i 
 
 
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 Class IIL^.^1^; 
 Book r Q 
 
 CopyrightNi 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
No. 6" 
 
"No. 6 
 
 99 
 
 A Few Pages from the Diary of 
 an Ambulance Driver 
 
 BY 
 
 C. DE FLOREZ 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 E. P. BUTTON ^ COMPANY 
 
 68i FIFTH AVENUE 
 
^<b 
 
 Copyright, 19 i 8, 
 By E. p. button &- COMPANY 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 Printed in the United States '^f America 
 
 JUN 17 1918 
 
 ©Ci.A497798 
 
 ^•W/^ 
 

 
 TO THE GOOD FRIEND 
 WHO SHARED IT ALL 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 It is not possible to add any phrase, 
 however emphatic, or any words, how- 
 ever earnest, to the praise that has been 
 given to devoted and gallant France since 
 those fateful days in August when the 
 future of civilisation and the fate of the 
 world were in the hands of her devoted 
 soldiers. The long silent suffering of the 
 women and children, the quiet, confident 
 — almost gay — resignation of the officers 
 and men to seemingly endless conflict can 
 never be measured in mere words. These 
 things can be seen and felt; they cannot 
 be wholly or adequately expressed. 
 
 Anything, however, that helps us to 
 appreciate the soul of France is an aid 
 
viii Foreword 
 
 and an inspiration to us in America for 
 whom it is necessary to emulate the ex- 
 ample of that devoted people if the war 
 is to be won. 
 
 The thing that has struck me most dur- 
 ing my visit to France has been — what I 
 might term — the silence of the soldier. 
 By that I mean his absolute freedom from 
 bombast and high-sounding phrase. One 
 might almost believe that his apparent 
 insouciance as he goes quietly about his 
 stern duties covers some indifference. 
 The reality is, however, that the French 
 soldier feels the absolute impossibility of 
 phrasing his sentiments. Everything that 
 he loves is so fundamentally involved in 
 the conflict that deeds, and deeds alone, 
 must count. I have seen them from the 
 North and from the South; the grave 
 Norman and the quick-tempered man 
 
Foreword ix 
 
 from the Midi, yet all pervaded by the 
 same spirit of simple, quiet, unquestion- 
 ing devotion to the immediate work at 
 hand — the freeing of French territory 
 from the invader. "He is not always gay 
 who wishes it," said a great French 
 writer, and that French gaiety of spirit 
 so admirably depicted in this little book 
 is surely one of the great qualities of that 
 ancient civilised race which has enabled 
 them through the centuries to survive and 
 to hold that predominant place in the 
 world of Art, Letters and of Thought 
 which has given to France the primacy in 
 the heart and intellect of civilised man. 
 I have seen their burned and devastated 
 villages — the scenes of nameless outrage 
 — to which the women and children had 
 returned after the barbarian retreat that 
 they might cultivate the fields and sus- 
 
Foreword 
 
 tain the husband and the father who was 
 away fighting for France. The quiet 
 simplicity of these little peasant folk, in- 
 tent upon the task of wringing from the 
 generous French soil its last grain of sus- 
 tenance for the loved ones who are 
 defending la Patrie, was more impressive 
 than any of the orations heard at banquets 
 or upon State occasions. 
 
 The simple recital in these pages of the 
 daily routine duty so cheerfully and 
 simply done has impressed me more than 
 the writings of the literary men who often 
 speak rather of their own feelings than 
 of that which they have actually seen. It 
 is the reaction of the simple soldier, of 
 the ordinary peasant, of the little child, 
 to the great conflict which really discloses 
 the soul of the nation. As a man's real 
 nature appears in time of crisis when all 
 
Foreword xi 
 
 dissimulation and disguise are cast aside 
 in the imminent presence of bodily de- 
 struction, so that superb spirit of the 
 French nation, developed through two 
 thousand years of education, inheriting 
 the great and real culture of the Roman 
 Empire, standing for centuries as a bar- 
 rier against the barbarian from the North 
 who has threatened civilisation from the 
 time of Marius and Caesar as he has 
 done at repeated intervals to the present 
 day, has now for nearly four years been 
 fuUy and completely manifested to the 
 modern world. If the best emotions of 
 the human heart be not mere chemical 
 by-products to be disregarded by progres- 
 sive militant nations, but are rather the 
 only things which make life worth living, 
 and if man be anything other than a scien- 
 tific brute, then, indeed, the cause of 
 
xii Foreword 
 
 France from the beginning has been in- 
 distinguishable from that of humanity. 
 
 The two theories of the man brute and 
 of the man human met squarely on the 
 fields of the Marne — and still battle in 
 Flanders and in Northern France; again, 
 as in former centuries, must the final con- 
 flict take place upon her devoted soil. It 
 is fortunate that the lines are drawn so 
 sharply. We owe a debt of gratitude to 
 the German scientists and thinkers who 
 did not shrink from the responsibility of 
 justifying as their highest and ultimate 
 gospel the triumph of the brute biped 
 directed by modern science. Any issue 
 less sharply drawn might not have 
 brought the United States side by side 
 with France and Great Britain. The 
 American people, long isolated from 
 European affairs, might not have under- 
 
Foreword 
 
 xiu 
 
 stood that this was not a mere European 
 conflict, but transcended the boundaries 
 of time and space as the latest and great- 
 est phase of the eternal struggle between 
 that which is highest and that which is 
 lowest in man. 
 
 I am confident that this little book will 
 be a useful contribution to our knowledge 
 of that ever amazing French spirit which 
 brings us assurance that in the end we 
 must triumph and that all this sacrifice 
 must not and has not been for naught. 
 Frederic R. Coudert. 
 
**No. 6" 
 
 Monday, 6th August, IQI7. 
 
 Monday at 5 a. m. we reported 7 rue 
 Frangois Premier. Our mountain of lug- 
 gage was piled high together with our- 
 selves into three huge camions and in the 
 grey light of a misty morning we rumbled 
 along through the quiet streets awaken- 
 ing sleepy Paris, although Paris is prob- 
 ably used to the noise of departing sol- 
 diers. Ever since the battle of the Marne 
 they have heard the ominous sound. 
 
 The Gare de TEst is as busy as the other 
 stations that feed men to the trenches and 
 cannon, and receive what is left of those 
 who return. It took a bit of doing to get 
 
**No. 6" 
 
 us entrained, luggage counted and regis- 
 tered, and when it was finally done I 
 strolled across the street for a cup of 
 coffee in one of the typical little cafes that 
 thrive around stations as do undertakers 
 about hospitals, or tombstone carvers 
 about cemeteries. It was a curious little 
 corner of the world, this, where poilus 
 and officers have their coffee together. I 
 shared my table with a French officer, 
 like myself off for the front, who kept 
 impatiently looking at his watch. Pres- 
 ently he jumped up with a smile, "Ah! 
 te voila," and she threw her arms around 
 his neck and kissed him as I myself should 
 have liked to be kissed. It is good to have 
 some one who is sorry you are going. I 
 gulped down my coffee and left them to 
 be alone — but not alone as I was. 
 
 Sadly I looked over my shoulder to 
 
No. 6 
 
 3 
 
 bid Paris good-bye — good-bye for a while 
 or maybe more. 
 
 They are brave, these French women 
 who come to take leave of their men. A 
 silent embrace, a wistful smile, a tear, 
 those they love are going, God only knows 
 where, a shrill whistle, a slamming of 
 doors, and slowly as if loath to take them 
 away the long train pulls out of the sta- 
 tion. 
 
 We were in all 43. Five compartments 
 seating eight had been reserved for our 
 men and an extra compartment for our 
 French Lieutenant and our officers. One 
 of the compartments was occupied by 
 several women, a cross little man and two 
 soldiers, and I was amazed when they 
 refused to move although our French 
 Lieutenant requested them to do so most 
 politely. Another sign that France is 
 
4 ^^No, 6'' 
 
 tired of it all — this lack of respect for 
 the military and the lack of authority the 
 military have, for it was necessary to call 
 the ^'chef du train" to persuade the cross 
 little man to move. 
 
 Our train crawls along, stopping every 
 now and again because of the tremendous 
 traffic. Sanitary trains pulling in, troop 
 trains pulling out, supply trains, muni- 
 tion trains, all have to be kept moving to 
 keep the business of war going. 
 
 The stations we come to are all crowded 
 with soldiers, the roads we pass with more 
 soldiers, and long convoys; our train, al- 
 though a civilian one, carried scarcely 
 any civilians; soldiers, nothing but sol- 
 diers. France is indeed giving her all. 
 
 We were able to lunch as there was 
 a "wagon restaurant" attached and an ex- 
 cellent lunch it was. Hors-d'oeuvre 
 
**No. 6'* 
 
 scrambled eggs, boiled beef, vegetables, 
 salad, cheese with wine and coffee, a lunch 
 that certainly would not suggest war and 
 a train, were it not for the women who 
 serve and the black bread. 
 
 At Bar le Due we made a long stop. 
 Jellies and jams made it famous in the 
 past. Verdun has done so for the future. 
 Verdun is 45 kilometres from Bar le Due, 
 hence its importance. 
 
 At 4.30 p. m. we arrived at Nancy, our 
 destination being the Automobile Park. 
 There are several such parks, one at Ver- 
 sailles, another at Chalons, but it is here 
 that our section is to receive, officially, 
 its ambulances from the French govern- 
 ment and our first "ordre de mouvement," 
 as yet unknown. 
 
 We remained in the station while our 
 Lieutenant telephoned to the pare for 
 
6 **No. 6^^ 
 
 camions to transport our luggage and our- 
 selves and we had occasion to observe the 
 damage done by Boche aeroplanes. 
 Nancy is constantly bombed and the 
 wrecked portion of the station is the re- 
 sult of a raid a fortnight ago. Directly 
 across the square from the station an enor- 
 mous hole in the ground is all that is left 
 of a cafe, also demolished by a bomb. 
 
 In due course the camions arrived and 
 we proceeded to the park, the Lieutenant 
 and myself with our chief in his motor, 
 as we had to attend to the never-ceasing 
 details. 
 
 What a beautiful city this capital of 
 Lorraine, with its wonderful cathedral 
 fortunately intact in spite of the German 
 vandals, its splendid square and noble 
 statue of Stanislaus, Due de Lorraine, Roi 
 de Pologne. 
 
**No. 6 
 
 The park, covering many acres, is just 
 beyond the city limits. Here are housed 
 thousands of camions curiously painted 
 to disguise them as a bit of the heavens, 
 a clump of trees or a part of the land- 
 scape. Camionettes, kitchen motors, am- 
 bulances, ravitaillement busses, that in 
 other days jolted the Parisians through 
 the streets of Paris, tractors, staff cars and 
 a miscellaneous collection of automobiles 
 of all kinds, amongst them our twenty 
 Fiats, our homes and companions for the 
 next six months. 
 
 We dined in the soldiers' mess. Our 
 comrades, the poilus, cannot complain 
 for their fare is good and plentiful, more 
 so than at Sandricourt, and they have an 
 excellent canteen where beer, wine, choc- 
 olate, eggs and many other luxuries can 
 be had very cheap, for it is run under an 
 
8 **No. 6'' 
 
 efficient co-operative system. Two large 
 rooms have been assigned to us w^ith a 
 washing room between so we are com- 
 fortably billeted. The journey was a long 
 and tedious one, and we are glad to turn 
 in. 
 
 At 9.30 the bugle sounds to the tune of 
 ^'La dame blanche" and our lights go 
 out. We shall dream to-night "d'une 
 dame blanche" and wake up to-morrow 
 for our first day's service in the French 
 army. 
 
Tuesday, yth August, 
 
 The bugles that put us to sleep wake us 
 up — but going to bed and getting up have 
 always been a different tune. 
 
 "Est ce qu'il y a des malades?" asks a 
 sous officier, popping his head through 
 the door. "Non, heureusement, pas de 
 malades." We are allowed to fetch our 
 coffee from the kitchen, cafe au lit instead 
 of cafe au I ait, 
 
 A careful inventory of the cars must 
 be made before we take them over, a tedi- 
 ous undertaking lasting all day. 
 
 As officier de liaison I wasinvitedby the 
 Adjutant of the park to mess with their 
 officers. After dinner we were asked by 
 these hospitable fellows to partake of beer 
 and wine and of what the mess afforded. 
 
 9 
 
lo "No. 6 
 
 9 9 
 
 An old piano sadly out of tune was 
 wheeled into the room, and they sang for 
 us "chansons tristes et chansons gaies" 
 music that took them back to their pays 
 and those they left there three years ago; 
 more than one note, I fancy, ended in a 
 gulp. We too sang for them, different 
 songs that mean the same. 
 
 The Boches will not come to-night; it 
 is too dark. We shall sleep undisturbed. 
 
 GERMAN MUSIC 
 
 What Is this music of the guns 
 
 That grumble, snarl and roar? 
 
 It is the music of the Huns 
 
 The ones who made us war. 
 
 Too true has proved their Hymn of Hate — 
 
 The tune their deeds have taught — 
 
 Sing! let it chant their fate, 
 
 Sing ! the dirge they brought, 
 
 And make them dance the Dance Macabre — 
 
 The dance they madly sought. 
 
Wednesday, 8th August. 
 
 To-day we received our cars and be- 
 gan the work of overhauling them. They 
 have seen two years' service, at Verdun 
 last September and elsewhere. Poor lit- 
 tle Fiats, they too are a bit tired. 
 
