Into the shell wrecked town of Sillery I drove, and I could see in the growing light that many houses had been levelled to the ground and there were none at all that did not bear the marks of battle. I drove into a court yard, inside the gate of which there was a large shell hole. Stretcher bearers were waiting for me—there was no delay this time. Two men were lifted into the car. They were suffering very great agony but I could see no marks of blood. I understood at once—they were victims of poison gas.
This time there was no need to drive slowly back again to the town of Ludes to the hospital. It was broad daylight when I reached there. A sleepy stretcher bearer came out carrying a lantern, which was not needed. The two men were lifted out of the car and lowered to the ground. They were writhing in agony—one of them rolled off his stretcher into the gutter, and died at my feet. That was my first night on duty at the front—that was my baptism of fire.
VII
“Raising Hell Down at Epernay”
Sir Philip Sidney, for whom I believe I was more or less hopefully named, gained immortal fame by giving his last drop of water to a dying comrade on the field of battle. I desire to mention that I gave my last cigarette to a perfectly live stretcher bearer while under shell fire. For twenty-four hours I had been stationed at the dug-out in the canal bank in front of the Esperance farm; the place where I had been the first time I went to post. Several time since I had gone there and now felt quite at home in those surroundings.
During the last twenty-four hours shells had been coming in with a fair regularity. The Germans were endeavoring to drive out a battery which evidently had given them some annoyance. In a comparatively short period I counted more than a hundred shells, shrieking over my head, striking and bursting a hundred yards in front of me, throwing the earth in every direction, the rocks and pieces of shell spattering around close to where I stood. Several trees were cut down by the bombardment and they fell like so many twigs.
I had been alone during those twenty-four hours and had begun to realize that waiting for a run was quite as trying as the run itself, particularly as I could observe that when I did start I would be obliged to pass uncomfortably close to the corner where the shells were hitting. Toward the end of the afternoon some wounded came straggling in. After twenty-four hours under whistling shells I was glad to start back to Ludes and to a cigarette.
I spent the early evening at the little Swiss chalet. About nine o’clock I received a call to carry two wounded officers back to the town of Epernay. It was a beautiful, cool, moonlight evening and I enjoyed the prospect of the peaceful drive away from the sound of the war, not realizing that there was a rather interesting evening in store for me. I drove across the Marne into the town of Epernay at about eleven o’clock and took one of the wounded officers to the principal hospital there. The other officer I was instructed to take on to another hospital, located at the top of a hill on the outskirts of the town. Epernay is an old town and the streets are narrow, winding, and quite as confusing as Boston, particularly when driving at night without lights.
As I pulled up the hill out on an open road in sight of the hospital, I saw a flash of light in the sky, followed by a sharp report—then there was a shower of lights much like rockets followed by a series of reports. As I stopped the car in the hospital grounds and was assisting stretcher bearers to lift out the wounded officer, I could hear the droning of several aeroplanes overhead but could not see them. Hospital aides, half dressed in white trousers, and in bare feet, were crowded in the doorway. Everyone understood what was happening. The Germans had come over in numbers for one of their periodical raids.