"No," he said, staggering to his feet. His tormented body reeled as he made his way to the door. "No," he repeated. "I will take no help from the enemy."
It is true that a shell has burst at my feet. It has happened dozens of times. That isn't alarming. If it burst a few feet away I should be killed. Shells glance down and under the ground. That saves one if he is near it. A shell bursting near one is a commonplace in war.
The shells have a disturbing way about them, more disturbing to your plans than your equanimity. Shells prevented my having a nice comfortable illness. In southern Russia one can get little to eat. Coarse black bread is the chief food. It causes unpleasant disorders. I, afflicted with one of them, arranged a table in the corner of my tent. I placed remedies on the table, undressed and turned in, intending to have a cozy illness of a few days. But as I lay there came an angry buzzing. A shell hissed through, carrying away a corner of my tent. That ended my illness. I had no more time to think of it.
The greatest peril I encountered was not from shells. I have said that one becomes used to them. One of the greatest dangers I faced was on a dark night drive along a precipice in the Caucasus. It was while the plan to bring troops through Persia to Russia was expected to be successful. I went ahead with some ambulances. It was necessary to take two Russian officers across the mountain. I offered my services. The road was an oddly twisting one. On one side was a high wall, on the other a precipice whose depth no one calculated. But as I allowed myself to look into it at twilight I could see no bottom to it. We started on the all night drive at dusk. The precipice remained with us, a foot away, most of the distance. Had my car skidded twelve inches the story would have been different.
Then, too, I wandered once within the Turkish lines, mistaking them for our own. But amidst a courteous silence I was allowed to discover my mistake and escape without harm.
I think I owe my opportunity to do my bit, in the way I have, to the fact that I arrived in Flanders a few hours before the fight and the officers were too busy to send me back. I had seven automobiles, and knew how to use them. I took them to Dixmude and offered the automobiles and my services to the cause. I established headquarters at Furnes, which is seven miles from Nieuport, eight from Dixmude and twenty from Ypres. I drove along the Yser Canal to the parts of the field that were under the heaviest fire, for there, I knew, my cars and I would be most needed. For a year I worked for the relief of the wounded of the French armies. Then I went to Russia, where I found the need of help and the sacrifice of life because of lack of that help, almost inconceivable. The French armies have 6,600 ambulances. The Germans have 6,200. Russia, with a firing line of 6,000 miles has but 600 motor ambulances.
I established dressing stations in the mountains. Some of these were 10,000 feet above the sea level. There, on the canvas stretched between two horses, the wounded were brought, or so they started. For many of them died in the long journey, every step of which was torture to a wounded man.
The most exciting experience I ever had was on the Galician border. We could approach the battle line only along the Tranapol road, which ran for fifteen miles directly under German guns. I was speeding along it with an ambulance full of wounded soldiers when a shell struck the roadside and exploded, tearing a great hole in the earth fifty feet away. The concussion stopped us. Then we went on. I travel on my luck. Some time, I suppose, I shall travel too far.
I have given all my fortune to the work. That is what we should do—give not what we can afford, but all we have.