 Our car is No. 6 and has been chris- 
 tened Marguerite Winston. First of all, 
 M. W. is taken off to the hose to be 
 washed clean of mud, blood and coo- 
 ties. We are not yet hardened and shud- 
 der at the dark red spots on the brancards, 
 on the floor, even on the ceiling. God! 
 how it must have spurted as she bumped 
 in and out of the shell holes. 
 
 We hear that we shall probably ^^roll" 
 
 in the morning and as orders have come 
 
 to have the cars in readiness we cannot un- 
 II 
 
12 
 
 ( ( 
 
 No. 6 
 
 9 9 
 
 dertake much to-day. No. 6 will go with 
 a little persuasion, that is always some- 
 thing. 
 
 I gave a dinner at the Hotel de Thiers 
 and No. 6 was duly christened with a bot- 
 tle of champagne. ^^Bonne chanee, petite 
 voiture de mis eric or de; don't ever fail us 
 when they are waiting for you." 
 
Thursday, Qth August, 
 We leave for St. Nicholas du Port, Deo 
 (and the Fiats) volente, at 8.30. Break- 
 fast at 7, cars examined, good-bye to the 
 commandant and the adjutant, at 8 we 
 fall in to receive orders, 8.15 conductors 
 at the wheel and assistants at the crank. 
 8.25 one shrill whistle — turn them over, 
 two shrill whistles — signal ready to start. 
 8.30 one whistle to start. The Lieuten- 
 ant's staff car moves slowly out of the 
 park, followed by the twenty good little 
 Fiats all on their best behaviour, and so 
 begins our first convoy to St. Nicholas, 
 thirteen kilometres away. 
 
 It is very interesting, this first little 
 journey over dusty roads that wind their 
 
 way along the picturesque canal; the 
 13 
 
14 ^^No. 6^^ 
 
 banks are green and shady, the waters 
 dirty and placid, with only a little ripple 
 to mark the wake of a passing barge or a 
 little fish that here and there patient fish- 
 ermen are trying to take. Not so the 
 dusty roads with their endless stream of 
 convoys and soldiers ever on the march. 
 We halt outside of St. Nicholas while our 
 officers go on ahead to arrange for our 
 cantonment. No. 20 had a panne but re- 
 joined us; the camion had a panne and 
 is lost forever. It would be funny were 
 it not such a disaster. 
 
 Every section should have three cam- 
 ions, an "atelier," a "cuisine," and a third 
 for tents, tables and other equipment. We 
 are now without any. 
 
 Our quarters having been arranged for, 
 we move on, through St. Nicholas, — St. 
 Nicholas du Port, if you please, because 
 
^ ^^No. 6^' IS 
 
 of the canal with the dirty placid waters. 
 We rattle through the quaint streets, over 
 the cobbles, to the delight of hundreds 
 of dirty little urchins and their terrified 
 mothers, and turning into the rue St. Jo- 
 lain come to a stop in front of the old 
 '^brasserie" where we have been billeted. 
 
 A courtyard piled high with manure 
 and rubbish in one corner, a latrine in 
 the other, a rickety stairway leading to a 
 loft and two large rooms, just evacuated 
 by poilus who reluctantly left such lux- 
 ury; soft straw fairly clean, and a roof. 
 The straw was not left without inhabi- 
 tants, however, as those of us who cleaned 
 it up found out to our dismay. 
 
 We have for cook one Coquelin, a 
 cousin, so he says, of that other great art- 
 ist, late of the ^'Automobile Pare de 
 Nancy." Thirty-five years of cooking, 
 
i6 "No. 6 
 
 9 9 
 
 five years of pastry, with medals, ribands 
 and diplomas to attest. His art must not 
 be criticised to-day for there is only 
 "singe" and cheese and Pinard, but he 
 promises wonders when we are installed, 
 as "Monsieur shall see," but "Monsieur" 
 is doubtful, for Coquelin has an infamous 
 reputation ; the old rascal is always drunk, 
 they say. 
 
 All afternoon they worked, these good 
 fellows who laugh and never complain 
 and when evening came the courtyard 
 was a kitchen, a dining-room, a shower- 
 bath and many other things besides. The 
 Lieutenant is loge down the street at No. 
 26 where I too have a room. We dine as 
 the sun sets over Nancy and the Avions 
 circle overhead. Night comes on, with 
 it the stars that bring contentment, and 
 maybe the Boches. 
 
Friday, August 1 0th, 
 The work that could not be done at the 
 pare is begun. Twenty little Fiats lined 
 up in a row in the rue St. Jolain, sur- 
 rounded by gamins, present a pitiful ap- 
 pearance, as dirty greasy fellows in over- 
 alls, with hammers and wrenches tear 
 out their vitals; but they will be patched 
 up again bye and bye as a surgeon patches 
 up a patient when his operation is done, 
 and will, we hope, show their gratitude in 
 the way motors should. 
 
 Coquelin produced a very savoury rab- 
 bit stew for dinner and afterwards we 
 strolled ofiP to town for cofifee at the ^Tai- 
 san d'Or," St. Nicholas' smartest cafe, 
 frequented by the military, where your 
 
 officer sips his coffee and the poilu 
 17 
 
i8 **No. 6 
 
 drinks his "bock" side by side — why not? 
 Will they not be side by side in a grave 
 later on? 
 
 The chimes in the old cathedral ring, 
 the evening service is over. We must 
 hurry back through the quiet little streets. 
 It is such a beautiful night that the lights 
 must not shine; only a few miles away 
 as the crows and the Fokkers fly are the 
 German lines. 
 
 A great honour has been conferred 
 upon me. I have been appointed "Popo- 
 tier" of Section 59 and bon gre, mal gre 
 must accept. The duties of a popotier 
 are to look after the popote or mess. A 
 morning conference with Monsieur 
 Coquelin, who decidedly is not all there, 
 to compose the menu, a trip to market to 
 bargain with the old ladies in the square 
 for onions and salad, these are the func- 
 
*'No. 6" 19 
 
 tions of the unhappy popotier — in their 
 way of vast importance. 
 
 I am having built by the carpenter and 
 cofBn maker two cases for provisions to 
 fit on the running board of No. 6. He 
 will make me a very special price be- 
 cause his boy was carried in one of our 
 ambulances. 
 
 "His company left the trenches for an 
 attack on a Friday at 10. They were 
 obliged to retreat after being cut to pieces 
 by machine gun fire and he fell in a 
 shell hole with a ball in the knee and 
 another in the shoulder. There he spent 
 the night side by side with a dead friend 
 for a companion. The following day his 
 company attacked again, and again were 
 repulsed. Unable to move, there he re- 
 mained between the lines until Sunday, 
 when a sergeant saw him and crawled 
 
20 **No. 6 
 
 9 y 
 
 out with a flask. That night two soldiers 
 came with a stretcher and he was carried 
 away to a dressing station, and from there 
 taken in one of your ambulances, Mon- 
 sieur, to a hospital." 
 
 "Did he get well?" 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur, if it is well to have 
 but one leg." 
 
 "Monsieur will have the cases day 
 after to-morrow." 
 
Saturday, nth August. 
 
 All morning it rained, but in the mid- 
 dle of the day a beautiful rainbow 
 brought a beautiful afternoon; the clouds 
 that trouble the heavens blow away as do 
 the clouds that trouble our lives. 
 
 "lis viendront ce soir," says a wise old 
 fellow who sits in my doorway smoking 
 his pipe. He cocks his eye up at the sky 
 in the manner of an old tar. They reef 
 the sheets when the sailor shakes his head 
 in his knowing way, for it will surely 
 storm; they get the keys of the cellar 
 when my friend shakes his head in his 
 knowing way, for it means a raid. 
 
 In the evening after a long day in and 
 about and under the car we went as usual 
 to the Pheasant. As I passed through the 
 
 21 
 
22 *^No. 6^' 
 
 crooked little streets on the door of every 
 house there is the sign ''Cave voutee" w^ith 
 20, sometimes 50 places, and I thought of 
 my v^ise old fellow smoking his pipe in 
 the doorway. For three years they have 
 been dropping bombs on this little town, 
 a few miles back of the front lines, so 
 when the alarum sounds and you hear the 
 whir of the Boche planes overhead, St. 
 Nicholas becomes a deserted city. The 
 inhabitants quickly disappear off the 
 streets and into their cellars away from 
 the rain of shrapnel of the French ''75's" 
 and the occasional bomb that blows up a 
 whole post-office, as it did the one by the 
 bridge a week ago. 
 
 The anti-aircraft guns in the distance 
 are very active to-night — ^yes! they will 
 surely come. 
 
 Sitting at the little tables at the Pheas- 
 
^*No. 6^^ 23 
 
 ant we can see the rockets and the white 
 puffs of the bursting shells over Nancy, 
 and as we walk back up the hill the 
 alarum sounds — a bugle and the cathe- 
 dral bells. 
 
 It is hard to conceive the magnificence 
 of it all, hard to believe that death comes 
 from the heavens where one sees only the 
 stars; but the great search-lights that play 
 in every direction see more than we, and 
 where they point myriads of shells burst, 
 dimming the stars. Presently our guns 
 join in, all around us they roar. The 
 Germans fly low, very low, the better to 
 avoid our guns that cannot fire so well at 
 a low angle. 
 
 Sitting in my little window I can dis- 
 tinctly hear the whirring propellers, di- 
 rectly overhead they sound, and you won- 
 der — then they are gone. One by one 
 
24 **No. 6" 
 
 the guns cease; in the distance you hear 
 them again ; the stillness is extraordinary 
 after so much din. ^^C'est fini pour ce 
 soir,'' for they seldom return. 
 
 It is all so fascinating that one feels 
 nothing else except possibly a strange sen- 
 sation of disappointment that nothing has 
 happened after all. 
 
 The good people leave their cellars to 
 the rats once more. Across the courtyard 
 the tread of weary feet, old women with 
 clanking keys and the wise old man who 
 smokes his pipe in the doorway; when he 
 nods his head in his knowing way the 
 storm is surely over and it is time to go 
 to bed. 
 
Sunday, 12th August, 
 
 Car No. i in charge of the ravitaille- 
 
 ment this week is being overhauled. No. 
 
 6 has volunteered, so at 5 we get up and 
 
 with the "marechal des logis" proceed to 
 
 the station of Varangeville where we 
 
 shall receive our 20 loaves of black bread 
 
 and 40 litres of red wine, the famous 
 
 Pinard, from the ravitaillement train in 
 
 exchange for our "bons." It is early 
 
 when we arrive but already there are 
 
 camions large and small, crowded about 
 
 the siding, come from far and near to 
 
 get their bread and Pinard, too. 
 
 I learned from the waiting poilus 
 
 many new words in a language quite their 
 
 own, and a most excellent expression to 
 
 use if ever a camion backs into you, al- 
 25 
 
26 '*No. 6 
 
 9 > 
 
 most crushing your toe, all of which hap- 
 pened to an eloquent little fellow from 
 the '^midi;^ 
 
 The daily allowance of meat per man 
 is 350 grammes, so off to the ^^abattoirs" 
 for our beef or mutton, whichever it may 
 be. In a great courtyard many more 
 camions waiting their turn, in a pen the 
 unfortunate beasts waiting to have their 
 throats slit, in a huge Paris bus the di- 
 vided carcasses of the unfortunate beasts 
 whose throats were slit that soldiers 
 might live to slit others ; all very degrad- 
 ing and disgusting. 
 
 Surrounded by enormous butchers, 
 what makes them so enormous I do not 
 know; what makes them so ferocious I 
 can guess — surrounded by enormous 
 butchers with bloody aprons and drip- 
 ping knives, I cannot help but think that 
 
^*No. 6^^ 27 
 
 Tolstoy and my vegetarian friend Trou- 
 betskoy are right; but dinner will come 
 and I shall be hungry, the bleatings will 
 be forgotten; one must forget, to eat a 
 chop. 
 
 There is a co-operative store in most 
 of the cantonments administered for the 
 army where further supplies are ob- 
 tained. This is the method by which 
 France feeds her armies. 
 
 A call at the Jardiniere on the way 
 home for vegetables and the popotiers 
 work is done for the day. 
 
 Last night the first call for an ambu- 
 lance was received from Pulligny, 23 
 kilometres away. No. 2 went, bringing 
 back two "malades assis" to the ^^hopital 
 du camp." This morning Nos. 3 and 4 
 went out on similar errands, so No. 5 is 
 
28 **No. 6" 
 
 "en planton," and as cars go out in their 
 order, No. 6 is in reserve. 
 
 This is our first work. We are at- 
 tached to the 17th Division, the 9th corps 
 of the 8th Army, and as our division is 
 "en repos," this will probably be the sort 
 of work we shall have to do for the pres- 
 ent. It is not very interesting ; we should 
 prefer active service. Our Frenchmen 
 smile in their quiet way; they have had 
 three years of it, a bit of everything, so 
 they are pleased when they are "en re- 
 pos." 
 
 Rain! how often it rains in Lorraine! 
 They say that the atmospheric disturb- 
 ances caused by the continuous bombard- 
 ment is the cause. 
 
 After dinner we read in the papers 
 about last night's raid. The Boches did 
 no damage but they escaped as they al- 
 
most always do; a plane is a very small 
 thing and the heavens very big. 
 
 My little room under the eaves is not 
 very luxurious, but there is a lamp to read 
 by and the rain patters on the outside of 
 a v^indow pane. Not so far away 
 stretch the miles of trenches; there are 
 no eaves nor are there window panes for 
 the rain to patter against. How often it 
 rains in Lorraine! 
 
Sunday, I2th August, 
 Car No. 5 went out early this morn- 
 ing, so No. 6 is "en planton," interfering 
 with our plans for the day. I had hoped 
 to go to mass to the great cathedral that 
 has stood for all time. St. Nicholas has 
 always preserved it even during the 
 Thirty Years War, when the town was 
 destroyed by fire, and during the war of 
 1870; and so he always will, the good 
 people tell you. The devout believe that 
 only he could have stopped the German 
 invasion when the town was threatened in 
 1914. Your patron saint did well, my 
 friends; St. Nicholas would have fared 
 no better than Rheims or Louvain at the 
 hands of the barbarians. 
 
 A rheure de la soupe, 12.30 by the 
 30 
 
*'No. 6" 31 
 
 clock, a call came for an ambulance, two 
 ^'assis'' to be evacuated from Pulligny, 
 two from Frolois, so there is no soupe 
 and No. 6 starts out upon its first errand 
 of mercy. By the aid of our maps we 
 find our way over the rolling hills, 
 through Menancourt past the aviation 
 camps, through the green woods and 
 golden wheat fields, where ever watchful 
 batteries of good 75's are concealed. 
 Several regiments of our division are 
 quartered at Frolois. In a dirty narrow 
 little street we stop before a stable with 
 a red cross sign. This is the "infirm- 
 erie"; a courtyard with benches for the 
 convalescing, a low-ceiled room with 
 heaps of straw upon which are lying hud- 
 dled up in their blankets numerous 
 "malades." In a far corner is the oper- 
 ating department, a stretcher upon two 
 
32 **No> 6^^ 
 
 wooden horses with a bucket beneath and 
 a table beside with bottles of disinfectants 
 and surgical instruments. 
 
 We collect our two "malades," tagged 
 and labelled like so much luggage, and 
 proceed through the usual crowd of filthy- 
 children in the direction of PuUigny 
 where we take on two more; one of them 
 a great Senegal black, who makes consid- 
 erable fuss at having to leave his belong- 
 ings and his rifle with the bayonet he 
 loves so well. However, the thought of 
 a ride in a very smart ambulance con- 
 soles him, and he shows his delight and a 
 row of white teeth in a grin of satisfac- 
 tion. Out of the four, three have been 
 afflicted with the same horrible disease, 
 the fourth has probably been saved by a 
 badly fractured arm. 
 
 From Pulligny we return to the 
 
^*No, 6^^ 33 
 
 ^^Hopital de Triage" or clearing hospital 
 where they and their papers are exam- 
 ined. One is assigned to the ''Hopital du 
 Camp" — an excellent establishment built 
 by the Germans for their wounded in 
 1870 — and the others to Jarville, an 
 evacuation hospital just outside Nancy. 
 Good little No. 6 has performed its first 
 task and the day's work is over. 
 
 In a little cafe on the way back we find 
 some beer and cheese, and in a little gar- 
 ret where the rain beats against the win- 
 dow, a night's rest. 
 
Monday, August ijtk. 
 There is so little to do while our divi- 
 sion remains "en repos" that our car will 
 probably not be called out again, so we 
 have permission to go over the motor, a 
 two days' job. There is very little activ- 
 ity at the front but always a certain move- 
 ment of troops. This afternoon two 
 fresh regiments passed down the hill and 
 away to the trenches, cheerful fellows, 
 rested and gay, with never a thought that 
 some will not return. In one hand a few 
 flowers, what remains of the past; the fu- 
 ture in the other, a grim rifle with a "Ro- 
 salie" that shines in the sun. They shrug 
 their shoulders to shift their pack and 
 smile as they wave good-bye, whilst up 
 the hill with weary tread a relieved regi- 
 
 34 
 
'*No. 6" 3S 
 
 merit comes trudging by. Covered with 
 mud, tired and footsore, staggering un- 
 der the weight of their kit, no smile upon 
 their haggard, sweaty faces. These poor 
 fellows have only the thought that soon 
 they must return. Poor France! for 
 three years your soldiers have borne the 
 brunt of it. 
 
 WHY? 
 
 Like canard de Rouen for slaughter fattened, 
 Like a cocotte dressed with every care, 
 Like a school boy taught with pains unsparing 
 To kill or be killed — out there. 
 
 By old men and lads admired, flattered. 
 Cared for by harlots who know not how to care; 
 Wined and made to feel, to want, to crave 
 To kill or be killed — out there. 
 
 By girls and by old women feted, petted, 
 In villages that lead to God knows where, 
 Bringing you at last to No Man's Land — 
 To kill or be killed — out there. 
 
36 "No. 6 
 
 >> 
 
 By priests and patriots cajoled, exhorted 
 To care not for the flesh, — the soul beware — 
 The other was but meant, mon brave poilu. 
 To kill or be killed — out there. 
 
 Oozing brains from a bashed-in skull, 
 A face that was, eyes glassy and dull, 
 A hole in a chest from a bayonet thrust, 
 A shattered thigh from a shrapnel "bust," 
 A ripped open belly, bulging guts, 
 Emptying bowels in bloody shell ruts. 
 Gory stumps whence legs are gone. 
 Gaping sockets whence arms are torn. 
 Whiff of gas and bit of shell — 
 Almost welcome midst such hell — 
 Left where you fell to squirm and bleed 
 And rot and stink and vultures feed. 
 
 God in His wisdom the reason knows; 
 God took you — God keep you is the prayer 
 Of some who live because others were doomed 
 To kill or be killed — out there. 
 
 At considerable expense we bought 
 many tins of Ripolin. The ^'blanc de 
 
^^No. 6^^ 37 
 
 neige" removes the bloodstains — there 
 will be others. No. 6 looks spick and 
 span and is at last ready for business ; very 
 satisfactory, as our cars are to be inspected 
 to-morrow by our Lieutenant and some 
 other French officers. 
 
 After dinner we went to the cinema. 
 Everywhere there are cinemas de Varmee, 
 with comic films to amuse the soldiers. 
 This is one of the ways that France dis- 
 tracts and diverts her armies. 
 
 Coquelin the impossible has been sent 
 back to the pare at Nancy. The new 
 '^cuisto'^ is a great improvement. 
 
'Wednesday, August 15th, 
 
 Fete de rAssomption, 
 
 In all the windows there are flowers 
 and in the Cathedral a special service for 
 the Virgin. We must have something to 
 turn to in moments of affliction; France 
 has become deeply religious. It is easy 
 to guess what they have come to pray for, 
 all these kneeling soldiers in blue and 
 prostrate women in black. 
 
 In the afternoon I visited the aviation 
 camp; the sun was shining when we 
 started, but before arriving it began to 
 pour and we were obliged to stop in a lit- 
 tle shack for shelter. Two soldiers of- 
 fered us cans to sit upon, for it was a 
 
 storehouse of petrol and essence, and 
 38 
 
^^No. 6^^ 39 
 
 while we watched the rain that fell in 
 torrents and waited for it to let up, one 
 of them told us many tales. He was an 
 interesting fellow, this poilu, with a 
 keen mind and a rare sense of humour. 
 
 '^There is no longer any fighting, Mon- 
 sieur, no battle of the Marne, where out 
 of a company of 200, nine were left; 
 where men went for four days without 
 food or drink." 
 
 It is incredible that men should be 
 alive after such hardships, incredible 
 that they should be sane after such hor- 
 rors. My friend with the sense of 
 humour smiles contentedly, describing 
 how he bashed in the bald pate of a Ger- 
 man "tant qu'il y avait de la tete je tapais 
 dessus"; and he roars with laughter at 
 the thought of his comrade Josef, — ^Josef 
 
40 **No. 6'' 
 
 waving his arms and shouting frantically, 
 
 'Trends garde, v'la un Boche qui te 
 vise." 
 
 ''Just then, Monsieur, a bullet came 
 into Josef's mouth, in one jaw, out of the 
 other, shooting away a handful of teeth; 
 that's all, Monsieur, just the teeth, nest 
 ce pas drole?" 
 
 But a far-away look comes into his 
 eyes as he thinks of his "pays la has"; 
 seriously he asks when the Americains 
 are coming, when it will be over. 
 
 In my opinion it will never end under 
 the present conditions of fighting; the re- 
 sources of men and money are greater 
 than the destruction. The economic col- 
 lapse of Germany, some great invention, 
 a revolution, labour or socialistic troubles, 
 the complete mastery of the air, thousands 
 of air planes to fly across the Rhine when 
 
**No. 6'' 41 
 
 the harvests are golden and could be de- 
 stroyed by incendiary bombs, something 
 of this sort will be necessary. 
 
 My friend agrees, popping shells back 
 and forth to kill a few poor devils in a 
 trench who will be replaced by as many 
 more is useless. 
 
 We visited the many hangars, huge 
 tents housing seven or eight planes, Nieu- 
 ports of the latest type and Spads with 
 their wonderful Hispano Suiza motor, 
 capable of making 200 kilometres. 
 
 The age limit is 25 years, so the aviators 
 are mere boys; extraordinary that at 20 
 they can have learned all the things one 
 must know to be a pilot; not only know 
 how to fly, but how to shoot, how to photo- 
 graph, how to navigate, how to wireless 
 and a thousand other tricks of the trade 
 
42 **No. 6'^ 
 
 only taught by experience. It is the most 
 gallant service of all, the only service 
 where a bit of chivalry remains. 
 
 They fight fair and in the open, and 
 when they die, as they all do sooner or 
 later, they die as they fight, fair and in 
 the open; better by far than being man- 
 gled or crippled or gassed. 
 
 A very dapper little French captain, 
 the commander of the camp, came and 
 spoke to us. Curiously enough he first 
 flew with Bleriot, whom I dined with not 
 so many years ago when he arrived in 
 London after his flight across the Chan- 
 nel. Thanks to the Captain's wireless op- 
 erator, I have the interesting photos taken 
 over St. Nicholas and surrounding coun- 
 try. 
 
 A weary trudge back to St. Nicholas 
 
and the Pheasant for dinner, then bed- 
 then sleep, undisturbed by the Fokkers 
 whose wings, too, have been clipped by 
 the rain. 
 
Friday, IJth August. 
 
 The amount of labour entailed by war 
 is appalling. For the few million soldiers 
 actually fighting, millions and millions 
 are working, amongst them ourselves, all 
 day it lasts. "En repos" has no other 
 meaning; and these days of no importance 
 are occupied cleaning, adjusting, paint- 
 ing. Cars are like women, just as vain, 
 just as perverse, requiring just as much 
 attention, and often not any more grate- 
 ful. 
 
 The post arrives with news of the out- 
 side world, both good and bad, and one 
 is a day nearer the end. 
 
 44 
 
Saturday, l8th August, 
 
 We are still without equipment. It is 
 
 doubtful if we shall ever have any. A 
 
 soldier's life these days is not so certain 
 
 as his death, so we have decided on a trip 
 
 to Nancy to purchase kitchen supplies; 
 
 the "popote" will be bankrupt but the 
 
 chef happy and much of our happiness 
 
 depends upon his. Nancy was being 
 
 bombed by German avions but the little 
 
 white puffs in the blue sky were not over 
 
 the road. When we returned we learned 
 
 that they had come to St. Nicholas also, 
 
 one of them to stay. 
 
 A little old man of 14, tattered and 
 
 torn, footsore and weary, wandered into 
 
 camp looking for a crust and a pile of 
 
 straw. His story is that of thousands of 
 45 
 
46 ^'No. 6^^ 
 
 others without a home or parents; the 
 Germans could account for both in differ- 
 ent ways. 
 
 Augustin Lombard, poor little chap, is 
 taken in and will work for the run of 
 his teeth while the section remains here. 
 
 We have heard nothing as yet about 
 our movements, but we are anxious to go 
 now that No. 6 is ready. 
 
Sunday, IQth August, 
 The warm sun is shining, it is too beau- 
 tiful to work, almost too beautiful to fight. 
 Many of us went to mass, Catholics and 
 Protestants alike seem to need a bit of 
 religion. The new chef, who is quite a 
 ^'cordon bleu," surpassed himself and the 
 popotier supplied cakes from the best 
 patisserie, but the Germans came while 
 we were lunching; five of them cruising 
 over our heads like a battleship squadron, 
 not any larger than birds at such a tre- 
 mendous height. The '^soixante quinze" 
 on all sides blaze away at them, but how 
 hopeless it seems; meanwhile the big 
 guns, probably 15 kilometres away, are 
 firing; they are bombarding Dombasle 
 and the usines, fortunately with no suc- 
 
 47 
 
I 
 
 48 ^^No. 6^^ 
 
 = I 
 
 cess. God is not with the Germans in 
 spite of the Kaiser. 
 
 For two hours it lasted, the blue sky 
 dotted with white puffs, shrapnel falling 
 with a clatter on the roofs, all so imper- 
 sonal that it seems foolish. Finally they 
 disappear in the direction of their lines 
 and it is Sunday once more. A warm 
 lazy day with no work to do. 
 
Monday, 20th August. 
 
 Sometimes I feel as if I had gone very 
 far away into a different world where 
 there is no time; the days come and go 
 sometimes with nothing to do, for we are 
 still "en repos." One, possibly two cars 
 go out each day, usually to PuUigny or 
 Frolois, to evacuate ^^malades" or poor 
 devils gone mad. To-day we had two, 
 the thought of having to go back to the 
 trenches did it. Why there are no more 
 I do not understand, maybe because we 
 all have had a bit of madness inoculated 
 into us and are consequently immune. 
 
 The Boches came as usual ; they never 
 neglect us when the stars shine, but we are 
 getting blase and do not bother turning 
 over in bed. The beds are soft and have 
 
 49 
 
so ^*No> 6^' 
 
 sheets ; soon there will be no sheets unless 
 a winding one. 
 
