here
- 5:29Speaker 1: in the uniform of a Genie French engineer, and started
- 5:33Speaker 1: chatting with some passing poileius. He told them he was
- 5:37Speaker 1: inspecting the lines, and they showed him round their trenches.
- 5:40Speaker 1: On his tour, so to speak, he met some artillerymen
- 5:44Speaker 1: who asked him to lunch with their battery. He accepted,
- 5:47Speaker 1: and after lunch wandered about the wood with his new
- 5:50Speaker 1: found friends, who showed him the position of many guns.
- 5:54Speaker 1: As night came on, explaining he had to return to duty,
- 5:57Speaker 1: he left his friends and went to the trenches. It
- 6:01Speaker 1: was now dark, and on getting to the first line,
- 6:03Speaker 1: he told the sentry that he had orders to go
- 6:06Speaker 1: out and inspect the barbed wire between the lines. As
- 6:09Speaker 1: that was in accordance with the duties of his genie,
- 6:12Speaker 1: the sentry let him go. The man never returned, and
- 6:16Speaker 1: as on inquiry the company to which he said he
- 6:19Speaker 1: belonged did not know him, there is little doubt he
- 6:22Speaker 1: was a German spy. Another story I heard from a
- 6:26Speaker 1: friend of mine in the trenches near Swisson, and it
- 6:29Speaker 1: is typical of the hopeless brutality we have to expect.
- 6:33Speaker 1: When the trenches are very close to each other, a
- 6:36Speaker 1: little advance post is dug so that one can hear
- 6:39Speaker 1: what is being said by the enemy in their trenches. Generally, however,
- 6:44Speaker 1: the distance between the lines is too great for this,
- 6:47Speaker 1: and at night a soldier is sent out to crawl
- 6:49Speaker 1: to within hearing distance of the enemy. One night at Poitiers,
- 6:53Speaker 1: so engaged got wounded, and when daylight came he was
- 6:56Speaker 1: seen to be struggling to crawl back to his friends.
- 6:59Speaker 1: Too Sos promptly started out to help him, but on
- 7:02Speaker 1: reaching him, the Germans shot and wounded them, so that
- 7:06Speaker 1: the three men were now crying to their comrades to
- 7:08Speaker 1: come and save them, Realizing that it was death to
- 7:12Speaker 1: anyone who left the trench in daylight, the captain forbad
- 7:16Speaker 1: more of his men to venture out before dark. As
- 7:19Speaker 1: soon as darkness fell, two other soldiers crept forth, But
- 7:23Speaker 1: no sooner had they reached the three wounded than an
- 7:26Speaker 1: illuminating rocket disclosed their positions to the enemy and left
- 7:30Speaker 1: five men lying wounded between the lines. As the captain
- 7:34Speaker 1: could not afford to lose his men in this futile way,
- 7:37Speaker 1: he detailed two centuries to shoot anyone attempting to leave.
- 7:41Speaker 1: The five men lay there shouting to their friends, calling
- 7:45Speaker 1: them by their names, reminding them of their friendship, and
- 7:49Speaker 1: asking if they were going to allow their comrades to
- 7:51Speaker 1: die thus without help, so that when two broncadiers came
- 7:56Speaker 1: into the trench, they found the occupants in a terrible
- 7:59Speaker 1: state of angeruish and nerve tension. Not being under the
- 8:03Speaker 1: command of the captain, and being red cross, they promptly
- 8:06Speaker 1: left the trench to save the five wounded frenchmen. Seven
- 8:10Speaker 1: men are still there between friend and foe, but at
- 8:13Speaker 1: peace now, God willing. September twenty third, on Tuesday, Ben
- 8:19Speaker 1: and Willis and I went to Nominee, a town some
- 8:22Speaker 1: fifteen kilometers away the other side of the Moselle. It
- 8:26Speaker 1: was a long walk. After stopping to put a wreath
- 8:29Speaker 1: on Mignot's grave, we started about one o'clock on our journey.
- 8:33Speaker 1: It was a very hot day. We arrived at a
- 8:36Speaker 1: little village which at first sight looked deserted. We soon
- 8:39Speaker 1: saw the reason. In the middle of the road was
- 8:41Speaker 1: a large hole. A little farther on a pool of blood,
- 8:45Speaker 1: presently two dead horses a successful shell. Passing through Aton,
- 8:50Speaker 1: the road goes on straight, ever straight, kilometer on kilometer
- 8:55Speaker 1: we passed the village and famous battlefield of Saint Genevieve
- 8:59Speaker 1: on our right. Here. On September eighth, nineteen fourteen, two
- 9:03Speaker 1: seventy five guns, a few miitreises and a handful of
- 9:07Speaker 1: five hundred determined French soldiers hurled down an attacking force
- 9:13Speaker 1: of twelve thousand Germans. Again and again, the upright masted
- 9:17Speaker 1: lines advanced up the hill to be leveled like bowling pins.
