AT A DRESSING-STATION NEAR VERDUN
The blessés are a quiet lot, especially after you give them cigarettes. I always pass around the cigarettes before starting, for then I'm sure those en derrière will be quiet. Every now and then you have a "hummingbird," that is, a blessé who is so hurt that the least jar pains him and he moans or yells. You can't help him any, so you just have to put up with it. However, I don't like "hummingbirds," for you feel that you hit more bumps.
I went to a show down in town where some of the soldiers are en repos. It was wonderful, for there, right within range of the Boche guns, the soldiers were giving one of the best musical shows I have ever seen. Among the actors—men who only a little while before were in the trenches—were professional musicians, singers, and actors. It was not amateurish—in fact, it was highly professional. The theatre was fitted up more or less like the stage at the Hasty Pudding Club at Harvard (an amateurish back, however), but everything else savored of the real Parisian touch. Among the audience were generals, colonels, under-officers, poilus, and five of us (we were invited, inasmuch as we had lent some of our uniforms for the actors). The soldiers who could not get in thronged the courtyard and cheered after every song or orchestra piece. The orchestra was made up of everything in a city orchestra, including a leader with a baton. You see each regiment is bound to have professional men in it and they get up the shows. (I saw my cap walk out on the stage on a fellow with a little head, so it didn't even rest on his ears, but rather on his nose). On the whole, it was one of the greatest and most impressive sights I've seen, and on top of it all, there was a continuous firing in the near distance. Imagine it, if you can!
We have a cook, a chambermaid,—one of the poilus who is quartered here, too, and who earns a few sous on the side by serving us,—also a French lieutenant who is really the head of the Section, a maréchal de logis, and a few other French retainers. They sleep in the same loft with us. Every night they chatter very late and kid each other about the fish they caught or did not catch during the day in the river. They laugh and giggle at each other just like kids. They are awfully amusing. All the poilus who are en repos fish, although there are only minnows around here. I asked several to-day how many they caught, and they said they were only fishing to pass the time. I guess it's a great diversion, for they all do it. They all bathe, too, every day. We go in with them, the mules and the horses; probably somewhere else the Boches are bathing in the same river. Such is life, but we are extremely lucky to get a chance to wash at all and I'm afraid when we move from here, for we shall soon be moved to poste duty, we shan't have the comforts such as are found here.
I mentioned poste work in the last paragraph.
There are two kinds of work for ambulances—evacuating and poste de secours work. The former consists in removing the blessés from the back hospitals to points where they are put on the trains. The poste de secours work is going up to the point where the blessés are dragged from the trenches and carrying them back to the above-mentioned hospitals. Of course, the poste work is the liveliest and the most dangerous. We shall be sent up to do that within a week or so, as they shift about: several months of poste work and then several months of evacuating. The Section had done its turn at poste de secours before I joined it; it has also been evacuating from here quite a while, so we shall no doubt be sent out nearer the front pretty soon. That's what we are here for. We are not a great distance from the lines now; in fact, shells have come over us and landed right across the road, but when we move, it will mean the most dangerous of work, for the roads are full of shell holes, no doubt, and wild shells get loose now and then. I'll write you again soon, but now I'm going to bed,—that is, roll up in my blankets on my stretcher, for there is an early call for to-morrow morning. Early call means getting your machine over to the château at six o'clock, all ready for the day's work. It's great fun and I am awfully glad to be here. Moreover, there is a satisfaction to realize that you are helping. The French are very appreciative, from the poilu up to the highest officers. Oh! I forgot to mention, in describing our billet, that flies and mosquitos are abundant. We all have mosquito nets which we put over our heads in the evening, making us all look like the proverbial huckleberry pie on the railroad restaurant counter. The poilus around us have adopted our methods, and you see them sitting around looking for all the world like Arabs in the distance. Before closing I might mention also that besides fishing to pass the time, the poilus en repos catch foxes, hedgehogs, rabbits, and other animals and train them. There are two of the cutest little foxes I have ever seen over across the road in one of the courtyards. They play around and are just like little collies until we show up; then they scamper and get behind a box or a stove and blink at us. We tried to buy one of them, but the owners are too fond of them to let them go.
Well, good-night and best love to you and G.
As ever,
Chick
(Charles Baird)
Have not seen George Hollister yet, as he is in Section 3. Maybe I'll run across him later.