 Good friends who visit this lonely spot, 
 
 Weep not, weep not. 
 Pray that the soul to Heaven has got 
 Of the body that stayed to rot. 
 
Tuesday, 2Ist August. 
 The director of the great works at 
 Dombasle asked us to call upon him, so 
 we went this afternoon, and, together with 
 some French officers, were shown over 
 their enormous plant. Most of the huge 
 machines that night and day work so well 
 for France were made in Germany; that 
 is probably why the Germans have tried 
 so hard for the past three years to destroy 
 Dombasle and this particular usine. At 
 all events they have bombed it incessantly 
 and several times caused great damage; 
 only a few weeks ago they succeeded in 
 demolishing the gas-tanks. The labour- 
 ers go about with steel helmets and gas- 
 masks ever in readiness, prepared when 
 
 the alarum sounds to make for the spe- 
 51 
 
52 *^No. 6^^ 
 
 cially constructed dug-outs and other 
 safety refuges provided. There are 
 about 2,000 workmen employed, a large 
 percentage being blacks from Africa, and 
 the number of women has increased from 
 20 before the war to 300 now. This is 
 how France keeps her great industries 
 going. 
 
 We walked back to the Pheasant for 
 dinner, along the peaceful canal, where 
 old men fish and little boys bathe, past 
 the old church at Rossieres with its over- 
 crowded cemetery, where women in black 
 with eyes that are red put fresh flowers 
 on fresh graves. They must be uncom- 
 fortable, these soldiers, buried so close 
 together, but even the cemeteries were 
 not prepared for such a war and they are 
 not so efficient in France as in Germany 
 where they can use them for glue. 
 
Wednesday, 22nd August. 
 
 No. 6 was repainted this morning, a 
 fresh coat of grey paint that makes No. 
 6 very proud, and also equipped with 
 steel helmets and gas-masks and stocked 
 with "singe," iodine, chocolate, plaster, 
 brandy, pills and many other things. 
 There is a rumour, the vague rumour that 
 comes from no one knows where, that we 
 shall soon be moving. The rumour 
 grows, the "genie" is leaving to-morrow 
 and the day after the cyclists go. 
 
 The rumour has been confirmed and 
 we shall leave Sunday morning at eight, 
 we think for Baccarat, but that is not 
 certain. The English in Flanders have 
 begun an offensive ; the French at Verdun 
 are doing the same. To-day they ad- 
 
 53 
 
54 
 
 **No. 6 
 
 vanced on a 15 kilometre front; if it con- 
 tinues we may go in that direction. To- 
 night the big guns are very active, they 
 seem to be calling us. Where the 17th 
 goes we go. 
 
Thursday, 23rd August, 
 Sunday we move on; the poor devils 
 back into the trenches for a whiff of gas 
 or a bit of shrapnel; we, the slaughter- 
 house department, to pick up the pieces. 
 We have received orders to start for Bac- 
 carat at eight o'clock in the morning. 
 No. 6 is ready so there is nothing to do 
 in the meantime. 
 
 Our little vagabond was taken off to 
 town and provided with a complete out- 
 fit; after a cold shower that I fear he did 
 not altogether enjoy he looks very differ- 
 ent from the forlorn little beggar who 
 wandered into camp a few days ago. The 
 bad news of our moving was broken to 
 him very gently; he takes it all very philo- 
 sophically, but in his quiet way I think 
 55 
 
56 **No. 6'" 
 
 certain plans are being laid, and I have 
 an idea that somehow or other he will 
 turn up in Baccarat. 
 
Friday, August 24th. 
 I have a good little friend, his years 
 are few but his usefulness great. When 
 the unfortunate popotier with his befud- 
 dled brain has forgotten what the "cuisto" 
 especially asked him not to forget, he 
 coasts down the hill on his bicycle and 
 pedals back up again with the butter, the 
 oil or the garlic. To-day I borrowed his 
 bicycle to go to Vitrimont, 14 kilometres 
 away on the road to Luneville. We took 
 the wrong path outside of Dombasle and 
 lost ourselves. How easy to take the 
 wrong path in this world and lose our- 
 selves! Sometimes it is well as in this 
 instance when it led us up a hill and 
 over a ridge where suddenly we came 
 
 57 
 
< « M^ C ' ' 
 
 58 ^*No, 6 
 
 upon one of the concealed batteries that 
 protect St. Nicholas. 
 
 We stopped to enquire the way of some 
 officers who were scrutinising the heavens 
 and they showed us through their glasses 
 a Boche coming our way. It is extraordi- 
 nary how they observe them, these specks 
 in the sky. The German travels fast, the 
 speck becomes a Taube, and presently the 
 battery opens up and the little white 
 puffs appear all around him. Another 
 battery is firing, too, and he seems a bit 
 worried for he climbs and drops and 
 changes his direction, trying to escape the 
 shrapnel that bursts all about him. 
 
 It is fascinating to watch; sometimes it 
 seems as if he had been hit but the little 
 puffs blow away and still he flies. It lasts 
 for half an hour and then he vanishes into 
 a cloud, full speed on his way home. 
 
^^No. 6^^ S9 
 
 This is the first time that I have seen a 
 battery of ''soixante quinze" in action; 
 they are marvellous indeed. We wish 
 them better luck next time, hoping they 
 will not be blown up to-night as a result 
 of the Boche's observations, and continue 
 on our way. 
 
 Along the winding canal to Crepic 
 where I saw for the first time the unmis- 
 takable evidence of German "Kultur." 
 Crepic was occupied by them for sev- 
 eral days in 1914 and Crepic was put to 
 the torch when they were forced to retire. 
 The inhabitants who were able to flee or 
 hide have returned to rebuild their 
 homes; little rows of graves here and 
 there are the homes of those who will not 
 return. 
 
 In spite of a punctured tire we finally 
 arrived at Vitrimont. Before the war it 
 
6o **No. 6" 
 
 was a peaceful little corner of the world, 
 where the simple bourgeois cultivated his 
 fields and fattened his pigs, while women 
 gathered mirabelles for confiture and 
 fattened the children. Then war came 
 and the German hordes swept over Lor- 
 raine, like a pest of locusts leaving desola- 
 tion in their path. Fortunately their oc- 
 cupation did not last long and they with- 
 drew rather precipitately without ac- 
 complishing their fiendish work as effi- 
 ciently as German methods have done 
 elsewhere. A few homes and a part of 
 the church were left standing; out of the 
 ruins, like the Phoenix arising from the 
 ashes, there is arising to-day a new Vitri- 
 mont, thanks to some American ladies 
 whose generosity and energy know no 
 bounds. Vitrimont is being reconstruct- 
 ed with better streets and a finer square, 
 
( ( 
 
 No. 6" 6i 
 
 with a drinking-fountain. The inhabi- 
 tants will have modern houses with fur- 
 naces to keep them warm instead of heaps 
 of manure piled high in the courtyards; 
 they will have a school and a mill to grind 
 their wheat. 
 
 It was indeed a great pleasure to have 
 tea with the wonderful woman who is re- 
 sponsible for this noble undertaking, who 
 for the past year has lived here and toiled, 
 beloved by these good people whose lives 
 she is also reconstructing. We sat in a 
 little summer-house with geranium boxes, 
 overlooking the green meadows; to-day 
 all is calm and peaceful but only eight 
 miles away are the German guns. Let us 
 hope that they will be silenced forever be- 
 fore Vitrimont is rebuilt. 
 
 A dusty ride back to St. Nicholas, pur- 
 sued by an endless stream of camions that 
 
62 ^^No. 6^^ 
 
 ramble along the military road, shaded on 
 either side by tall poplars and crosses. 
 
 Fortunately it is a cloudy night so the 
 French officers who command the bat- 
 tery opposite our cantonment are able to 
 dine with us at the Pheasant. 
 
 A very pleasant company and an in- 
 teresting dinner; to-morrow we shall 
 dine with them and the night after some- 
 where else, if one can plan so far ahead. 
 
Saturday, 25th August. 
 
 A day of rest spent looking forward to 
 dining with our friends. They have 
 promised us a show if the moon and the 
 Germans come out, so we pray for the 
 clouds to blow away. 
 
 It is not surprising that modern war- 
 fare has become so scientific with half the 
 brains of the world trying to exterminate 
 the other half. The 75 as adapted to 
 anti-aircraft purposes is very effective. 
 Automatically and in the fraction of a 
 second must be made a calculation of the 
 distance and the height of a plane, its 
 speed, the velocity and direction of the 
 wind and other conditions affecting both 
 object and projectile, also the necessary 
 
 corrections and the timing of the fuse to 
 63 
 
64 ^^No. 6>> 
 
 detonate the shell where it is figured the 
 plane will be. Occasionally they bring 
 one down. 
 
 Eleven of us sat down to dinner in the 
 little mess shack, painted by a camou- 
 flage artist of such real merit that even 
 the birds are deceived. Our hosts re- 
 member the cocktail of the night before, 
 so I give the recipe of one brewed in a 
 bucket with a lump of ice, which they 
 have gone to such trouble to procure 
 from the brasserie of St. Nicholas. Du- 
 bonnet, two eggs, ^Toilu," two lemons 
 and a dash of brandy, served in water 
 tumblers; it made a good, if not alto- 
 gether pleasant start. 
 
 Wonderful fellows, these hospitable 
 Frenchmen, who seem to have ransacked 
 the country to provide a most extraordi- 
 nary dinner. 
 
**No. 6'* 65 
 
 Voici le menu: 
 
 Canadian bean soup 
 
 Melon 
 
 Filet d'Harengs 
 
 Haricots verts, sautes au beurre 
 
 Homard, sauce mayonnaise 
 
 Filet de Boeuf, pommes rotles. 
 
 Langue de BcEuf, sauce piquante 
 Salade. — Fromage 
 Macarons de Nancy 
 Fruits 
 Cafe noir 
 Pinard 
 Bourgogne 
 Champagne 
 
 Fortunately the clouds did not blow 
 away and the Germans did not come. 
 Damn the Germans ; there were not many 
 left when we got through with them. It 
 was a happy night, like happy nights all 
 too soon ended. We wander back 
 through the blackness, leaving them on 
 the top of their hill to watch, leaving 
 
66 *^No, e'* 
 
 them with our good wishes and the hope 
 that we shall meet soon again. 
 
 Starless night, tranquil, still. 
 
 Silent, calm the plain, the hill 
 
 But for the murmur of countless souls 
 
 Of bodies rotting in deep shell holes 
 
 Crying in anguish for vengeance 'til 
 
 Their wail is answered by guns that kill. 
 
Sunday, August 26th. 
 
 A round of the town to pay up the 
 popotes accounts. We have lived high, 
 still they are not many. 
 
 Mass and a wonderful sermon upon 
 the lack of the greatest quality — grati- 
 tude; we cannot be without it to-day, we 
 who have neither crutches nor mourning 
 to wear. 
 
 After lunch a gas-mask drill; one can- 
 not be too proficient in their use as every 
 day they improve in the pleasant art of 
 deadly fumes. No longer does it come 
 in great clouds that one can see approach- 
 ing. It comes now in shells that burst 
 almost noiselessly, invisible and without 
 odour, toppling over a gun crew without 
 
 warning; it comes toward you wafted by 
 67 
 
68 "No. 6 
 
 9 9 
 
 the gentle summer breezes, with the 
 sweet smell of violets or new-mown hay, 
 but more deadly than the "aqua tofana" 
 of the Medicis, to those who neglect their 
 masks. 
 
 After dinner there occurred the most 
 terrible calamity. A rude beggar had 
 words with the chef, a gentleman of great 
 temperament. The beggar was so un- 
 fortunate as to call the chef "malhon- 
 nete," to which the chef replied that the 
 beggar was an "espece de fumier." The 
 beggar thereupon asserted that the chef 
 was an "embusque," and as this was be- 
 yond all endurance to a gentleman of 
 great temperament, the beggar was 
 driven from the courtyard with some sort 
 of a murderous kitchen implement. The 
 beggar thereupon complained to the 
 Lieutenant who attempted to rebuke the 
 
^^No, 6'' 69 
 
 chef, a very unhappy moment to have 
 chosen, as the gentleman of great tem- 
 perament was in such a state of indigna- 
 tion and rage that the Lieutenant received 
 what the chef had not had time to say 
 to the more fleet-footed beggar. I ar- 
 rived in time to head off the chef who 
 was running down the hill, frantically 
 gesticulating, in pursuit of the Lieuten- 
 ant who had retreated to the bureau. 
 
 **Nom de Dieu," said he, ^'they can 
 shoot me if they will, but they cannot call 
 me embusque: no longer will I cook for 
 the cochons, I, who have three years of 
 service with the colours, — I, who have 
 never made soup for others than gentle- 
 men." 
 
 Here indeed was a fine mess. One 
 must think quickly in such moments as 
 these and handle such a delicate situa- 
 
TO ^^No. 6^^ 
 
 tion with the finesse of a Richelieu, or 
 lose a jolly good cook. Entreaties and 
 threats were of no avail, excuses and 
 promises in vain. 
 
 ^^Monsieur, I will do anything for you, 
 my life, my skill is at your disposal 
 always, but I will no longer cook and that 
 Lieutenant shall hear what I have to say." 
 
 Luck was on my side, however, for 
 just then the threatening clouds broke 
 and rain came in torrents to cool the 
 ardour of the cook. Finally I persuaded 
 him to return under the archway out 
 of the storm to hear me further. Little 
 by little the storm in the heavens 
 and in the breast of the gentleman of 
 great temperament subsided, we shook 
 hands and I had his promise that he 
 would allow the matter to rest until to- 
 morrow. Not an assured victory, but I 
 
*^No. 6'' 71 
 
 have hopes that Section 59 will not be de- 
 prived of his art, this gentleman of great 
 temperament. 
 
