Indeed, these roads seem to stand for our whole work. But they do not by any means represent our whole work, and it is necessary, if one wants to convey a comprehensive idea of our life, to begin at our base. This is a village twenty-five miles to the rear, but strategically located in relation to the various dressing-stations, sorting-points, base hospitals, and rail-heads which we serve, and, in this war of shipping-clerks and petrol, one of those villages which is as much a part of the front as even the trenches themselves. It is a "little, one-eyed, blinking sort of place." It is not as near to the fighting as some of us, particularly adventurous humanitarians fresh from New York and Paris, desire. But, picturesquely placed on the banks of the Moselle and smiling up at the patches of hollow-streaked snow that, even in late July and August, stand out on the tops of the Ballon d'Alsace and the Ballon de Servance, it is a lovely, long-to-be-remembered spot and every one in the Section quite naturally speaks of it as "home."
We are billeted in some twenty-five households as if we were officers, although our rations are the rations of a common soldier and our Section rules are unfailingly to salute officers and even to make ourselves scarce in hotels and cafés frequented only by officers. Our lodgings range from hay-lofts to electrically lighted rooms; but the character of our welcome is always the same—pleasant, cordial, to be counted upon—"You are doing something for France and I will do what I can for you."
One of the fellows, for instance, is quartered over a café. It is a little place, dirty and unattractive. Before the war an American tourist dropping into this café would probably have been sold a bad grade of vin ordinaire and been charged too much for it. But the other day the chap who is billeted there was a little under the weather and I took his breakfast to him in his room. I found the café full of customers who had not been served. The woman of the house was upstairs giving her ambulancier américain a cup of that great Vosges remedy, linden tea. I inquired about lunch. But it was no use, there was nothing for me to do. She was going to fix him some lunch if he felt like eating it, and his dinner, too. Was not her husband away fighting and had not her eldest son been marked down as missing ever since his company took a German trench last June?
Perhaps it is not surprising that we should be so received in a town where we have been living now for six months, where we are the best patrons of the biggest hotel, the most valued customers of half the shops. But this hospitable reception is by no means confined to our base. Everywhere we meet with a courtesy and with a gratitude which bring with them a very satisfactory sense of doing something worth while and having it appreciated.
Imagine, for instance, a small town surrounded by mountains that, sloping gently up from its main street and railway station, are checkered for some distance with houses, green fields, and straggly stone walls, while hidden in their tree-covered summits are trenches and batteries of 75's, and here and there hotels where before the war tourists stopped and to which now the wounded are carried. But on this day a thick gray mist hangs over the town like a half-lowered curtain. The guns rest because the gunners cannot see. The mist hides entirely the tops of the mountains, gives the generally visible houses and stone walls a dim, unshaped appearance, and makes hardly noticeable a procession of gray motor ambulances coming out from the tree-line and making their way down into the town.
SUPPLIES FOR THE SOLDIERS BEING CARRIED ON MULES OVER THE VOSGES MTS.
