And Burlingame went to it, with the results that we have just seen, while those very army men who came to scoff at Auteuil remained to praise it—in unmeasured terms.
"It was a godsend," said Colonel Samuel Wadhams, medical officer on General Pershing's staff. "I don't know what we would have done without it."
Done without it? I sometimes wonder what the American Army really would have done without the hospitals of the American Red Cross. Although far fewer in number than its own, they performed a valorous service indeed. In the six great eventful months from the first of June to the first of December, 1918, these Red Cross hospitals together furnished an excess of 1,110,000 days of hospital care to our troops, which was approximately the same as giving to every battle casualty in the A. E. F. five days of care. It admitted to its hospitals a total of 89,539 sick and wounded men, and cared for them—not merely adequately, but with a real degree of comfort—at a total cost of 9.57 francs (a fraction less than two dollars) a day.
Back of, and closely allied to, these distinctive Red Cross hospitals were several groups of auxiliary institutions, which also had been financed and equipped and were under the care of our American Red Cross. The first of these groups was that of the military dispensaries, the value of whose work can be roughly estimated by the fact that Number Two, down at Brest, cared for 1,751 cases in the first month of its existence. The others of the so-called permanent dispensaries were at Bordeaux, Lorient, Nantes, Neuilly, Paris, and St. Nazaire, while temporary ones were operated from time to time and as the emergency demanded at Dijon, Senlis, Verberie, Compiègne, and La Rochelle.
Nine American Red Cross infirmaries were operated at base ports and along the lines of communication for our doughboys. These served—and served efficiently—men taken ill on trains, or casuals passing through. During October, 1918, one of them treated 659 cases, while another in three weeks had 850 cases, while with the increase of deportation of our sick and wounded the work of our Red Cross infirmaries was greatly increased. In November, 567 cases passed through the one at Brest and in the following month 6,549 cases through the Bordeaux infirmary. In addition to these two most important base ports, infirmaries were also operated at Dijon, Bourges, Angers, Nantes, Tours, Limoges and St. Nazaire.
A still more interesting line of Red Cross work closely allied to its hospitals was in the convalescent homes which it established at various places in France, almost invariably at points which had especial charm of scenery or climate to recommend them. There were eleven of these; at St. Julien, at Biarritz, at Morgat, at St. Cloud, at Vetau, at Le Croisic, at Rochefort-en-Terre, at Villegenic-le-Buisson, at Hisseau-sur-Cosson, at Avignac, and at Antibes. In some cases these were established in resort hotels, temporarily commandeered for the purpose and in others in some of the loveliest of the châteaux of France. It so happened, however, that our convalescent home at Antibes, at the very point where the Alps come down to meet the sea, was in a hostelry—the Hôtel du Cap d'Antibes. Through the courtesy of a young Red Cross woman who was housed there for a time as a patient I am able to present a picture of the life there—a picture which seems to have been fairly typical of all those immensely valuable homes.
"It is a quiet place," she writes, "truly peace after war—and there the tired nurses and workers find the rest they need. Those who want to be really gay must go to Nice, Cannes, or Monte Carlo. In the morning nearly every one goes out on the rocks with a rug and a book for a sun bath. But if you had as fascinating a perch as my favorite one it would have to be an absorbing tale that could hold your attention. For, from the warm wave-worn rock that made a comfortable seat, I could look out across a broad sweep of blue water to a ragged range of dark-blue mountains against the paler blue sky. To the left is a little point of rocks where some one had built a villa in the shape of a Moslem mosque, which raised crescent-tipped domes and towers from among a grove of dark-green firs and gray-green cactus. To the right, where the mountain peninsula joins the mainland, the coast sweeps toward me in long, tawny curves. Villas make tiny dots among the green of the hills and along the shore, while at a distance, but I know that near by one finds in them a variety of shades of cream and buff, yellow and pink, and above the last bit of coast to the extreme right rise snow-capped Alps.
"If one is restless there are rocks to climb and fascinating paths to explore. One leads over the rocks, around a wall, and up through a jungle-like tangle of neglected gardens and walks into the estate belonging to the King of the Belgians. The villa, begun before the war, is unfinished now, but a truly adventurous spirit will go on past it and be well rewarded. In what was once a formal garden, hyacinths and many colored anemones are blooming in the long grass; roses nod gayly from the walls, and almond blossoms lift their delicate pink flowers against that glorious sky. In a grove of olive trees near by, narcissus and daffodils are scattered in thick clumps here and there. There is a fragrance in the air that is like spring at home.