Now we have the job of fitting up our rooms for the ordinary conveniences of life. Also, it is up to me to get maids to take care of them.
I took two meals at the French officers' mess. It was most amusing. A little room over an apothecary shop in town. I cannot describe the scene, but it was reminiscent of some of the scenes from "Trilby." The room was plastered in posters—some proper and some more improper—and the conversation was equally mixed. I was sorry to leave them and come out here.
We walk at least two hundred yards for our baths, across the court in full view of an admiring crowd—and here is when I take my first one.
August 20th. Mess! Mess! Mess! All is mess! New Job! Care of officer's quarters. Boss of four old ladies, three teeth among them—one has none—total sum of ages—four hundred years.
Telegram calling Peck and Russell to French front to observe. In town with the motor-cycle to do some shopping. Home! The orchestra is pounding away with a vengeance, surrounded by an admiring crowd of invalids—some healthy ones.
Broke the crystal on my nice little watch—otherwise, life a blank. No sensations except hunger. No emotions except disgust.
The French officers gave our officers a champagne breakfast at eleven a.m. this morning from which all returned in genial spirit. Such is life in Chaumont.
August 24th. Back to barracks after three days' absence. Monday last they brought in fifteen hundred patients in the twenty-four hours. Jim Russell and Peck had gone, and finally, in sheer desperation, I got on one of the ambulances and rode in to town. They were just finishing unloading and Peightel was talking through an interpreter with the Médecin Chef in charge of the train. The Médecin was asking him if he could not make a trip with him and personally see the hospital at the front. Trinder was standing by and thought it would be a good thing, but was sure that Hansell could not put it through. I told him I would go with him. Trinder said, "Go and see what Hansell will say." So back we rushed. Hansell, like a trump, said "Yes." So back we went over the bumpy old road, pitch dark, and found some "big gun" Major, who telephoned to St. Dozier, the military headquarters of the zone of the interior. Got permission, then walked back, threw a few things in a valise and carried it between us to Chaumont Station. It was about eleven o'clock then and everything had pretty well settled down for the night. We found the Commissaire de Gare was expecting us, and he had written out for us directions or orders to proceed to St. Dozier and report to the Commissaire Regulatrice, and she had been informed of our coming and would tell us what to do.
After many vicissitudes, as daylight was just breaking, the train pulled out, and about an hour later when we reached Robert Espagne the sun was coming up over the hilltop, the little town lay below in the valley with the mist still hanging over the river. On the right, explosions were heard, which we later found were from a party of recruits practising bombing. From the same hill two years ago the 6th Division of Artillery made a stand and drove back the Germans in their drive on Bar-le-Duc. If they had cut that line and taken Bar-le-Duc it would have divided the French Army. This was in the days of the Marne. The old Guard Communal, whom we met on the road, told us in a most vivid and simple manner how the Boche shells were pouring over the woods and how the French stood their ground. Later he went out and found a German flag.
Beyond Robert Espagne we were in the zone of the active army—miles of wagon trains going both ways and smothered in a cloud of dust. At Rivigny we entered on the military railroad, the regular line to Verdun having been cut on the Verdun drive. Also a little later we caught constant glimpses of the Voie Saire on the road that supplied Verdun after the railroad had been cut. There were still thousands of motor-trucks going both ways. Now and then soldiers' graves dotted the fields or lay along the lines of the railroad. The French had a helmet hanging on the cross, the Boche a little wooden fencing around it, which will soon break down and mean that many a poor chap will lie in an unknown grave in foreign soil. At Rivigny, or just beyond, here and there a half-destroyed village, or perhaps just the church. It seemed always the church that was marked.