Life in the War Zone

by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

I returned to the office. There was now an older woman there, and, chastened by years and the rivalry of youth, she answered my questions amiably. No, there was not a conveyance of any sort to be had in the city. How, then, was I to find the Commissaire of Police and have my carnet rouge viséd, how visit the hospitals, which were out of town? She could not say. Then I bethought me once more of the letter given me by the War Office. I would go straight to military headquarters and ask them for an automobile. She vaguely directed me, and once more I started forth, leaving my things in her charge. The woman had told me to turn to the right. As I was leaving the girl called out that I must turn to the left. I revolved with that helpless feeling one has occasionally in the war zone, and they both began to talk at once, as is the habit of French people of that class when giving advice. If they had been ten they would all have talked at once and advised me differently.

I escaped to the street and, seeing a white-haired man standing in front of a provision store, I went over and asked him to direct me. This he not only did intelligently, but ran a block after me bare-headed to tell me of a better turning. I walked quite half a mile and finally reached a fine building situated in a park. I entered the grounds without hindrance, but a soldier barred the way when I attempted to pass under the arch that leads to the offices about the courtyard. He looked amazed. I showed my carnet rouge. He drew his eyelids together and I encountered the familiar steel. I was not to be overawed by a common soldier, but to save time I showed the letter. He had been quite polite, but now he relaxed his military mask and smiled. The entire staff was out for lunch and I could not enter until their return, but if I would graciously sit under the trees——.

It was cool under the trees and I was glad to rest. The soldier sent me an encouraging smile occasionally and finally made a triumphant signal indicating that the military nabobs were coming. A moment later several imposing figures marched past. They were chatting amiably and I was thankful that destiny had so arranged matters that I was to ask my favors of them after lunch. I knew they had not déjeuned at the Hotel du Commerce.

I was summoned to the presence immediately. They acted exactly as I had anticipated, for they were Frenchmen, and gentlemen, and of exceeding importance. Of course they read the letter at once; in fact, I shoved it under their noses before they had time to say “How do you do?” and when I asked for an automobile assented promptly.

“Will you give your man orders to get me back to the station for the 5:20 train?” I asked. “I will not sleep in that hotel or eat another meal there if I have to walk back to Paris.” They laughed sympathetically and assured me that I should accomplish the object of my visit in comfort and take my train. The chauffeur would take the best of care of me.

So it proved. I visited both of the great hospitals, Savonières and Hôpital Central, inside of an hour, for a military automobile goes like lightning and turns aside for no one. The former hospital is situated in a beautiful park some distance from Bar-le-Duc, and the greater one in a cup of the hills, and looks like a new Western mining town. There are some twenty or thirty barracks, two of concrete; but it is so unmistakably a hospital and nothing else (in France) that a taube recently had no difficulty in picking out the main building and dropping a bomb in the operating room. It killed two men on the tables.

It is not my purpose to describe the hospitals here. I visited them in behalf of Le Bienêtre du Blessé, and later, when writing more fully of that oeuvre, shall describe these and other military hospitals which receive the wounded straight from Verdun. There had been few during the last two or three days, they told me, and the guns were still silent.

My amiable chauffeur then took me for a drive within the city limits, and once more I saw a silent shuttered town. No doubt the greater part of the population had been evacuated (military euphemism for turned out), but I saw thousands of military wagons (camions) and a signpost with an arrow painted on it and the words “à Verdun.” It brought it pretty close, but I reflected that this was about as close as I would get. As we approached the station I observed that the roof looked as if it had been through a hurricane, and my driver nodded. Yes, they dropped a bomb there every once and a while. They usually came about 5 o’clock. It was now 3 and I had two hours and twenty minutes to wait in that station.

However, it was easy to get out of, the sky was so blue and clear that the taubes could be seen a long way off, and I certainly did not propose to wait until 5:20 in that hotel. I had retrieved my belongings, visited the police, and there was nothing to do but make myself as comfortable as possible and read Dumas.

The station was already packed with soldiers waiting for various trains. They move so constantly, these poilus, they produce an impression of indescribable confusion. I have never seen them betray the least excitement, any more than I have ever surprised an expression of anxiety on their cheerful faces, but the repose of their officers is unknown to them. Their bodies and their tongues never cease from movement. I often wonder if they ever feel tired. They look as if they could endure Verduns for the term of their natural lives.