COFFINS IN COURTYARD OF BASE HOSPITAL IN ALSACE—AMONG THEM RICHARD HALL'S
We did not dare to use our low speed for fear the Boches would hear us, so we tore over this road on high, rushing past the bare spots, afraid of being seen. The illuminating bombs are used for this purpose only; the one which came toward us went out before it reached us, for which we were grateful. We got the woman. She had to have her arm amputated.
December 27
We have had very strenuous times, as a big attack has just taken place and the wounded have come in so fast and so badly cut up they could not give them the care they would like to, as everything is so crowded. The Germans lost a lot of trenches, and almost two thousand of them were taken prisoners. They have been shelling the French lines and towns constantly; since the 22d, our cars have been more or less under fire. We moved our quarters about six kilometres nearer the line and bring the wounded in to the hospital three times a day. The Germans shelled this place,—why we do not know, for there is nothing military here but the hospital, and why should people of any intelligence and feeling wish to shell a hospital?
One of our men was killed on Christmas Day and we are terribly broken up over it. He was going from this hospital to the poste we go to daily over a road up the mountain. At four o'clock Christmas morning one of our boys started up this road, which goes up and up with no level place on it. He passed the middle of the journey when he thought he noticed a wagon turned over about forty feet down in the ravine. He went to a point where he could stop his car, took his lantern, and walked back. He found one of our Fords so demolished it could not be distinguished. The top of the car was up in a tree and so were the extra tires; there was nothing on the ground but a chassis. He saw no one around, but on going down a little farther, he saw a bundle of blankets which we always carry for the wounded, and, on walking up to it, he found one of our fellows, Dick Hall. He was lying on his side with his arms fixed as if driving and in a sitting position, cold and rigid. He had been dead a couple of hours. Walter, who found him, went back up the road for assistance, and, while there, Hall's brother came along in his car and asked what the matter was and offered his assistance. Walter told him his brakes were not working and he was fixing them, so Hall, knowing nothing of his brother, passed on up the mountain, got his load of wounded, and took them to the hospital.
RICHARD HALL'S CAR AFTER SHELL LANDED UNDER IT
In the Hospital
January 1, 1916