The other night, just as I was going to crawl in, three blessés arrived from the trenches, another was down the road in a farmhouse waiting for the médecin chef; he was too badly wounded to go farther. They asked me to take the men to the hospital at Krût, which is back over the mountains twenty miles, and of course I said I would. I dressed again (I hated to because it was warm in the little log shack and it had begun to rain outside); I lit my lantern, and went out to the shelter where the cars were, got my tank filled with gas, and my lights ready to burn when I could use them. It was so black one could see nothing at all. We put two of the blessés on stretchers and pushed them slowly into the back of the car; the other sat in front with me. We did this under the protection of the hill where the poste de secours is located. When one goes fifty yards on the road beyond the station there is a valley, narrow but clear, which is in full view of the trenches, and it is necessary to go over this road going and coming. In the daytime one cannot be seen because the French have put up a row of evergreens along it which hides the road. I started and proceeded very carefully, keeping my lantern under a blanket, and we soon arrived at the house where the other blessé was waiting for the doctor. It was a typical French farmhouse, little, old, and dirty inside, and white outside. I pushed in the door and stepped down into the flagstone kitchen. On the floor lay the chasseur on a stretcher, his face pale under the lamplight from the table. The médecin chef was bending over him injecting tetanus (lockjaw) anti-toxin into his side, and with each punch of the needle the poor fellow, already suffering from terrible wounds, would squirm but not utter a word. The soldiers stood around the tiny room, their heads almost touching the brown rafters above. We took the man out to my car on the stretcher, carrying the light under the coat of one of the stretcher-bearers. If the Germans see a light moving anywhere in the French territory, they will fire on it if they think it near enough. I started up the mountain with my load of wounded. On either side of the road the French guns at certain places pounded out their greetings to the Boches, and the concussion would shake the road so that I could feel it in my car. I could light my lights after about a mile, so I proceeded slowly up the mountain in low speed. The heat from my motor kept the blessés and myself warm. About halfway up, we ran into the clouds and it became so foggy one could scarcely see; farther up it became colder and began to snow. I had no chains on my car (none to be had). They need so many things here, if they only had the money to buy them. I thought of the time you and I got stuck at Princeton, and it worried me to be without chains, especially since I had three helpless men inside and one out. I kept climbing up and the higher I went the more it snowed and the harder it blew. Near the top it became veritably blinding—snow, sleet, and wind—a typical northeasterly American blizzard. The little car ploughed on bravely; it stuck only once on a sharp turn, and by backing it I was able to make it by rushing it. I could not see the road, the sleet was blowing into my face so and the snow was so thick. At last I reached the summit and the wind was so strong there it actually lifted my car a little at one time. On one side of the road was a high embankment and on the other a ravine sloping down at least one thousand feet. I was scared to death, for without chains we were liable to skid and plunge down this depth. The snow had been falling all day, and it had drifted in places over a yard deep. Twice I took a level stretch to be the road, but discovered my mistake in time to back up; the third time was more serious; I plunged ahead through a drift which I thought was the road, and finally I stuck and could move neither way. I could not leave these men there all night wounded, and the blizzard did not stop, so my only means was to find help. I walked back to what I thought was the road and kept on toward a slight, glimmering light I could see in the right direction. It was an enclosure for mules which haul ammunition over the mountains, and I felt safe again, for I knew there were a lot of Territorial soldiers with them. I hauled them out of bed; it was then 10.30. They came with me and pushed me back on the road, also pushed me along—ten of them—until they got me on the descent, and from there on the weight of my car carried me down through the drifts. I arrived at the hospital at 12.30 and was the happiest man you have ever seen to get those poor fellows there safely.
I was sent back to Mittlach the next day to get four more wounded. They were what are called assis, not couchés, fortunately, because the snow on top of Trekopf had been falling and drifting all day and night. When I got to the top of the mountain and started down, the roads had been broken and beaten down by munition wagons and were like a sheet of ice. I started down without chains, and with all my brakes on the car began to slide slowly down the road. It slid toward the edge of the ravine and the two front wheels went over; it stopped, I got it back on the road, and turned the radiator into the bank on the other side and tried tying rags on the rear wheels to keep the car from going down, when a big wagon with four horses came down the hill behind me. It was so slippery that the horses started to slide down on their haunches, and, with brakes on, the driver could not stop them. The horses came on faster and they slid into the rear of my car, pushed it along for about six feet, and then nothing could stop it. It started down the road. I yelled to the wounded, "Vous, jetez vous." They understood and piled out just in time. The car ran across the road and plunged down into the ravine. There was a lot of snow on the side of the ravine, and it had piled up so that it stopped the car part way down, and it was not injured very much. It took nine men and as many mules to pull it out. Now that the snow has come, I think our service to Mittlach will have to be abandoned.
L. C. D.
MULE CONVOY IN ALSACE
THE "POSTE" NEAR HARTMANNSWEILERKOPF AFTER A BOMBARDMENT
At Tomansplatz the other day an officer and I started for ——, one of our postes. We took a short cut over a high hill from which one could look easily down on ——, where all the fighting had been going on. There is a path over this hill which is hidden by trees, and on the top is a long boyau to pass through so as to keep out of sight of the Germans in clear weather. When we reached the top, we stepped out of the path to get a view of the valley, and it was wonderful looking down on the French and German trenches, and to see the hill all shot to pieces and the trees broken to stubs—living scars of the fighting that had gone on. We did not get by unseen, for the Germans are always on the job. They have observation posts in the trees, hard to be seen, but easy to see from. There was a lot of firing going on, and we could see the French shells landing in the German lines. I had a premonition that something was going to happen and stepped behind a tree. I heard particularly one big gun fire, and wondered if by any chance it was meant for us. It took only three or four seconds to confirm my suspicion, for the shriek of a shell came our way. As they often pass high over our heads and we are familiar with the sound, I was still in doubt, when it burst not fifty yards away. We did not wait to investigate further, but jumped for the boyau when another shriek was heard, and we were just in time, for the shell burst not far behind us. We could tell when they were firing at us, for we could hear the gun fire,—it sounded like a 150 mm., which is about 6-inch bore,—then came the shriek, and then the bursting. It certainly is a strange, unwelcome sound when you know you are the target. We ran down the boyau toward the back of the hill for all we were worth, and they followed us, but we did not stop to look or listen, we almost rolled down the other side of the hill, but it was to safety, thank Heaven. The only thing that happened to me was a scratch on the back of my hand. Never again! The sensation of shells coming at one is novel but nauseating, and I keep away from the lines from now on.