For a day of repose it certainly was disturbing.
Yesterday I had a hot shower at the hospital near here. It certainly seemed good, after bathing for two months out of a small reserve water can.
This morning we are at the second post. Before the war there were really enough houses to call it a small town, but it has been so completely destroyed that only stumps of the buildings remain. Batteries have been planted all about it, and at present they are receiving a heavy shelling from the Germans.
Mr. Low seems to possess an excellent nervous organization and a dependable imagination which he finds quite useful. He says:
We are kept in the dugout, which, provided with chairs and a table, is very comfortable. It is rather pleasant to be securely seated here with books and listening to the “rush” of the shells overhead. It is like being before a grate fire and listening to a winter’s storm outside. As long as no blessés are brought in we can sit here and warm our feet until the storm is over. Our beds are all made on the stretchers (placed high enough to keep out the rats), and we intend to spend a pleasant afternoon reading. I have Rog’s Shakespeare, and I am reading “Cymbeline.”
We have just had lunch—hot meat, lentils, camembert, and the inevitable Pinard. The bombardment has nearly died away, so we can sit out a while and enjoy a very delightful August day. This post is reached by an old Roman road, which is rather badly torn up. They have just put up a screen of burlap to conceal it from the saucisses; that is, to hide the traffic on it, for the German gunners know where every road lies.
(Later) A young fellow of about nineteen was just carried in. He was at the battery post a few meters behind us and became half-crazed by the shells during the bombardment. It is quite a common occurrence, especially with the men in the trenches. The French call it commotion, and the mind becomes so stunned that often they lose their speech or become totally stupid. The lieutenant said that this was a bad case and that if another shell fell near the man he would go mad. He asked us to take the fellow back to the hospital as soon as possible, and I had to ride in the back of the ambulance with him all the way to keep him quiet. Fortunately no shells came near the car.
After supper we sat near the edge of the road and watched two or three battalions pass by on their way to the trenches. The road filled with carts and supply wagons as soon as the saucisses descended. These vehicles travel between towns in the rear to a communication trench a little beyond our post, a point which is a terminus for all traffic. From there the ammunition and supplies are carried to the trenches by hand.
There is a little railroad running from that point, beyond our post; horses pulling small flat cars loaded with wood, barbed wire, etc., for the trenches. A young poilu, standing up and waving his arms, came spinning down the hill in an empty car. He nearly caused a collision and I never saw a man so yelled and screamed at as this one was by his sergeant. The officer scolded him for a quarter of an hour and shouted himself hoarse: “Quelle bêtise!”
About nine we went down into the abri, lighted a candle on the table, and read until about ten, when a man burst through the door, shouting: