Monday, November 9th. We received this morning the permits for the trip to Boulogne. Dr. Walker and William Iselin are to accompany Colby and myself; we expect to leave early tomorrow morning. We are to drive an ambulance—a twenty horse-power (English rating) Daimler—and on our way shall follow close to the battle line in order to hunt suitable locations for the new ambulance trains. We go by way of Montdidier, Amiens, and Doullens, all of which contain base hospitals.
Tuesday, November 10th. We left Paris at ten this morning by the Porte St. Denis and proceeded through Aubervilliers and Ecuen to Chantilly, where we stopped for lunch. The motor had been running very badly, and as no one else seemed willing to try conclusions with it I undertook the task. The trouble proved to be in the carbureter. After I had taken this to pieces and put it together again everything went smoothly. While I was at work, the other members of the party wandered about the town and talked with the inhabitants, whose village had been occupied by the Germans for several days during their dash toward Paris. It was well that the most valuable articles in the museum of the château had been hidden away before the Germans arrived, as they carried off pretty much everything that was in sight.
The first Germans who had entered the town had not worn the characteristic spiked helmet and many of the inhabitants had mistaken them for English troops. Early in the war this error was frequently made by French peasants, to whom the British and Germans were equally unknown. The townspeople were still laughing at one old innkeeper who had freely given of his choicest supplies to the supposed Englishmen, and had spent the better part of an afternoon enthusiastically and vigorously grooming their horses, meanwhile keeping up a stream of frightfully abusive remarks “à propos de ces cochons des Boches,” much to the amusement of his Teutonic audience.
We arrived in Amiens after dark and there encountered an old friend in Mr. Richard Norton, the American archeologist, who is at present commanding a British Red Cross unit in the field. We had dinner with him and obtained from him much valuable information.
Mr. Norton’s train has its base at Doullens. He is tonight in Amiens on official business and has with him only his scout car and its driver. His train has received orders to report early tomorrow morning at a field hospital near the village of Bouzincourt which is only a little more than two miles from the “German” town of Albert. His train is to assist in the evacuation of some two hundred gravely wounded French soldiers who are threatened by heavy German infantry attacks and are even now under shell fire. At dawn he is to go direct to Bouzincourt in his scout car and there meet his ambulances. We have decided to accompany him to aid, if possible, in removing the wounded.