At this time the Germans were bombing the district quite regularly. On reaching the graveyard we could see dozens of tombstones demolished, and one grave had thrown its occupant to the surface of the earth and it lay there a crumbling, rotting corpse—yet smiling, or at least so it seemed as the pearly white teeth were exposed to full view—smiling in derision, beyond the power of the German and his Kultur. Here Gaston was laid to rest.
But war furnishes strange contradictions. It is a continuous panorama of lights and shadows; of beauties and hideous monstrosities. It furnishes some of the truest and bravest acts that history records and it produces some of the foulest deeds of crime. Experiences are so varied. Some evenings, while loafing about the headquarters sitting at little tables writing letters or talking peacefully there was nothing whatever to remind us of battle. Beautiful parks were in front of us, fountains and flowers, and all was quiet and serene. Then a call would come and within an hour or two we would be enveloped in the harsh stern facts of war.
After witnessing the death of our comrade and seeing the shattered cemetery and the decaying corpse sticking out of the grave, all in one day, I felt a bit weird myself. A man's nervous constitution isn't made of iron and even after seeing many morbid spectacles, unless he has become hopelessly hardened, he will still be affected by tragic experiences and brutal scenes. I didn't rest any too well that night after those creepy sensations and the next day my nerves were rather shaky. The grim spectacle which was now to greet my eyes did not tend to quiet me either.
I was sent on quite a long trip to bring in two wounded men of the Colonials, one French, the other British. These two men, Turko and Senegalese, proverbially speaking, were as black as the ace of spades. Neither of them was very dangerously wounded and both were talking cheerfully. One had a leg broken and the other had been caught in the shoulder. As we slid out the stretcher of the first man and placed it on the ground, his knapsack fell off and to my astonishment out rolled the head of a German soldier! The African spoke of it with great satisfaction, turning it over in his hands and boasting of his good fortune, as, I suppose the primitive American Indian boasted of the scalp dangling from his belt. The other fellow, not to be outdone, ran his hand into the cavernous depths of his pocket and brought forth a human eye. It was a ghastly looking object. It seemed to me to be penetrating the soul of the Colonial, but he just laughed and enjoyed very much my discomfiture.
One evening as I was about to "hit the hay," two wounded men came in on foot from the front. They were so weak they could drag themselves along no farther. I was requested to take them to a hospital which was some distance from the place. I got my car ready and saw that everything was right. The night was dark as pitch. The men were put on a brancard, or stretcher, and placed in the ambulance. We were making our way toward our destination when we came to a piece of road running through a cut in the hilly country. The road was rather narrow, just allowing enough room for two vehicles to pass. On either side was a great bank fifteen or more feet high. Right in the main part of the cut was a mudhole perhaps a hundred feet or more in length. When we came to this place we were suspicious of it and stopped for a few moments to consider before making the plunge. As we did so a line of motor lorries and soldiers came down from the other direction. I was afraid it was too daring an enterprise but two or three of the trucks got safely through and my fears began to be allayed. A truck now came loaded high with ammunition cases and just behind it two men on horses. Into the mudhole plowed the ammunition truck, and the riders followed close behind. The mud was getting deeper and deeper and the wheels began to clog. An awful tattoo sounded as the driver threw in the low speed and tried to pull ahead. The boys on horseback turned out to go around the truck, which was evidently sticking. As they did so its rear wheel struck a rock and broke short off, upsetting the entire load. In falling down, the shell cases frightened the horses. One of them reared and fell, throwing the rider right under the overturning truck. He was fatally crushed. The soldiers coming up extricated the poor fellow from the wreckage and brought him to our ambulance. I quickly saw that he was "done in." He could talk a little, and he said that it was foolish to attempt to ride around the truck in the narrow space, especially where the mud was so deep.
We doubled back part way on our journey and made a detour. But the mangled man died before we reached our destination. We delivered the other wounded and made the return trip with little difficulty. Later on many soldiers came in on foot over that piece of road but they said that the other trucks had all turned back and gone around another way. They did not dare to brave that awful mudhole. These soldiers were dirty, worn and battle-weary for they had walked from the trenches for miles through the mud, and they plainly showed it too. There was not a spot as big as your hand on them that was not dyed with that cream-colored mud and their faces were speckled with it so that they looked almost as if they had had the smallpox. As one of them turned to leave me, he uttered the words, "Some mud."
CHAPTER XV ON AN OLD BATTLE GROUND
In a certain section of the country one could see from a prominent hill across some cities and onward to the edge of the German lines. The region has been much fought over and in fact is an old battle ground. One terribly drizzly day it became necessary to go over to a nearby village to evacuate a hospital. Wild tales had come in about the "strafing" which the town was being subjected to and we were immediately ordered to hurry to the spot. It was said that the Germans were shelling the place with "H. E.'s" from a distance of about twenty miles, with shells of fifteen and seventeen inch caliber. If there is anything which will put the fear of God in a man it is the explosion of one of those "big fellows."