- 9:22Speaker 1: After some hours of fighting, the brave little band of
- 9:25Speaker 1: frenchmen on the top of the hill found that they
- 9:27Speaker 1: had no more ammunition, so with fixed bayonets they threw
- 9:32Speaker 1: the last advancing Germans down the hill. The latter retired
- 9:35Speaker 1: to pont A Mousson, with some four thousand of their
- 9:38Speaker 1: dead left on the hill side. These they disposed of
- 9:42Speaker 1: by throwing into the Moselle. The French lost only fourteen men.
- 9:47Speaker 1: Apropos of this, I am reminded of a possible cause
- 9:51Speaker 1: for the illness of many of our boys last June.
- 9:54Speaker 1: Half the section are teetotalers, and the other half drink
- 9:57Speaker 1: pignor the van du Peyi, which comes from the Midi,
- 10:01Speaker 1: and which is supplied to every French soldier. The water
- 10:05Speaker 1: we were suspicious of, so Ned asked Mignot to ascertain
- 10:09Speaker 1: where the chef got it. Mignot promised to watch and
- 10:12Speaker 1: see whether it really was taken from the spring a
- 10:14Speaker 1: little distance from the house, as we had been assured
- 10:18Speaker 1: was the case. Imagine our feelings when he announced at
- 10:21Speaker 1: breakfast the next morning that the water we had been drinking,
- 10:25Speaker 1: and which had been used for cooking, was drawn from
- 10:28Speaker 1: the Moselle. To continue a little beyond, we came to
- 10:31Speaker 1: the battlefield of Nominee of August twenty, nineteen fourteen. Along
- 10:37Speaker 1: the roadside, dotted all over the field our little white
- 10:40Speaker 1: wooden crosses bearing the same inscriptions E c emre un
- 10:45Speaker 1: sol da Francailles, no Murra tombay au chent honneur main
- 10:51Speaker 1: ou des nerve catours. And here a more elaborate cross
- 10:56Speaker 1: a dead commandant. And there across mark is see more
- 11:01Speaker 1: unsel dar a lemande. We walked on a silent trio.
- 11:05Speaker 1: I was thinking of a year ago, of the wives
- 11:08Speaker 1: and families of these heroes, already almost forgotten. Now we
- 11:13Speaker 1: came to a little village surrounded with trees. On our left.
- 11:16Speaker 1: Some kilometers away we saw the seventy fives bursting above.
- 11:20Speaker 1: The Germans sitting down with some soldiers who were taking shelter.
- 11:24Speaker 1: We watched for an hour, these seventy fives bursting foot
- 11:28Speaker 1: by foot along the enemy's trenches. Again, we started on
- 11:32Speaker 1: our way and passed a hole cut in the road
- 11:34Speaker 1: where a German shell had burst not long since. At
- 11:38Speaker 1: last we saw Nominee, a town of some thirteen hundred inhabitants,
- 11:43Speaker 1: placed on the side of a hill and running down
- 11:46Speaker 1: to the river Saya, where it ends as abruptly as
- 11:49Speaker 1: it starts, just a charming little town, harmonizing with the
- 11:53Speaker 1: surrounding country as only French villages can. We made out
- 11:57Speaker 1: the tower of the ninth century church and the walls
- 12:00Speaker 1: of an old ruined castle. The sun blazed on the scene,
- 12:04Speaker 1: and we stood there looking with true pleasure on this
- 12:07Speaker 1: delightful evidence of French genius in combining architecture and scenery.
- 12:12Speaker 1: The road curved to the right for some two kilometers.
- 12:16Speaker 1: Here Nominee is hidden from sight. A turn to the left,
- 12:19Speaker 1: and there again it stands with its old castle. But
- 12:23Speaker 1: what an illusion distance had played upon our site ruined castle?
- 12:28Speaker 1: Why the castle walls are the only things that are
- 12:30Speaker 1: not ruined. There stands no many skeleton, not a roof,
- 12:35Speaker 1: not a particle of wood remains, just the bare walls
- 12:39Speaker 1: of the houses. We arrived at the outskirts of the
- 12:42Speaker 1: town and presented ourselves at the commandant's bureau. A lieutenant
- 12:46Speaker 1: offered to show us over the town. I cannot describe it.