 "He does his bit as best he can 
 With musket, sword, or pot and pan.'* 
 
'Monday, 2'/th August, 
 Our good landlady awakened us early; 
 poor soul, she is very sorry to see us go 
 and so touched with the little plants we 
 sent her. "Mais le bon Dieu vous gar- 
 dera; vous reviendrez et vous serez tou- 
 jours les bienvenus." So we breakfast, 
 the cars are loaded and at 9 a. m. our con- 
 voy of twenty little Fiats, headed by the 
 staff car, with a camionette loaned by the 
 Pare, bringing up the rear. We roll 
 slowly down the hill and are off to Bac- 
 carat for our first active service at the 
 front. It must have rained hard last 
 night, the roads are without dust, a god- 
 send to a convoy. The early morning is 
 crisp and cool, the scenery beautiful, the 
 
 journey without incident. 
 72 
 
At 1 1.30, on schedule, we arrive at Bac- 
 carat, famous for the glass that adorns 
 the white tables and the game that adorns 
 the green. Four cars left for the front 
 immediately, the others are unloaded and 
 will follow in turn; mine will not come 
 until to-morrow. 
 
 From beneath a dozen duffle bags out 
 pops Augustin Lombard, half squashed 
 and grinning in a sheepish way. All 
 sorts of terrible things must happen to 
 you, Augustin, for disobeying the strict 
 orders meant to be disobeyed. 
 
 This sector is very quiet at present, con- 
 sequently there is but little work; four 
 cars remain constantly on duty at the four 
 towns of Montigny, Badonviller, Her- 
 berviller, and Ogerviller, subject to 
 orders. They leave at 12 o'clock one 
 
74 ^^No. 6^^ 
 
 day, returning the next, making a tournee 
 de ramassage on the way. 
 
 We are quartered in the great cristal- 
 lerie that once employed five thousand 
 men and is now partly shut down and 
 partly operated by women and children. 
 
 A busy afternoon for the popotier, to 
 find a mess hall and superintend the in- 
 stallation of the kitchen. We succeeded 
 in renting a small room where we shall 
 be very crowded but warm and dry. 
 Monsieur le chef, a gentleman of great 
 temperament, who must be humoured 
 and pampered in' order to exercise his art, 
 "parce que, mon lieutenant, les vrais 
 chefs sont des artistes," Monsieur le chef, 
 thank God, is contented with his facili- 
 ties. He showed his appreciation by giv- 
 ing us an excellent dinner, after which 
 we strolled to town for coffee. 
 
^^No. 6^^ 75 
 
 Baccarat affords nothing very luxuri- 
 ous in the way of cafes. Good old ^Tai- 
 san d'or," forgive us our mockery! It is 
 the way of man and the world only to ap- 
 preciate things at their true value when 
 they have been taken from us; so our 
 hearts are full of regrets and longing for 
 the little garden of the Pheasant with its 
 little tables, the cross old parrot, the ge- 
 nial old lady who welcomed us with such 
 a cheery ^'Bon soir" and the dear little 
 girl who brought the coffee and the 
 "poilu." 
 
 War and the Germans have left their 
 traces in Baccarat. Half the cathedral 
 including the steeple has been shot away, 
 half the town has been razed by fire. The 
 Huns as usual before withdrawing ap- 
 plied the torch. 
 
 Baccarat is a centre of considerable 
 
76 *^No. 6^^ 
 
 military importance ; it is here that Gen- 
 eral Marchand of Fachoda fame makes 
 his headquarters, and it is from here that 
 
 the front lines as far as and as far 
 
 east as are fed with men, munitions 
 
 and food. 
 
 Never ceasing convoys arrive and 
 leave, artillery trains come and go con- 
 stantly, the weary infantry pass through 
 on their way back into the trenches or on 
 their way out, — what a difference! 
 
 It begins to rain, "on est bien chez soi." 
 In a comfortable little room in the little 
 brick house of an honest ouvrier "on se 
 couche." 
 
Tuesday, 28th August, 
 At twelve o'clock we leave for Mon- 
 tigny to relieve car No. 3, supplied with 
 our "ordre de mouvement," some cold 
 meat, a bottle of Pinard, blankets and a 
 bloody brancard to sleep upon. 
 
 It is interesting to note as one travels 
 along these roads that lead to the front 
 lines how elaborately the country back 
 of them has been prepared; everywhere 
 there is barbed wire, fields that once grew 
 sugar beets are now sown with rusty 
 spikes and five prong wire. They reap 
 their harvest still, these fields, a harvest 
 of dead. The roads when visible from 
 the German lines are screened for miles. 
 Every little wood has its concealed bat- 
 tery, every little ridge machine guns, 
 77 
 
78 **No. 6'' 
 
 trenches and dug-outs everywhere and 
 more barbed wire. The nearer the lines, 
 of course the more defences there are, also 
 tunnels and mines that could blow whole 
 regiments of Boches to Hell. 
 
 One realises more and more why we 
 have arrived at a sort of checkmate where 
 both sides find it equally difficult to ad- 
 vance, and more and more am I con- 
 vinced that the war will not end under 
 the present conditions of fighting. 
 
 At the '^poste de secours" outside of 
 Montigny we find car No. 3 waiting for 
 us to relieve him. No. 3 starts back with 
 his load, making the "tournee de ramas- 
 sage" on his way in and we remain on 
 service for 24 hours. 
 
 Montigny was once a little village on 
 a hill overlooking a peaceful stream and 
 green meadows with other little hills and 
 
*^No. 6^^ 79 
 
 villages in the distance. Montigny had 
 a few hundred contented inhabitants; 
 Montigny had a fine little church. Now 
 there is nothing left; no church, a few 
 demolished houses without windows or 
 roofs; that, however, makes but little dif- 
 ference, one is so often obliged to sleep in 
 the cellars. Where are those who once 
 lived here in peace? Little crosses on 
 the hillside account for the men; are the 
 women any better off? 
 
 At present the 37th regiment is quar- 
 tered here; the officers and men spend 
 sixteen days in the trenches and eight days 
 in between "en repos." Once during 
 every "periode de repos" the gas-masks 
 are tested, and as to-day was the day ap- 
 pointed to test them we were able to try 
 ours for the first time. Thirty of us at 
 a time, after adjusting our masks, were 
 
8o ^*No. 6^^ 
 
 closed in a small room where the Major 
 exploded a gas cartridge. We remained 
 for five minutes and, at the end of that 
 time, if ^'ga ne pique pas" you conclude 
 that your mask is quite all right. Noth- 
 ing could be more uncomfortable to wear 
 than a gas-mask; it must be worn very 
 tight in order that no gas shall enter; 
 breathing is difficult and your poor head 
 soon aches. A new device that I also 
 tried is a great improvement but unfor- 
 tunately too expensive for general use. 
 Air is inhaled through a reservoir carried 
 on the back which makes the gases harm- 
 less, and then exhaled through a valve 
 that makes respiration quite natural. 
 This mask is good for one hundred hours 
 instead of only two or three. As the 
 gases are developed and improved, so 
 also must »;he masks be. There is a new 
 
^*No. 6^' 8i 
 
 gas called "moutarde" that is affected by 
 moisture so that masks will not suffice and 
 the pores of the skin as well have to be 
 protected. They are also experimenting 
 with cyanide and others equally deadly, 
 so that soon nothing other than a diverts 
 outfit or a hermetically sealed coffin will 
 save you. 
 
 There are no orders, nothing to do but 
 drink beer with a hospitable officer who 
 invited us to his humble mess to smoke 
 and chat with several other good fellows. 
 Over the glasses with tales of adventures 
 and women we forget there is war, and 
 are only reminded from time to time that 
 the Boches are but a mile away by an 
 occasional gun and the whistle of a shell 
 overhead on its way to or from the Ger- 
 man lines. 
 
 In the crepuscule I strolled up the hill 
 
82 *^No. 6^^ 
 
 along the road that leads to the first line 
 trenches; beautiful poplars line the road 
 on both sides standing straighter than the 
 sentries. An innocent little wood where 
 men have slit each other's throats and 
 stuck bayonets into each other's bellies 
 now belongs to us; beyond "no man's 
 land," and beyond that what we are fight- 
 ing for. 
 
 We have been invited to dinner so I 
 return on time. There is a saying "the 
 nearer the front the higher the life." The 
 fare may not be so good as at the Cafe 
 de la Paix but the bread is whiter in this 
 Cafe de la Guerre. A bare little room 
 with a stone floor in a half blown up 
 house, by the light of a dim and smelly 
 lamp we linger over our coffee and 
 poilu rum, the "world forgetting, by 
 the world forgot." Outside the rain 
 
^^No. 6^^ 83 
 
 beats against the closed shutters, it is per- 
 fectly still and black except for the star- 
 shells and rockets that reassure you ; they 
 do not sleep, those who watch out there. 
 What have we not talked about; there is 
 nothing left; the lamp is burning low, the 
 bottle is empty, so we go to bed in a room 
 with crumpled walls and only a dilapi- 
 dated iron bedstead and a lousy, blood- 
 stained mattress, by the light of a solitary 
 candle. Poor little candle ! A great blan- 
 ket is hung over the window to hide the 
 flickering light that might shine through 
 the shell torn shutters. Outside it rains 
 in a dismal way on a dismal world and 
 the wind moans in a dismal way for a dis- 
 mal reason. 
 
 ^Xe vent qui vient a travers les mon- 
 tagnes." 
 
Wednesday, 2Qth August. 
 
 We slept in our boots ready for a call, 
 but none came, so we slept until the sun- 
 shine crawled through the shrapnel holes 
 in the shutters. After a washup in the 
 cool little stream that comes down from 
 the Vosges, we had our coffee and started 
 out accompanied by our good friend the 
 Lieutenant, to inspect the trenches. The 
 same road of yesterday leads toward them 
 and we can drive part of the way, as far 
 as a little "poste de secours" in a little 
 clearing, where we leave the ambulance. 
 
 A few hundred yards further on the 
 road is barred by barbed wire entangle- 
 ments and as the shell holes prove it is 
 not always neglected by the Boche, we 
 enter the communicating trenches that 
 
 34 
 
zigzag through the wood. What a maze 
 of trenches with a '^cachabis" every hun- 
 dred yards or so! queer little dug-outs 
 where men live like moles. 
 
 They are fairly dry in spite of the rain 
 of yesterday, but the water will be above 
 the corduroy flooring and up to the mid- 
 dle before long, not so pleasant for the 
 men and the rats! 
 
 There have been no attacks latterly; 
 the enemy has been too busy in Flanders 
 where, thank Heaven, he has been getting 
 Hell. As we get nearer we become more 
 cautious, one must not look over the para- 
 pet, one must make no noise, it brings the 
 little lead bullets that sting like wasps. 
 At the furthest point we peered over the 
 top ; we are on the slope of a hill, beyond 
 us nothing but devastation. This is "no 
 man's land" where nothing but barbed 
 
86 "No. 6 
 
 9 9 
 
 wire grows and nothing but crows live. 
 At night patrols venture forth, crawling 
 on their stomachs towards each other's 
 trenches to feel for foot-prints or to lis- 
 ten. Sometimes a star-shell reveals them 
 and they do not return; sometimes they 
 meet out there in the dark. A prayer or 
 an oath, a groan or a gurgle, one stays and 
 the other comes back. Quite plainly you 
 can see the rows of German trenches and 
 it is strange to think that only a little way 
 ofif they are watching us through their 
 periscopes just as we are watching them. 
 On the left is the village of Donevre : with 
 the naked eye we can see the crooked 
 streets and the holes in the roofs of the 
 houses, but one sees no Germans. They 
 live in the cellars and like bats only come 
 forth at night. In the first line running 
 parallel along the ridge are the observa- 
 
( ( 
 
 No. 6'' 87 
 
 tion posts, little armoured turrets where 
 one sits in rare comfort peering through 
 a little slit, rows of rifles and mitrail- 
 leuses ever ready to spit lead. Very 
 few men are kept in these front trenches ; 
 they remain in the rear, ready to come up 
 at the first sign of an attack. Shelling 
 the trenches is consequently not suffi- 
 ciently profitable, an occasional hit would 
 not warrant the waste of powder. The 
 uncertain wind in this hilly terrain makes 
 the use of gas equally dangerous to both, 
 the bleaching bones in ''no man's land" 
 shows the result of attempting to take 
 them by storm, so nothing happens and 
 we return as we came, zigzagging 
 through a labyrinth of traverses while the 
 guns boom and the shells shriek as they 
 fly over our heads. Latterly there have 
 been several accidents at Montigny, — only 
 
88 ^^No. 6^^ 
 
 last week two blacks were killed by a 
 "marmite," — so the dressing station has 
 been moved to an old barn down the road 
 where we report to the Major and while 
 awaiting orders we lunch, sharing our 
 meal with some poilus, who in return 
 give us soup and mashed potatoes. 
 
 They are always so friendly, these sim- 
 ple soldiers whom you learn to love, with 
 a stripe or more on their arm that means 
 a ride or more in one of our ambulances 
 at some time or other, and their tales are 
 vastly interesting, but they are tired of 
 it all. Five sous a day and a grave in 
 the end with a little white cross, ^'Ici re- 
 pose" — one of a million whose lot it was 
 to work and suffer and die. 
 
 At one o'clock another car comes to re- 
 lieve us and with a couple of "assis" we 
 proceed upon our tour of "ramassage." 
 
