"It's all right, now, we've got plenty of it. We've got just piles of it. The Red Cross just shot it out from Paris in limousines."
After the injection Hartzell informed me that the doctors could do nothing for me at that place and that I was to be moved further to the rear. He said ambulances were scarce but he had found a place for me in a returning ammunition truck. I was carried out of the church and somewhere in the outer darkness was lifted up into the body of the truck and laid down on some straw in the bottom. There were some fifteen or twenty other men lying there beside me.
The jolting in this springless vehicle was severe, but its severity was relieved in some of our cases by the quieting injections we had received. The effects of these narcotics had worn off in some of the men and they suffered the worse for it. One of them continually called out to the truck driver to go slower and make less jolting. To each request the driver responded that he was going as slow as he could. As the jolting continued the man with the complaining nerves finally yelled out a new request. He said:
"Well, if you can't make it easier by going slow, then for God's sake throw her into high and go as fast as you can. Let's get it over as quick as we can."
Lying on my back in the truck with a raincoat as a pillow, I began to wonder where we were bound for. I opened my eye once and looked up toward the roof of the leafy tunnel which covered the road. Soon we passed out from beneath the trees bordering the roadside and I could see the sky above. The moon was out and there were lots of stars. They gave one something to think about. After all, how insignificant was one little life.
In this mood, something in the jolting of the camion brought to my mind the metre and words of George Amicks' wistful verses, "The Camion Caravan," and I repeat it from memory:
"Winding down through sleeping town
Pale stars of early dawn;
Like ancient knight with squire by side,
Driver and helper now we ride—
The camion caravan.
"In between the rows of trees
Glare of the mid-day sun;
Creeping along the highway wide,
Slowly in long defile, we ride—
The camion caravan.
"Homeward to remorque and rest,
Pale stars of early night;
Through stillness of the eventide,
Back through the winding town we ride—
The camion caravan."
Sometime during the dark hours of the early morning we stopped in the courtyard of a hospital and I was taken into another examination room illuminated with painfully brilliant lights. I was placed on a table for an examination, which seemed rather hurried, and then the table was rolled away some distance down a corridor. I never understood that move until some weeks later when a Lieutenant medical officer told me that it was he who had examined me at that place.