The terrible plague swept into St. Nazaire on the ships that came from the States and swept its way across the whole area within two days’ time. It was awful. Death must have grinned in glee as he counted the thousands of strong young bodies turned purple and black, falling into his lap.... Coming with the suddenness of a Brittany storm, the epidemic spread its net of conquest, virtually unopposed, and it seemed as if the grinning skeleton behind it knew that the victims were helpless, stupid as dumb beasts, bewildered and terrified but utterly helpless to cope with this onrush of sickening death.
The worst of it came with the arrival of two great transports, loaded with thousands of cases, dead and alive, of this mystifying plague. As soon as General Backett heard of the seriousness of the situation and learned how inadequate were the facilities for handling this burden, he promptly insisted that he be allowed to go to work and that his car and his assistants be used wherever necessary. He himself undertook duties from which he graduated thirty years before, and Chilblaines, made useful in various capacities by the General and other superiors, very soon felt that he had done his bit for one war.
Ben and I worked like niggers, after converting the car into an ambulance. We made so many trips between the docks and the hospitals that it seemed impossible that the ships could carry any cargo besides this one of dead and dying.
“They ought to be flying black flags,” I told Ben, as we helped an ambulance driver slide a stretcher bearing a dying man into his car.
“Shut up!” he retorted. “Ya gotta laugh at ’em an’ tell ’em they’ll be all well in a coupla days.... Don’t kill ’em with talkin’ if they ain’t dead already.”
But cheer was out of the question. We arrived at the hospital just after the ambulance and the man we had helped to lift in was dead and turned purple. “He died sometime on the road,” whispered the driver. “Damned near scared me pink when I opened the door an’ saw that in front o’ me!... He didn’t look so bad when we put him in here, did he?”
“Boy,” muttered Ben, “ya can’t tell anything by looks in this stuff!... They look all right—ya turn yer back a minute—and when ya look again they’re deader’n hell an’ turnin’ all colors o’ the rainbow.”
—3—
Once, some days later, while helping to unload a hospital train, Ben was carrying the forward end of a stretcher and in stepping down from the train onto the platform he gave the burden a twist in an effort to avoid slipping. He turned around and smiled at the poor chap whose never-to-be-worn shoes hung over the bar of the stretcher, but the smile didn’t get a smile in return. Instead, the man launched into a stream of vile invectives that made my listening ears burn with shame.
“Don’t be grinnin’ at me, ya big slop-eared bastard!” he cried out. “I don’t want any o’ your God damn smiles!... An’ handle that careful, ya leather headed cow! Whatta ya tryin’ to do, ya thickhead!... Tryin’ ta dump me outa here?... Just try an’ shake me up! Any lip from anyone o’ ya an’ I’ll get up an’ knock the brains outa yer head!”