- 12:50Speaker 1: No words could adequately convey the sickening sense of desolation
- 12:54Speaker 1: and desecration. Here are the facts. The fourth and eighth
- 12:58Speaker 1: Bavarian regiments on August twentieth decided to loot the town.
- 13:03Speaker 1: Comillons coming from Metz, took away everything of value. Every
- 13:07Speaker 1: house was burned house by house, men, women and children
- 13:11Speaker 1: being shot as they tried to escape. Those who were
- 13:14Speaker 1: in the basements of the houses were shot there or
- 13:17Speaker 1: burning petrol poured into the cellars. When the French arrived,
- 13:21Speaker 1: our guide was one of the first arrivals. They had
- 13:24Speaker 1: to bury sixty murdered civilians. Our long tramp home was uneventful,
- 13:30Speaker 1: though very tiring, except when we came to the little
- 13:33Speaker 1: village where we had rested and lunched with the seventy
- 13:36Speaker 1: fives bursting some kilometers away. Here we found two trees
- 13:40Speaker 1: across the road, and on making inquiries, learned that the
- 13:44Speaker 1: Germans had seen the general's staff car going along the road.
- 13:49Speaker 1: Did I explain that the whole length of this road
- 13:51Speaker 1: is in full view of the enemy, and seeing the
- 13:54Speaker 1: car into the wood and not emerging on the other side,
- 13:58Speaker 1: bombarded the wood and were successful in wounding the general's chauffeur.
- 14:03Speaker 1: Yesterday we went to Faia a Hey, and I saw
- 14:06Speaker 1: quite another thing. This little village, a bit larger than Monteville,
- 14:11Speaker 1: is as completely destroyed as Nominee. It is true that
- 14:15Speaker 1: the church was dynamited by the Germans, but here we
- 14:18Speaker 1: have a legitimate excuse. The village was of strategical importance,
- 14:22Speaker 1: and the absolute destruction was done after the evacuation of
- 14:26Speaker 1: the civilians. The ruins look as different from those of
- 14:29Speaker 1: Nominee as could be imagined. No skeleton remains. It simply
- 14:33Speaker 1: has been destroyed by shell fire, hundreds and hundreds of shells,
- 14:38Speaker 1: both French and German. The whole place looks as if
- 14:41Speaker 1: some great eruption had occurred and leveled it to the ground.
- 14:45Speaker 1: Whether it was necessary or not, I don't know, but
- 14:48Speaker 1: here one gets the feeling of war and shell while
- 14:52Speaker 1: at Nominee it is different. September twenty ninth, last Monday,
- 14:57Speaker 1: we heard the news of the English and French victy
- 15:00Speaker 1: and the Champagne. The shelling of the French trenches in
- 15:03Speaker 1: the Bois la Petre had been awful all day, but
- 15:06Speaker 1: when the good news spread, it sent courage to all
- 15:09Speaker 1: the depressed, so that within a short time the woods
- 15:12Speaker 1: rang with cheers and shouts of a la bayonette. Today
- 15:17Speaker 1: lots of nice letters came from America. The last two
- 15:20Speaker 1: days have been full of excitement, and we have been
- 15:23Speaker 1: given an additional secteur to evacuate. Consequently, our section has
- 15:28Speaker 1: been temporarily divided in two mac and I remain in
- 15:32Speaker 1: pont am Moissan. An attack is expected daily, and with
- 15:36Speaker 1: it will come the usual heavy bombardment of pont A,
- 15:39Speaker 1: Mousson and the main roads. At present, the rain has
- 15:42Speaker 1: stopped everything, and the French and English successes will, I suppose,
- 15:47Speaker 1: be checked, as the heavy rain will make advances almost impossible.
- 15:52Speaker 1: September thirtieth, news came this morning that forty thousand prisoners
- 15:56Speaker 1: had been taken by the Allies and that three Army
- 15:59Speaker 1: corps had passed through the lines at Champagne. It all
- 16:02Speaker 1: seems too good to be true, the first great good
- 16:05Speaker 1: news the brave French have had for twelve months. Rain, rain, rain,
- 16:09Speaker 1: all day long. Therefore, I do not expect we shall
- 16:13Speaker 1: have immediate trouble here. The winter has come, the cold
- 16:16Speaker 1: weather is very bad, and a night call is an
- 16:19Speaker 1: unpleasant business. The other evening, when returning with an empty car,
- 16:24Speaker 1: I asked a sentry whom I knew at Deir Luis,
- 16:27Speaker 1: from which point onward we are allowed no light? If
- 16:31Speaker 1: there was much traffic ahead? Oh no, he answered, not much.