^^No. 6'^ 89 
 
 We visit in turn the villages of Migne- 
 ville, Vaxainville, Reherrey and Mer- 
 ville; there is but little left of these vil- 
 lages except the cellars, the most useful 
 part of these frontier houses, however. 
 In each village there is an ^4nfirmerie" 
 with a pile of straw for sick beds and a 
 "brancard" for an operating table. The 
 men to be evacuated are taken and left 
 at one of the several large hospitals at 
 Baccarat where they are fortunately bet- 
 ter off. The day's work is over to begin 
 again to-morrow. 
 
 My room seems very luxurious to- 
 night, the little cot very inviting. Lying 
 snugly tucked away under a mountain of 
 blankets one thinks of those out there 
 with only the stars above and the mud 
 beneath. 
 
Thursday, JOth August. 
 After "soupe," which means dinner, 
 we received an unexpected visit from our 
 chief, accompanied by the head of the 
 Red Cross and some staff officers. They 
 have been making a tour of the sections 
 bringing official word that what we had 
 read in the papers was true; the govern- 
 ment has decided to take over the serv- 
 ice; our chief and his associates have re- 
 signed. For me this means the end very 
 shortly for I shall do as they have seen 
 fit to do. To the silent little group that 
 gathered about him in the growing dark- 
 ness he said a few words, words that come 
 straight from a man's heart and go to 
 others, and then he was gone, this fellow 
 we all love, who will no longer be our 
 
 chief. 
 
 90 
 
Friday, Jlst August. 
 
 The service continues very light, less 
 than half the cars go out every day and 
 the idle moments are many; tant mieux, 
 it means less wounded and France has had 
 enough already. 
 
 This afternoon I visited the great glass 
 manufactory. Before the war they em- 
 ployed 5,000 men, now there are about 
 500, old, very old men and young, very 
 young boys engaged chiefly in making bot- 
 tles, bottles for medicines instead of the 
 exquisite bottles for ladies' dressing- 
 tables or gentlemen's sideboards. Quite 
 the most extraordinary sight was the 
 champion glass blower, pointed out to us 
 with pride and envy by his fellow blow- 
 ers. A cross, surly individual, unlike 
 
 the others, who laugh at being laughed 
 91 
 
92 ^^No. 6^^ 
 
 at. He is old and insignificant until he 
 gives a little puff, when his jowls swell 
 like soap-bubbles; then he becomes a 
 thing of curiosity and splendour, and 
 when after a couple of preliminary 
 swings he holds the long tube in his 
 mouth and lets himself out he is indeed 
 a thing to marvel at. The skin that dan- 
 gles loosely from his cheeks bellies out 
 like a child's toy balloon; there seems to 
 be no limit, for they only stop swelling 
 when he has accomplished his purpose 
 and the molten glass becomes a lamp 
 chimney or a giant electric light bulb. 
 
 It is strange what people do to live and 
 what importance they attach to living; 
 would he were near when next I puncture 
 a tire! 
 
 After dinner, this being a night off, I 
 went to the movies, all that Baccarat of- 
 
'^No. 6^^ 93 
 
 fers in the way of entertainment. In the 
 usual hall the usual audience of poilus 
 and the usual sickening pictures of cheap 
 sentimentality. On the way home the 
 ^^club," a back room in the Hotel Dupont 
 where there is a piano and some beer and 
 smoke and tales of the day's work, work 
 that is done and means bed and rest. 
 
Saturday, 1st September. 
 No. 6 is '^en alerte," which means that 
 No. 6 must be ready to go out in case of a 
 call for any special service, but no call 
 comes, so after a day spent waiting we 
 turn in, half dressed, still '^en alerte.'' 
 
 NO MAN'S LAND 
 
 There is a land that no man dare 
 To call his own, no man would care, — 
 This hell-swept waste of stench and mire 
 Of rusty spikes and tangled wire 
 Where corpses rot, faces upturned, 
 Torn, split and emptied, charred and burned. 
 A land of death where nothing grows, 
 Where nothing lives but worms and crows, 
 Land of bleaching bones and devastation 
 Of mournful hope and utter desolation — 
 You are Death's, and his hoary hand 
 Stretches ever o'er No Man's Land. 
 94 
 
Sunday, 2nd September. 
 
 At 5.40 a. m. an urgent call came for 
 an ambulance, so we opened her up and 
 raced off to Azerailles, a little town four 
 kilometres away, where we collected a' 
 badly wounded fellow; fortunately he 
 was unconscious and the bumps that break 
 your heart when you have a groaning load 
 of them meant nothing to him. We got 
 him back to the hospital still alive but 
 the knowing orderly shook his head and 
 the good sister murmured a prayer, so I 
 fear it was all for nothing. 
 
 This afternoon the Boches came; they 
 come quite often and rarely miss a Sun- 
 day. It is not easy to pot them but we 
 drove them off with no damage here al- 
 though they raised the devil with a little 
 95 
 
96 "No. 6 
 
 > 9 
 
 town over which they passed on their way 
 back. It is wonderful how they fly, these 
 birdmen; one of our own appeared as I 
 was standing on the bridge after vespers. 
 From a tremendous height he swooped 
 down upon us, circling the church steeple 
 and ofif again, but our cheers and the ex- 
 tra glass of Pinard or Poilu that he must 
 have had with his Sunday dinner brought 
 him back. Flying upside down seemed 
 to be his special delight with a nose dive 
 now and then and a loop the loop here 
 and there. 
 
 There is a little cafe opposite the cris- 
 tallerie, a dingy little place frequented 
 by soldiers. Passing by on the way home 
 I heard the strains of a violin; some one 
 was playing, playing divinely. In a 
 dimly lighted room thick with smoke, 
 dozens of poilus were crowded about 
 
the bare tables with half empty beer 
 glasses and saucers piled high. Silently 
 they sat with their hairy chins buried in 
 their hairy paws listening to a poilu 
 pla}^ His music had put them in a 
 serious mood, but just as music has the 
 power to create moods within us so it 
 changes them at will, and when a moment 
 later he started some gay French song, 
 his body swaying from side to side, the 
 glasses began to clink once more and they 
 roared the words of a refrain that must 
 be censored. 
 
 So it went, one moment we were a gay, 
 laughing crowd, the next silent and sad 
 with far-away thoughts. Romano, for 
 that is his name, has a great soul. For 
 years he played at Monte Carlo; now he 
 is here like all of us playing for higher 
 Stakes with the ever booming guns to ac- 
 
98 ^^No. 6^^ 
 
 company the fiddle he caresses more 
 fondly than a mistress. 
 
 Long after hours we remained, but 
 happy hours come to an end just as do the 
 unhappy ones, I hope, so out into the 
 night still singing ^'Madelon,'' and home 
 through streets dark and deserted except 
 for the sentinels who stand guard with 
 one eye open and one eye closed. 
 
 QUAND MADELON. 
 
 "Pour le repos, le plaisir du militaire 
 II est la-bas a deux pas de la foret 
 Une maison aux murs tout couverts de llerre 
 "Aux Tour-lou-rou" c'est le nom du cabaret. 
 La servente est jeune et gentille 
 Legere comme un papillon 
 Comme son vin son oeil petllle; 
 Nous I'appelons Madelon. 
 
 Nous en revons la nult nous en pensons le jour — 
 Ce n'est que Madelon, mais pour nous c*est 
 Tamour," 
 
No. 6 
 
 Refrain 
 
 99 
 
 "Quand Madelon frole son jupon 
 
 Et chacun lui raconte une histoire 
 
 Une histoire a sa fagon 
 
 La Madelon pour nous n'est pas severe 
 
 Quand on lui prend la taille ou le menton, 
 
 Elle rit, c'est tout le mal qu'elF sait faire- 
 
 Madelon— Madelon— Madelon !" 
 
^Monday, 3rd September. 
 
 No. 6 required a bit of attention as No. 
 6 often does, otherwise a lazy day ^'en re- 
 pos." While working over the car a grey- 
 haired fellow who begged a bit of essence 
 for his briquet told me how he got his 
 ^^croix de guerre" in 1914. 
 
 "It was tough in Lorraine when we 
 drove them from Luneville but worse, 
 nom de Dieu, up north. Eight of us 
 were in a stable shooting through the 
 windows when a marmite came through 
 the roof. I carried the sergeant to a 
 poste a kilometre away. No, he wasn't 
 so heavy with only one leg, and he fit very 
 snugly in the hole in my shoulder. The 
 others — you could have picked them up 
 in a bag. C'est tout/' 
 
 100 
 
^^No. 6'' loi 
 
 To-night our good friends, the French 
 officers from Montigny, messed with us 
 and we spent a jolly evening at the 
 ^^Club." 
 
 Work when you have to, play when you can, 
 Shoot them and stick them, care not a damn, 
 Hug them and kiss them, there is no ban, 
 "C'est la guerre J Madame/^ 
 
Tuesday, 4th September. 
 There is very little activity these days; 
 they are too busy up north. To-night we 
 gave a concert to some of the French offi- 
 cers and my poilu artist played for us. 
 Life is a dreary march towards a tomb, 
 ^^en passant il faut etre gai," especially 
 soldiers who often march quickly. 
 
 102 
 
Wednesday, September §th. 
 
 Cars Nos. 5 and 6 go to Badonviller 
 for twenty-four hours. At 12 we leave, 
 arriving at 12.45. ''S'il y a des coups de 
 main" we shall have work, but this 
 afternoon all is quiet. Now and again 
 our batteries salute the Germans, now 
 and again the Germans return the com- 
 pliment. 
 
 There is but little left of Badonviller; 
 it was completely shot up the first weeks 
 of the war when it was taken and retaken 
 several times by both sides. The houses 
 are without roofs, the walls that remain 
 standing rent by great shell holes and 
 pierced by shrapnel. The streets are still 
 littered with the hastily constructed bar- 
 ricades of timber and barbed wire that 
 103 
 
I04 ^^No. 6^^ 
 
 were thrown up during the first attacks 
 when they fought all over the place, and 
 here are also the permanent ones built 
 later by the Germans of cement and 
 Krupp's steel. Those must have been hot 
 times when the French held one streetand 
 the Germans another, when the ^'mitrail- 
 leuse" in the darkness killed their own. 
 After days of desperate fighting the Ger- 
 mans succeeded in taking the cemetery, 
 over the graves and in and out of the 
 tombs they fought. The dead must have 
 had a day of it with fellows overhead 
 sticking bayonets into each other and 
 bashing in skulls. For several days the 
 French were able to keep the church, 
 with their machine guns mounted upon 
 the altars vomiting lead through holes 
 knocked in the walls, but the Germans 
 had heavy artillery and when they 
 
**No. 6" los 
 
 brought it up and got the range there 
 was no more church, no more Frenchmen. 
 A few little flowers have sprung up out 
 of their blood; their bones are buried 
 amongst the stones and mortar but their 
 spirit remains and their souls are immor- 
 tal. 
 
 Countless wooden crosses within the 
 tumbled down walls of the cemetery 
 mark the graves of many other heroic 
 Frenchmen. Your noble sacrifice was 
 not in vain; the lives you gave to check 
 the first onslaught of the Huns saved 
 France and France saved the world. The 
 few civilians who returned when it was 
 all over and when the Germans were fi- 
 nally driven out live in cellars and go 
 about their business with gas-masks ever 
 ready, for Badonviller is scarcely a kilo- 
 metre from the first lines. 
 
io6 **No. 6'* 
 
 The old woman in whose house we are 
 quartered owes her life to her "metier 
 de sage femme," and the fact that when 
 the Germans occupied the town her serv- 
 ices were required by a German woman. 
 We have come to help her country so 
 she cannot do enough for us, the good 
 soul. She cooks the food we bring and 
 lets us sleep in her dining-room. 
 
 After calling upon the "Major du can- 
 tonment" for orders and finding none, I 
 visited the trenches. Back of the ceme- 
 tery on the hill they begin and for a mile 
 one winds in and out of the "boyaux" 
 that lead to the first lines. Overhead the 
 shells whistle in an everlasting game of 
 battledore and shuttlecock "et on s'en 
 f ." The trenches are splendidly con- 
 structed with directions everywhere, a 
 corduroy flooring that keeps them fairly 
 
( ( 
 
 No. 6" 107 
 
 dry and every few hundred metres en- 
 trances to elaborate dug-outs where deep 
 down, vast quantities of supplies, muni- 
 tions and men are stored. The advanced 
 machine gun positions are arranged so 
 that each gun will sweep a certain ter- 
 rain, leaving not a square foot uncovered. 
 They are in communication by telephone 
 with the listening-posts still closer up and 
 the batteries that would protect them by 
 barrage fire in case of massed attack. At 
 night they have a system of signals: one 
 green light means to fire, two green lights 
 fire continuously, red light to ask for ar- 
 tillery support, white light all well. The 
 most advanced post is known as a listen- 
 ing-post and was located in a little thicket 
 only occupied in the daytime. Here 
 thirty yards from the Boche were a hand- 
 ful of soldiers with a rifle in one hand and 
 
I08 ^^No, 6^^ ^^ 
 
 a hand grenade in the other, ever on the 
 alert. One peers through a little peri- 
 scope and fancies that an equally vigilant 
 German eye is peering back; it is a queer 
 sensation and you are ready to duck if you 
 see a grenade coming your way. 
 
 They tell you strange tales, these chaps, 
 and you do not wonder when they ask in 
 a whisper when it will finish. 
 
 The days are getting short, soon it will 
 be winter; it is almost dark and time to 
 return, back as we came, to our soup. 
 
