I am still continuing my diary, and I assure you it is full of thrills. I am the only ambulance boy who has been given a Médaille, and I am told that Mr. Balsley, an American aviator, is the only other American who has it. Well, enough of this conceit.
Excuse writing; written in great haste in bed.
Please cable me some money if you will permit me to go to England for a week. Perhaps I can get —— to go with me.
Lots of love to all; my best to Grandma.
William
[The following paragraphs are from a letter written to the family of William Barber by his Section leader, Lovering Hill.]
... William was wounded on the night of the 27th of June while bringing back wounded from the poste de secours.
It was a dangerous road, and seeing some shelling on the road ahead of him, he had stopped to await its cessation. He was about to start up again when a shell fell a few feet away, many small fragments of which struck him, one large one striking him a glancing blow on the side. He ran back a few yards and was picked up by one of his comrades who brought him to the dressing-station at Verdun, where I was at the time. There his wounds were dressed; one of them proved to be serious.
I got in touch at once with the Médecin divisionnaire, who is the chief of the Service de Santé of our Division, who immediately took charge of the case and personally accompanied your son in the ambulance which brought him to Vadelaincourt—the nearest surgical ambulance, twenty-five kilometers back. There he awakened a very well-known Parisian physician and surgeon, Dr. Lucas Championière, who operated at once.