- 16:35Speaker 1: It is mostly pasted now. So with a good night,
- 16:38Speaker 1: I started ahead, and six feet farther on I ran
- 16:42Speaker 1: straight into a horse. October tenth, today I saw one
- 16:46Speaker 1: of the most exciting episodes I have seen since I
- 16:49Speaker 1: came out here. Several German aviatics and French planes have
- 16:53Speaker 1: been flying over the trenches, and so many shots were
- 16:56Speaker 1: fired by both German and French guns that there were
- 17:00Speaker 1: at least a hundred white puffs of smoke against the sky.
- 17:04Speaker 1: About a half an hour after three or four shells
- 17:06Speaker 1: were thrown into the town, and I went up to
- 17:09Speaker 1: the top floor of our house to watch them explode.
- 17:12Speaker 1: A German aeroplane could be seen on our lines reconnoitering,
- 17:15Speaker 1: when suddenly another plane, a Niuerport, came tearing down upon it.
- 17:20Speaker 1: We gave a shout a Frenchman a fight Vive la France.
- 17:24Speaker 1: The Frenchman was now above the German. The German in
- 17:27Speaker 1: full retreat, lower and lower dropped, the Frenchman, always overtaking
- 17:32Speaker 1: the German. Bang bang, bang, went Themitreez. The Germans swerved
- 17:37Speaker 1: and the Frenchman was level. Now he was underneath bang,
- 17:40Speaker 1: bang bang. A yell went up from us. All the
- 17:44Speaker 1: German was hit. His plane swerved right side, left side, dipped, curved, dipped,
- 17:49Speaker 1: nose to the ground. A puff of smoke. Something had
- 17:52Speaker 1: exploded in the machine. It was now dropping straight to
- 17:55Speaker 1: the earth, and finally was lost to sight in the
- 17:58Speaker 1: woods of Pouvenere. We yelled, we shrieked, we cheered. The
- 18:02Speaker 1: Frenchman had won. A dull roar came from the woods
- 18:06Speaker 1: of Warleapetra, thousands of French voices cheering the success of
- 18:10Speaker 1: their comrade. You may imagine the excitement at dinner when
- 18:13Speaker 1: George Rader and Willis, who had not been with us,
- 18:16Speaker 1: marched into the room triumphant with bits of the German aeroplane.
- 18:21Speaker 1: October thirteenth yesterday was a serious day for us, and
- 18:25Speaker 1: I had a bit of an escape. You will have
- 18:27Speaker 1: seen I expect that we were badly bombarded, and that
- 18:31Speaker 1: incendiary shells were thrown into the town. It was a Sunday.
- 18:35Speaker 1: It is always a Sunday. Gat mettuns, I suppose well.
- 18:40Speaker 1: About ten o'clock I started off to pay a visit
- 18:43Speaker 1: to a wireless friend with whom I had been learning
- 18:45Speaker 1: to read. An aeroplane flew overhead, and I pronounced it
- 18:49Speaker 1: to be a Frenchman. I was in the middle of
- 18:51Speaker 1: the road when I heard the whistle of a shell
- 18:53Speaker 1: a long way off, but strange to say, over my
- 18:57Speaker 1: head it came nearer and nearer, louder and louder. Have
- 19:01Speaker 1: you ever actually experienced that inability to move which sometimes
- 19:06Speaker 1: comes in a dream? I did then for the first
- 19:09Speaker 1: and I hope for only time in my life. Louder
- 19:13Speaker 1: and Louder shrieked the shell and I just stood in
- 19:16Speaker 1: the middle of the street, paralyzed. I could not move.