 Our versatile midwife is a rare 
 "cuisto." Somehow or other she man- 
 aged to get a few eggs for an omelet, and 
 with fried potatoes, some "singe" and a 
 bottle of 'Tinard" one cannot grumble. 
 Madame likes her "verre," too, so she sat 
 down with us and told us many tales of 
 German atrocities; how the Mayor's wife 
 
'*No. 6" 109 
 
 had been shot for looking out of a win- 
 dow, how a little boy who had been sent 
 by a brute of an officer to fetch some 
 water was shot upon his return and while 
 still alive thrown into the fire. In the 
 Mairie there is a roll of honour with the 
 names of all those who were murdered 
 and how they met their fate. It is use- 
 less to recite this litany of crimes, mur- 
 der, rape, arson, nothing did they omit. 
 The room above was used as an operat- 
 ing room and ward. A French boy of 
 ten, who day and night had been made to 
 work for them, was badly wounded by a 
 shell fragment. While lying upon one of 
 the cots he was observed by an officer, who 
 calmly threw him through the window 
 to squash what was left of his poor man- 
 gled little body in the street below. 
 
no ^^No. 6'^ 
 
 God damn the Germans! "Goddamn" 
 is a prayer. 
 
 There are no lights when night comes. 
 The village is a village of dead. We 
 climbed the hill that leads past the ceme- 
 tery and out beyond where no man lives 
 and all is still, still because every now 
 and again a white rocket flares up, but a 
 red or green one would change it all. 
 
 The guns are asleep, to-night it is per- 
 fectly dark and quiet until a star-shell 
 goes up, as they do every few moments, 
 lighting up "no man's land" where none 
 must venture. As far as one can see they 
 are bursting, these beautiful star-shells, 
 making day of the night from here to the 
 North Sea. 
 
 On our return we found the Major 
 who came to share a bottle of beer, and 
 we heard further tales of German atroci- 
 
*^No. 6^' III 
 
 ties and the Kultur of Von Bernhardi. 
 May the day of reckoning soon come! 
 This is our prayer as we roll ourselves up 
 in our blankets upon the brancards that 
 less fortunate ones have found less com- 
 fortable. 
 
Thursday, 6th September, 
 We are relieved at the expiration of 
 our 24 hours and return to Baccarat pass- 
 ing through Peronne and Vacqueville for 
 any sick or wounded on the way. 
 
 To-day there is bad news from the out- 
 side world; the Germans have taken Riga 
 and the situation is very gloomy. 
 
 Russia and the Russians! they have 
 failed us and it is for them that France is 
 at warl 
 
 112 
 
Friday, Jth September, 
 "Apres le travail le plaisir, apres la 
 pluie le beau temps." The sun was 
 warm this afternoon and we had a glori- 
 ous bathe in the Meuthe where I left a 
 few ^'cooties," and then a peaceful siesta 
 on the shady banks where I collected a 
 few insects. 
 
 It must be quite easy to kill when the 
 day is grim and stormy; to-day it would 
 be hard, but guns of steel have no hearts 
 and men's hearts have become of steel; 
 so the guns are never still, but they are 
 far away and the occasional boom has a 
 pleasant sound, a mellow soothing rum- 
 ble that lulls one to sleep, — to sleep and 
 dream of the years that are gone and of 
 
 those that may never come. 
 113 
 
114 **No. 6'' 
 
 If it ever ends how I shall live! The 
 hours I have squandered, the pleasures I 
 have ignored, no longer will they escape 
 me; my cup will be full and I shall drink 
 to the dregs. I shall taste for the first 
 time the happiness of things and hours 
 that meant nothing before. For the first 
 time I shall know the '^joie de vivre." 
 "To breathe in the sunshine of a happy 
 day, to drink in the moonlight of a happy 
 night." Wild fancies, these, when to- 
 morrow a shapeless carcass may be all 
 that is left to rot by the wayside. 
 
 Awake with a start; the sun is setting 
 in the west, and the guns are grumbling 
 in the east. 
 
Saturday, 8th September. 
 To-day we go to Herberviller; it is not 
 our most advanced post, but it is the most 
 disagreeable, as here the Germans have 
 left nothing. The population has gone 
 forever, there is not even a dog or a stray 
 cat. Ruins everywhere, among which 
 live a few soldiers and ourselves. Our 
 garage is what is left of a house next to 
 the ^'infirmerie," where there is a tele- 
 phone that summons us wherever we may 
 be needed. 
 
 As there seems to be no need of us at 
 present I walked over to St. Martin along 
 a well shelled road. The Germans are 
 on their good behaviour to-day, not that 
 the swine know how to behave but they 
 have been saving their ammunition lat- 
 
 115 
 
ii6 **No. 6'^ 
 
 terly. St. Martin is like most of the 
 towns in this region ; a demolished church 
 surrounded by demolished houses, occu- 
 pied only by soldiers ^'en repos" but al- 
 ways working. In the village repairing 
 "abris," in the fields digging trenches, in 
 the graveyards digging fresh graves for 
 comrades who might just as well be dig- 
 ging theirs. It may be luck, it may be 
 destiny, or maybe but the caprice of a 
 shrapnel shell. 
 
 The surgeon in charge of the "in- 
 firmerie" was on his way out to visit the 
 Captain in one of the advanced posts; a 
 short walk over the hills brought us to 
 the entrance of the ^^boyaux" through 
 which we made our way, finally emerging 
 in a little wood about a kilometre from 
 the German lines. Here we found the 
 Captain peacefully smoking in the door 
 
**No. 6'' 117 
 
 of his luxurious dug-out. It was the 
 hour to make the rounds so we set out 
 through more complicated trenches and 
 traverses that led us, unperceived by the 
 enemy, through fields of barbed wire and 
 shell holes to No. i "poste de resistance," 
 located in a clump of trees with a stretch 
 of "no man's land" separating us from the 
 Boches whose positions were a few hun- 
 dred yards away. 
 
 These P. R., or posts of resistance, take 
 the place of trenches ; they are thrust out 
 as far as possible and command the ter- 
 rain between themselves and similar ones 
 on their right and left. This particular 
 one is occupied by about 50 men, mostly 
 '^Annamites" who, because of their alert- 
 ness, make excellent sentinels under the 
 command of French sous officiers. If 
 attacked they resist as best they can until 
 
ii8 *^No. 6^^ 
 
 relieved or killed. ^'En attendant" they 
 live in their dug-outs ever on the watch, 
 on the watch for the German patrols that 
 come at night to cut their wire and get 
 behind them. Only last week a captain 
 and his orderly were set upon and killed 
 by some Germans who in the night had 
 managed to get through and were hiding 
 in the thicket. So every morning the 
 wood is beaten and when a twig snaps or 
 a tree stirs in the lazy afternoon breeze 
 a dozen rifles are pointed m that direc- 
 tion. 
 
 For days they have been trying to catch 
 a dog who comes over from the German 
 lines, a mysterious fellow on his way no 
 one knows where, but they think he once 
 lived in the '^pays," and is being used by 
 some Boche to carry messages back and 
 forth. Several times he has been seen, 
 
^^No. 6^' 119 
 
 usually about dusk, but each time he got 
 away, as orders had been given not to 
 shoot him, so as to find out where he went. 
 Poor brute, keep away, the orders have 
 been changed and you are to be shot the 
 next time you appear, like any other 
 Boche. 
 
 After a careful inspection, orders were 
 given for a patrol to go out that night. 
 The sergeant takes his orders, salutes, and 
 walks away as if he had been ordered to 
 clean a pair of boots. 
 
 C'est la guerre! 
 
 By a series of underground traverses 
 we reached Post No. 2 where everything 
 was equally quiet although the night be- 
 fore they were obliged to drive off some 
 Germans. 
 
 Brave fellows, these, who sit around 
 calmly smoking until they are killed; 
 
I20 *^No. 6'^ 
 
 some day an attack comes and they need 
 no orders to remain. A cloud of gas or 
 a rain of shells will keep them but they 
 will die hard in their little dug-outs cov- 
 ered by sandbags and closed in by barbed 
 wire, die as they lived, — for France. This 
 is the spirit that saved us, this is what all 
 the diabolical German inventions cannot 
 overcome. And just as this undaunted 
 spirit born of a just cause makes men fight 
 all the harder in bad moments, so the lack 
 of it will make the Boche give up quicker 
 when his bad moments come, as they 
 surely will. 
 
 Back as we came with enemy avions 
 amongst the little white puffs of shrapnel 
 in a cloudless sky and the shells that 
 whistle everlastingly back and forth. 
 
 Dinner over a little fire in the cool of 
 the evening, and sleep rolled up in a dirty 
 
**No. 6" 121 
 
 blanket on a filthy stretcher, sleep and 
 dreams of a world left behind. 
 
 In the middle of the night a call came 
 from St. Martin, where we arrived to find 
 our friend the sergeant shot through the 
 foot and a little yellow Chinaman with a 
 bad leg. The patrol that went out to 
 reconnoitre was discovered, a heavenly 
 star-shell and a hellish mitrailleuse did 
 the trick. 
 
 So we return our friend's hospitality 
 with a long ride to Ogerviller and Bac- 
 carat, trying hard to avoid the bumps on 
 a very black night. 
 
Sunday, September the Qth, 
 After a night of it one is glad to be re- 
 lieved and return to Baccarat for a bath 
 and a rest. In the evening we gather at 
 the Hotel Dupont which has become our 
 club, to drink beer and swap stories, 
 stories of shells that nearly blew a wheel 
 off and shells that really blew a leg off. 
 
 I heard of a fellow whose hands were 
 blown off by a hand grenade. They did 
 what they could to make him comfort- 
 able. Between bumps and moans he 
 said very simply, '^Ca va bien, I gave my 
 life to France; she has only taken my 
 hands." 
 
 Bedtime comes and then to-morrow 
 when it begins again, this endless round 
 of 'Tostes de secours" giving up their 
 endless quota of wounded. 
 
 122 
 
Monday, September lOth, 
 More bad news from Russia ; I fear we 
 can no longer count upon them. 
 
 One grows very fond of the Poilus; 
 great indeed are their qualities and great 
 the debt we owe them. The general does 
 not share the soldier's hardships and mis- 
 ery, the soldier does not share the gen- 
 eral's glory and recognition. 
 
 I called at the hospital to see my friend 
 the sergeant; his foot is doing famously 
 and he will be back in a fortnight with 
 another stripe on his arm and another 
 foot to be shot. 
 
 "Bonne chance mon vieux" — "Merci Monsieur** — 
 And be up with his kit and away 
 With a stripe on his arm for the blood he'd shed 
 And a patched up side where he'd bloody well bled 
 
 For France. 
 123 
 
124 **No. 6" 
 
 He's done his bit but there's more to do 
 It will not be through for the "brave poilu" 
 'Til his life is spent or the battle won, 
 'Til he's smashed the Boche and finished the Hun 
 
 For France. 
 
 This is the spirit of legions in blue 
 
 The every thought of every poilu 
 
 Who gives life gladly that France may live 
 
 — So long live France! 
 
 Sometimes you see them with four and 
 five stripes; it means that four or five 
 times they have been wounded, shot full 
 of lead from a machine gun, hit by a 
 hand grenade that rips you open or a 
 piece of shell that tears a jagged hole in 
 a belly to empty its entrails, to fall in a 
 Hell-swept shell crater wondering if the 
 end has come, praying that it has. 
 
 To bleed and curse and thirst for hours, 
 sometimes days; the agony of being 
 moved with a mangled leg or a shattered 
 
arm, to be carried on a back or a stretcher 
 to a dressing station, to be dumped on a 
 pile of straw to wait your turn; the tor- 
 ture of being patched up, then a hellish 
 ride in an ambulance that jolts your heart 
 out. Bloody, muddy, sticking bandages 
 to be torn off and at last sleep, the brief 
 merciful sleep of chloroform while they 
 cut and burn and sew. Nights of fever 
 and thirst, days of dressings and anguish, 
 finally well. A few days of rest and 
 back — back for another stripe. 
 
Tuesday, Ilth September, 
 Montigny. The officers of the 37th 
 have left and Montigny is more desolate 
 than ever. The Boches shelled our ga- 
 rage so we have been obliged to change. 
 Our present one is between two walls, 
 which seem like the tower of Pisa, always 
 about to fall, the floor black mud, the 
 roof blue sky. 
 
 All the afternoon we were busy but 
 after ^'la soupe" there was nothing to do, 
 so I strolled up the hill and sat in the 
 graveyard watching the rockets "out 
 there." 
 
 After the grim daylight, night, 
 Night and the stars and the sea, 
 Only the stars and the sea 
 And the star-shorn sails and spars. 
 Naught else in the world for me. 
 126 
 
( < 
 
 No. 6" 127 
 
 In the presence of anything vast, a moun- 
 tain or the expanse of the sea, we realise 
 our own insignificance, how futile life is. 
 
 "On entre, on crfe, c'est la vie; 
 On crie, on sort, c'est la mort." 
 
 What difference does it all make? If 
 one believes in a hereafter what does it 
 matter if one arrives a little sooner or 
 later, this fleeting existence is not even a 
 drop in the bucket of eternity; if one be- 
 lieves in nothing hereafter, then again 
 what difference does it make? So you 
 whose bones lie bleaching out there con- 
 sole yourselves. 
 
 In the stillness in the distance you can 
 hear horses' hoofs and the creaking of 
 heavy wagons; the Germans bringing up 
 their supplies. Slowly the moon comes 
 out from behind a cloud. 
 
