We found some wounded who would otherwise have been kept there until darkness had set in. After that our Section covered the run to Fort Houdremont in daylight with regularity; and in spite of the fact that the road was exposed to view, most of us found the daylight run much less nerve-racking than in the night.
“Do the boche fire on ambulances?” I have sometimes been asked.
“Certainly!” I have answered.
XIV
The Big Shells Come Over
The days and nights went on, but still the attack did not take place, but the artillery duels were growing in intensity every night.
If there was any belief that preparations for the attack were not known, this belief was dispelled when the Germans erected a sign over their trenches reading—
“We will be waiting for you on the fifteenth”—but the fifteenth passed by and—the attack did not take place. We were getting very tired—we were becoming conscious that we had nerves—the driving became more hazardous and terrifying with the increased activity of the artillery.
Early on the evening of August seventeenth, I was off duty and was standing talking to some of the fellows, enjoying an after supper pipe and watching the anti-aircraft guns popping at a German aeroplane when Stevenson walked up. He said a telephone message had just come in informing him that Stockwell had broken the front spring of his car out at Fort Houdremont. I was to take a new spring out and Pearl was to go along to help make the repairs.