We arrived at B—— a week ago this morning and started in. That night the Germans shelled that town, and imagine, it's about fifteen miles from the German lines. We were alone in a barn, and when the shells began to go over our heads and gas with it, you can see how much sleep we had. Next morning Bud and I started out, and the car is running rotten. The Germans are shelling the road all the way from here. This is our first post out of R——, about three miles from B——. Don't try to look up these towns; it's a useless task. Poste 4, a like distance from R——. We get in the middle of Hill ——, about a mile from Poste 2, when the car dies.
About 100 yards ahead of us is a crossroad and the Boche is shelling it. Bud and I didn't realize where we were, and all alone, mud over our shoe tops where we stopped. We worked on the car for one and a half hours, falling in the mud every time a German shell came through the air. We got eleven holes in our car from that morning, and a piece of shell went right through an inch rod on the front of the car. I'll show you a picture of that. We were the first in the section to get hit, and how we escaped alive is the wonder of every one who has seen the car, and we are always the center of attraction when we stop along the road or at the postes. I have a piece of shell that went through the car—a souvenir. We were in the most dangerous part of the whole woods—French guns on every side of us, but of course we didn't know—and those were what the Germans were after.
When we finally decided we couldn't get the car to run we made for a nearby dugout, and a Frenchman there told us we had our nerve. I left Bud there and walked back to this post—about three and one-half miles—got another car and towed our own back—that was our baptism of fire, and it was plenty. We got our car fixed up that day and worked all that night and the next day. That night we were dead, and the damn Germans shelled B—— again, and we had to get out twice during the night and run for a nearby quarry, and no one who has not been through it can imagine the feeling of being awakened by hearing a shell go over your head, and almost before you can get into your shoes and out of a place another drops near by. It's a thousand times worse than being on a shelled road because you can see a shell hit the road and invariably another follows—wait for the second one to land and then beat it—some sport.
I'm at P. J. Left now, our most advanced post with the exception of one about a mile from here, which we make only at night, as the Germans can see the road from their first lines. They must have seen us on the road—some plane of theirs—as they have been shelling here ever since we arrived. We're in the dugout now and I don't expect to find my car when I come out at the rate the shells are landing around here.
Now for the attack. Sunday we were at Post 4—a piece of shell just landed on my helmet. I'm just at the entrance of the dugout—got to stop—it's getting too warm.
Friday, 1:50 P.M.—Just got out of P. J. Left. They shelled it from 12 o'clock yesterday until 9:30 last night. Blew up everything in sight but our dugout; killed a couple of the brancardiers; blew up the kitchen, and you should have seen what was left of our car—everything was hit on the darn thing but the air in the tires.
The French made another attack last night on Hill —— and took it. You have undoubtedly read about it if you have followed the news. Back for the attack now—Sunday we were at Post 4, that is, my car—and we made a couple of trips from there, and all Sunday night the woods were just ablaze with guns firing and the boys went over the top at 4:40. All we carried that night had been gassed and there was a bunch of them. At 5:10 a car came to poste, saying they could not make Poste 2—the road was blocked—so the lieutenant telephoned and gave me a note to deliver to Poste 2—that meant get it there. Well, we started out, and such a sight! There was one whole ammunition train along the road that had been shelled and gassed—every horse dead—and not only horses. We got to Hill ——, where Bud and I were stuck, and such a sight!
Two trains had been gassed, and we cut the horses that were still alive from the carriages and then there was a stampede. I shall never forget that morning—the road blocked, shell holes, gas, dead horses, at least fifty of them, in less distance than a city block, and this awful racket. Well, we got the road cleared and made Poste 2, and there it was worse than ever. Our chief and sous-chief and about six of our boys had been there all night, gas masks on for nine hours. Two of them had shell shock, another hysterical, and the dead and wounded all around us. I'm poor at description, and you could never picture such a scene. Well, we got a load and started back. You could still cut the gas, and after we had gone a way one of the couchés rapped on the window. We stopped. The fellow on the top stretcher had died, his head had fallen off the edge of the stretcher and he was leaking from the mouth on the chap below. We took him out, fixed his head on the stretcher and started on, shells dropping all around us. How we ever got through no one knows, but we did, and that's just the way things went. Carried Boches and cut buttons off some of the prisoners—have a Boche helmet and gas mask—souvenirs.
III—STORY OF AN AMERICAN ENGINEER IN FRANCE
(Told by (name suppressed), 11th Regiment Railway Construction Engineers)