128 ^^No. 6^^ 
 
 "La nuit vient, tout se tut, les flambeaux s'eteigni- 
 
 rent 
 Dans les bofs assombrls, les sources se plalgnirent 
 Le rosslgnol cache dans son nid tenebreux 
 Chanta comme un poete et comme un amoureux. 
 Chacun se dispersa sous les profonds feuillages 
 Les folles en riant entralnerent les sages 
 L'amante s'en alia dans I'ombre avec I'amant 
 Et, trouble comme on Test en songe, vaguement, 
 lis sentaient par degres se meler a leur ame 
 A leurs discours secrets, a leur regard de flamme, 
 A leurs coeurs, a leurs sens, a leur molle ralson 
 Le clair de lune bleu qui baignait Thorizon." 
 
 Sometimes it is good to be alive; not 
 always, but the moon goes back behind 
 his great black cloud, and ^4e clair de 
 lune bleu qui baignait Thorizon" ends, — 
 ends like life, like love, like everything. 
 
 "J'ai le cafard," a vague longing to be 
 somewhere, a vague yearning for some- 
 thing; maybe sleep that brings forgetful- 
 ness will drive you away. Good-night, 
 
*^No. 6^^ 129 
 
 squelettes beneath your heavy tombstones. 
 They must have put them there for me 
 to stumble over. Surely they were not 
 needed to keep you in your peaceful 
 graves, surely the dead would not want to 
 come back — to be killed. 
 
 We planned a night of comfort and 
 luxuriousness; we put up our cots beside 
 an ambulance and turned in, but one by 
 one the stars disappear, just as one by one 
 they appeared, and it begins to rain; so 
 we pack them into a shed across the road 
 amongst the horses and the manure. 
 War makes strange bed-fellows. 
 
 Oh! for a fire I know — 
 The storm and the night outside, 
 The embers that smoulder and glow 
 And a friend by the fireside ! 
 
Wednesday, I2th September. 
 Baccarat again and more bad news 
 from the outside world, further disturb- 
 ances in Russia! Has Russia not been 
 sufficiently disturbed? More revolu- 
 tions! Has Russia not been sufficiently 
 revolutionised with the abolition of vodka 
 and the abdication of the Czar? The ma- 
 jority of Russians are too barbaric and 
 backward to be modernised, the minority 
 too modern and advanced to fit into the 
 present scheme of life. If at the outset 
 the Allies had taken hold of their coun- 
 try and resources, built them a few thou- 
 sand versts of railroad, equipped and 
 officered their vast armies as Germany 
 did for Turkey, the war might now be 
 
 over. Now if Germany succeeds in 
 130 
 
^*No. 6^^ 131 
 
 overcoming and utilising Russia as she 
 did Belgium, will the war ever end? 
 
 Sometimes I fancy the world reverting 
 to feudal times, one half fighting the 
 other half; intrenched within their for- 
 tresses, living on forever within them- 
 selves, just as the old barons in mediaeval 
 times fortified themselves against their 
 neighbours, making of their domain their 
 world. 
 
Thursday, 13th September. 
 
 One car is now permanently stationed 
 at Badonviiler and one at Ogerviller 
 where they remain one week in service, 
 consequently two cars less go out each day 
 and this brings us an additional day off 
 duty. 
 
 More casualties in our ranks, more 
 brandy and castor oil. 
 
 Sometimes in the midst of it all you get 
 a strange emotion. I passed to-day, com- 
 ing in from the front, a great motor lorry 
 piled high with knapsacks, helmets, 
 boots, and dirty torn tunics with dark red 
 stains. 
 
 **Man wants but little here below 
 Nor wants that little long." 
 It takes not long, it takes but little 
 To forget him when he's gone. 
 132 
 
September 14th, Friday, 
 Terrible news! not of the war or any- 
 thing so trivial. The Hotel Dupont has 
 been placed '^en consigne" for ten days 
 for serving officers between the hours. 
 The Marquise is terribly upset and so 
 are we; surely we cannot be without our 
 club! Off I go to see the General Staff 
 and things are arranged. 
 
 When I came for my coffee after din- 
 ner the Marquise and Helene gave me a 
 hug and presented me to two charm- 
 ing Parisiennes. ''C'est drole, la vie." 
 Their brother, a brave little chasseur, was 
 killed two years ago, so on the anniversary 
 they come to say a prayer and put a few 
 
 poor little flowers on his grave. Done 
 133 
 
134 **No, 6^^ 
 
 this afternoon, to-morrow they go, to- 
 night we dance. 
 
 It's a strange life where nothing 
 counts, not even death. 
 
September 15th, Saturday, 
 "She loved me for the dangers I had 
 passed, and I loved her that she did pity 
 them." How often have we sneered at 
 these lines in "Othello," not so to-day 
 when I had a narrow escape. This care- 
 less life makes one very callous; who will 
 ever go to Africa again to shoot a lion or 
 to the Rockies for a bear? Precious lit- 
 tle excitement it would afford after this 
 hunt for bigger game! 
 
 The French have always been an excit- 
 able people. I wonder at the lack of 
 emotion in the soldier no matter what is 
 going on. 
 
 "It's quite simple," as one of them ex- 
 plained, "si on se f pas mal de sa 
 
 peau on deviendrait fou." 
 135 
 
136 **No. 6 
 
 9 9 
 
 A lad in his twenties with long, wavy 
 hair and long, slender fingers, who, were 
 it not for the war, might be playing the 
 violin at the Cabaret Rouge in the Latin 
 Quarter or dreaming and writing verse 
 in a garret in Montmartre. It is strange 
 how they take to the grim business of war, 
 these mere boys ; over night they become 
 men, hardened to it all, a night of such 
 horrors as I have heard described; they 
 learn to kill with the best of them who, 
 the day before, would have shuddered at 
 the thought 
 
 A look of amusement came over his 
 boyish face as he told me how he had 
 ^^zigouille" a Boche: 
 
 ^'It went in like butter but I stuck it in 
 too hard and it would not come out. I 
 had to put my foot on him and pull. Oof ! 
 it was terrible to feel him wriggle." 
 
Gone the look of amusement and a look 
 of horror comes over a man's face. 
 
 This afternoon I visited the hospital to 
 see a friend. What a hellish and heav- 
 enly place, a hospital ward, with its at- 
 mosphere of carbolic and suffering, rows 
 of cots and glass tables, perambulators 
 with bottles of disinfectants and reme- 
 dies. Angels in white that quietly come 
 and go and smile and care; sick and 
 wounded getting better or dying, clean 
 and comfortable, as comfortable as they 
 can be made, for beneath the white sheets 
 legs and arms are gone— or worse. How 
 much suffering and resignation there is 
 expressed on these pale countenances that 
 smile so bravely to conceal it all. 
 
 My friend is no longer here. I 
 brought him in two days ago, shot 
 through the chest, thanking me for going 
 
138 **No. 6'' 
 
 slowly, begging me for water, dripping 
 blood all the way. That is why my 
 friend is no longer here. *'Mort pour la 
 France," — it has already been painted on 
 a million white crosses upon which the 
 sun is setting. How many more upon 
 which the sun will rise? As it goes 
 down over the hills to rise somewhere else 
 it leaves me with the "cafard" — "le caf- 
 ard" for that somewhere. 
 
 LE CAFARD 
 
 Like a ghost to haunt you 
 It comes in the night 
 To mock and taunt you 
 In the moonlight. 
 When shadows are strange 
 And all the world is still 
 It comes to disturb you 
 And to possess your will. 
 
Into your thoughts creeping 
 
 Things unheard, unseen, 
 
 Fancies saturating, 
 
 Blotting out the senses ; 
 
 Fining your empty heart 
 
 With a vague wanting, 
 
 Your empty soul 
 
 With a veiled longing, 
 
 Your empty arms w^ith a mad yearning 
 
 Till your soul is craving 
 For something near and far — 
 It comes in the night 
 In the moonlight — 
 Le Cafard, 
 
Saturday, 15th September. 
 
 We took some Boche prisoners at 
 Montigny, or rather they came over dur- 
 ing the night as they sometimes do. They 
 tell the usual tale of hunger and hard- 
 ship to excite pity, but they do not look it. 
 Starvation exists in Germany but only the 
 useless starve. With their brutal effi- 
 ciency the Germans feed their armies; 
 the old, the decrepit, the unnecessary 
 starve. 
 
 The lines occupied by the 8th Army ex- 
 tend as far as the Rendez-vous des Chas- 
 seurs, where I went this morning with 
 some officers. 
 
 "Ah! le beau jardin," exclaimed Louis 
 
 XIV when he saw these beautiful Vosges 
 
 mountains in Alsace, and a beautiful gar- 
 140 
 
**No. 6'* 141 
 
 den it is, indeed. Wonderful hills cov- 
 ered with pines, cool streams that mur- 
 mur and trickle slowly down into the val- 
 ley below where the meadows are red 
 with poppies — and blood. Way up 
 amongst the hills close to the sky is the 
 Rendez-vous des Chasseurs, too heavenly 
 a spot for hellish doings, but the pictur- 
 esque dugouts that look like chalets in 
 Switzerland are covered with sand-bags, 
 for the shells do not always whistle harm- 
 lessly by. The commandant's house is a 
 miniature castle built of granite with tur- 
 rets and a moat and a proud device over 
 the little gateway, ^'Ils ne passeront pas," 
 sublime words that recall Verdun, ^'They 
 shall not pass," nor did they. History 
 will record glorious names, glorious 
 deeds, la Marne, la Somme, I'Aisne, but 
 none more glorious than Verdun where 
 
142 **No. 6'' 
 
 German Kultur shattered itself against 
 French valour. 
 
 Half a mile away are the Boches who 
 will never be nearer paradise, — let us 
 hope they will soon be farther. 
 
 On the way in we stopped at the Vil- 
 lage Negre, so called because it was built 
 by the black troops who occupied it in 
 1914. For months the Germans never 
 ceased shelling them, so they dug them- 
 selves in little by little and to-day there is 
 an underground village on the side of the 
 hill, with quarters for thousands, hospi- 
 tals, storehouses, everything underground. 
 One sees nothing but little entrances that 
 lead to the elaborate dwellings. Here 
 and there smoke curls lazily out of the 
 ground where far below they cook and 
 eat and live like ants. 
 
 I dined to-night with some French of- 
 
**No. 6" 143 
 
 ficers; one of them is known as "Le 
 Mort.'^ He was in command of a bat- 
 tery that was hit fairly. When the smoke 
 blew away there was no battery. Days 
 after when they came to clean up the 
 debris they found him half buried and 
 half dead. But ^'Le Mort" is still very 
 much alive and has another battery if 
 the Germans need proof. 
 
 Together we stroll home through the 
 night, "Le Mort"— Death — and myself, 
 through streets deserted but for the ever 
 vigilant sentries wrapped in their great 
 coats tramping wearily up and down or 
 huddled up in their little coffin-like 
 boxes. 
 
 In the cafes there is light and warmth 
 and wine — and more soldiers clinking 
 glasses singing Madelon — "pour le re- 
 pos du militaire" — out there where the 
 
144 ^^No. e'' 
 
 rain falls softly and the mud is everlast- 
 ing, more soldiers watching and waiting 
 for death — ''le seul repos du militaire," 
 but amongst all these weary soldiers not 
 one who will not go on living, or if needs 
 be, die for France. 
 
 For three long years and a half they 
 have borne the brunt of it; their courage 
 has been sublime — there have been bad 
 moments, but in the midst of them they 
 have never faltered. 
 
 The savage finds a delight in fighting 
 — even the English find an enjoyment in 
 a life of excitement and adventure. The 
 German does it in his stolid way, as a 
 child goes to bed, because he is told to. 
 The Russian revels in things reckless and 
 mad, but the French love life too well — 
 they love their food, their wine, their 
 women. To gladly give all is the hero- 
 
^*No. e'' 145 
 
 ism of France, in whose heart there is sor- 
 row but upon whose soul is graven the 
 stern Roman motto, ''Vae Victis" — so the 
 Huns shall be brought to account and 
 made drink to the dregs from the cup of 
 skulls they fashioned, the tears they 
 caused to flow. 
 
 Two letters have come, one from the 
 chief informing me that my liberation 
 had been asked for. I have been offered 
 a commission and am to proceed to 
 Paris immediately. 
 
 The other from General , asking 
 
 me if my views had not changed. No! 
 my convictions are stronger than ever, all 
 this will not bring a military decision. 
 
 Germany must be beaten by other 
 means, but Germany will be beaten for 
 France will never stop until the peace 
 they long for is theirs — the peace they 
 
146 "No. 6 
 
 > f 
 
 owe their dead, real peace, that only a 
 real victory will bring. 
 
 France has given much, has much to 
 give; France will give her all. Her sac- 
 rifice will not have been in vain if war 
 in the future be but a thing of the past. 
 
Sunday, l6th September. 
 
 How cold it is when the day breaks; 
 often have I lain awake in the night in 
 this little room haunted by ^4e caffard" 
 for far-away places. 
 
 I leave for Paris at eight. How often 
 shall I lay awake in far-away places 
 haunted by '4e cafard" for this little 
 room — for the good friends of Section 59 
 —and "No. 6." 
 
 147 
 
POILU TERMS 
 
 boyaux communicating trenches 
 
 brancard stretcher 
 
 cachabis dug-out 
 
 cafard yearning 
 
 camion motor lorry 
 
 cuisto cook 
 
 embusque slacker 
 
 en panne broken down 
 
 en planton in reserve 
 
 genie engineers 
 
 marmite big shell 
 
 (and so) marmite shelled 
 
 Pinard wine 
 
 149 
 
I50 **No. 6'* 
 
 popotte mess 
 
 "Rosalie" the bayonet 
 
 zigouiller to bayonet 
 
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