XIV
WITH THE AMERICAN RED CROSS ON THE RUSSIAN FRONTIER
A gray morning crept up somewhere beyond the Russian plains and in the half light, the church tower and housetops of Gleiwitz loomed forbiddingly against the dreary sky. A butcher was opening his store as our droschky clattered down the cobbled streets of the old Silesian town. The horses' hoofs echoed loudly; only a few stragglers were on the streets. Coming to a square, massive building of yellowish brick—you instantly had the impression that Gleiwitz had grown up around it. We saw a blue coated soldier standing on the steps.
"Where is the American Hospital?" we asked him.
He stared at us in a puzzled way and, using that German expression which seems to fit any situation: "Ein Augenblick" (in a minute), he proceeded to give our driver elaborate instructions. Off we rattled, down another vista of gray cobbles and squat gray houses, and presently we stopped before a clean-looking house of stucco, before which paced a soldier in the long dark gray coat of the Landsturm.
"Where is the American Hospital?" we asked.
It was too much for the soldier; he called for help. Help came in the person of a stout, florid-faced officer with flowing gray mustache. To him we put the same question, and his face lighted.
"You want Doctor Sanders, Gut, Gut!"
And climbing into our droschky, his sword hanging over the side, close to the wheel, he told us all about the part Gleiwitz was playing in this war, while the cobbled streets rang to the beat of the horses' hoofs. We learned that we were way down in the southeastern corner of Germany, not far from that frontier point where three empires touch; we learned that every night if the wind was good they could hear in Gleiwitz the distant rumble of cannon.
And he was telling us those things when we saw coming down the sidewalk, a familiar color. It was the olive drab of the United States army, and under a brown, broad-brimmed campaign hat, we saw a round, serious face.