And music in the town I love so well,
Oh, Aillianville, au ’voir, farewell.
During our stay in Aillianville, Section One, American Field Service Volunteers, was taken over by the American army and there ceased to be any volunteer ambulance service. My work was done, but the Section being short of men I agreed to stay on indefinitely until new men came on.
One day, to be exact, Thanksgiving morning, outside the town of Neufchateau, on the road to Nancy, I saw some French troops drawn up on review. A band was playing at their head. By a strange coincidence I had heard that same band playing once before back in Houdainville as those same troops were advancing for the big offensive in front of Verdun.
On this Thanksgiving morning, the review being over, the men stacked arms and walked about the field. One of the soldiers walked over to where I was talking with some friends. He wore a steel helmet, but underneath the visor I could see a scar across his forehead and there was a scar on his cheek. He asked me if I remembered him and I was obliged to confess that I did not. He then informed me that on September second, in front of Douaumont, when he had received these two scars, I had carried him back. No wonder I had not recognized him.
Rice Purdy
In Front of Verdun
Then as we stood there I heard another band playing in the distance. It grew nearer and nearer till at last I saw an American flag rising over the brow of the hill and back of it swinging along the road four thousand men in khaki.
I confess I felt a thrill!