- 19:19Speaker 1: At last, bang and then I ran, ran, like a
- 19:23Speaker 1: bolted rabbit. Of course, it was ludicrously late, but luckily
- 19:27Speaker 1: for me the aeroplane bomb for such it was dropped
- 19:31Speaker 1: twenty meters from me, on the other side of a
- 19:33Speaker 1: stone wall. I need scarcely say I was ragged for
- 19:37Speaker 1: my inability to distinguish a Frenchman from a German. But
- 19:40Speaker 1: it is not so easy as one would imagine. After lunch,
- 19:44Speaker 1: Ben and I went to pay a visit to some
- 19:46Speaker 1: of our friends in the trenches, and afterwards walked through
- 19:49Speaker 1: the first line for some time. About three o'clock we
- 19:53Speaker 1: heard a heavy bombardment, the shells passing over our heads
- 19:57Speaker 1: in the direction of the town. We walked to the
- 20:00Speaker 1: edge of the hill and, sitting down, watched the poor
- 20:02Speaker 1: little place being shelled. For two hours. The explosions of
- 20:06Speaker 1: the German shells, and the shrieking of the French ones
- 20:09Speaker 1: as they flew overhead to silence the German batteries was
- 20:13Speaker 1: most impressive. At last, one shell came very near the
- 20:17Speaker 1: house where Ben and I lived, and was followed shortly
- 20:20Speaker 1: after by a second even nearer. Ben jumped up, exclaiming,
- 20:24Speaker 1: come on, I can't watch that anymore. It is too
- 20:27Speaker 1: close to our house, and I have a new winter
- 20:30Speaker 1: uniform there. We returned to our friends Dugouts about six
- 20:34Speaker 1: and had an excellent supper in the open, with stars
- 20:37Speaker 1: and trees as a background and a gramophone to provide music.
- 20:41Speaker 1: Six hundred meters from the Germans. The other day, we
- 20:45Speaker 1: took another walk through the woods, further back from those
- 20:48Speaker 1: I have been talking about, where the Germans were last September.
- 20:52Speaker 1: Shell holes everywhere and old trenches marked the battle lines.
- 20:57Speaker 1: Violets had already appeared, and I picked a few and
- 21:00Speaker 1: put them in my fatigue cap. Passing along a little
- 21:03Speaker 1: wood path, we came upon the inevitable harvest. Two wooden
- 21:07Speaker 1: crosses side by side, but different. One cross was more
- 21:11Speaker 1: carefully hewn and nailed to it by a bullet was
- 21:14Speaker 1: a little piece of red cloth, the color of the
- 21:17Speaker 1: trousers the French infantry woar at the beginning of the war,
- 21:20Speaker 1: and which is said to have cost France several hundred
- 21:23Speaker 1: thousand men. The other cross was just two sticks, and
- 21:27Speaker 1: hanging on it was a piece of gray blue a German.
- 21:31Speaker 1: So Here, side by side, a long way from town
- 21:34Speaker 1: or village, in the silence of the wood, lie two
- 21:37Speaker 1: nameless soldiers foes. I wonder. So the days pass now
- 21:44Speaker 1: with the evening comes as often a grateful time of stillness.
- 21:48Speaker 1: I like to watch from my window the shadows lengthen
- 21:52Speaker 1: as the sun leaves to them their part. A little later,
- 21:56Speaker 1: when they have wholly obscured all detail, man will perhaps
- 22:00Speaker 1: furtively begins some move to make the night unlovely. But
- 22:03Speaker 1: for the moment there is rest. An owl has just hooted,
- 22:07Speaker 1: a musty old clock has just struck six. A convoy
- 22:11Speaker 1: wagon rumbling along the road raises a cloud of golden dust,
- 22:15Speaker 1: then silence again. Lately I have discovered a beautiful garden
- 22:20Speaker 1: full of fruit and flowers, where an old man still
- 22:23Speaker 1: stays as caretaker. Schroeder and I go there often and
- 22:27Speaker 1: eat the fruit which is spoiling on the trees. Sometimes,
- 22:30Speaker 1: when the day's work is done and there is a
- 22:33Speaker 1: quiet hour here, it is good to think of other
- 22:36Speaker 1: gardens far away, where the salt air comes in from
- 22:39Speaker 1: the sea, or often the fog. On these still summer evenings.
- 22:44Speaker 1: I can understand now the lure of peace, and so
- 22:47Speaker 1: I am doubly grateful that those of you for whom
- 22:49Speaker 1: I care most have chosen to work, rather than to
- 22:53Speaker 1: forget the struggle here. When I come back to you
- 22:57Speaker 1: some day, we shall feel a greater piece and simpathy,
- 23:00Speaker 1: the for knowing that, with the same eagerness, if in
- 23:03Speaker 1: different ways we have tried to serve and to save
- 23:06Speaker 1: those men whose heroism makes our best effort seem a
- 23:11Speaker 1: very small thing. End of Part five. End of with
- 23:17Speaker 1: the American Ambulance Field Service in France. Personal Letters of
- 23:21Speaker 1: a Driver at the Front by Leslie Buswell