WE are told not to stray far, as the order to move may come at any moment. We take walks through the country, and always on returning find the section with “no news,”—but at last the order comes.
A SAUCISSE
We have gotten our baggage ready, and are sitting around in the darkness smoking our pipes and thinking. Tomorrow we are going up to the lines. A big attack has been scheduled, and we are to take care of the wounded. It is to be our first work, and any fighting at all seems a “big attack” to us. We are a green section, fresh from Paris. We have never heard a shell whistle, and have been thrilled by the sound of guns twenty miles away. What will be our sensations face to face with the real thing? We are a bit nervous. There is some tension. We discuss the probable extent of the attack and debate as to its success. This leads us nowhere, and after we have pledged each other and the section “Bonne chance” in a glass of cognac from a bottle opened for the occasion, we turn in.
IT is cold and chill, and a steady drizzle is oozing from the sky above into the earth beneath, and is making it soft and slippery. I awake, yawn, stretch sleepily, and gaze out into the grey dejection of the morning. I have been sleeping luxuriously on the floor of an ambulance, wedged in between two trunks and a duffle-bag.
“Well, this is ‘der Tag’ for us,” I remark to a friend, who has spent the night on top of the two trunks.
He stops eating my jam for an instant and agrees with me. Then, on second thought, he generously offers me some jam. I sit up and struggle for a few seconds with a piece of the bread we carry for nourishment and defence, spread some jam on it, get out a bottle of Sauterne (at the front wine is wine at all hours of the day and night), and we settle down to breakfast. Breakfast is a purely personal investment, as it officially consists of coffee—so called by courtesy—and bread. The French bread comes in round loaves a foot in diameter, and is never issued until four days old, and is often aged ten or more before we see it. Fresh bread, it is believed, would give a soldier indigestion. French officialdom believes the same evil of water, and provides each soldier with a quart a day of cheap red wine called, in the argot of the trenches, Pinard. Breakfast over, we make our way to the barn, our official quarters, by means of stepping-stones previously laid from the car, and chat with the other members of the section.
Today we are moving up into the zone of fire itself, and are somewhat excited. The entire section is to move to a little destroyed town, Ville-sur-Couzances. From there six cars are always to be on duty taking care of our first wounded. The chef and the sous-chef join us presently. They went up yesterday and were shown the postes, and consequently come in for a storm of questions. The sous-chef tells us that today we shall hear them “whistle both ways.” We are thrilled. He asks us if we are ready. We are—even Rover. Then the lieutenant comes in. He speaks a few words to the chef. The chef blows his whistle four times. It is the signal for assembly. He gives us a few instructions. We run to our cars. One whistle—we crank up. Two whistles—the leading ambulance painfully and noisily tears itself from its bed of mud. The others follow in regular succession, until the last car melts into the grey, cold mist. When shall we see Erize again?