May 2, 10 a.m.—Last evening I walked all round the ruined district. The streets were thronged with people, and threading their way among the crowd were all sorts of vehicles—carts carrying the bodies of dead horses, that had been shot the first day and lain in the streets ever since; Fire Brigade ambulances followed by Irish cars bringing priests and driven by Fire Brigade men. The motors with Red Cross emblems, carrying white-jacketed doctors, would dart along, followed by a trail of Red Cross nurses on bicycles, in their print dresses and white overalls, their white cap ends floating behind them, all speeding on their errand of mercy to the stricken city.
From time to time we came across on the unwashed pavement the large dark stain telling its own grim story, and in some places the blood had flowed along the pavement for some yards and down into the gutters; but enough of horrors. We came sadly back, and on the steps we met Mr. O’B. returning from a similar walk. He could hardly speak of it, and said he stood in Sackville Street and cried, and many other men did the same.
Out of all the novel experiences of the last eight days, two things struck me very forcibly. The first is that under circumstances that might well have tried the nerves of the strongest, there has been no trace of fear or panic among the people in the hotel, either among the guests or staff. Anxiety for absent friends of whom no tidings could be heard, though living only in the next square, one both felt and heard, but of fear for their own personal safety I have seen not one trace, and the noise of battle after the first two days seemed to produce nothing but boredom. The other fact is a total absence of thankfulness at our own escape.
It may come, I don’t know; others may feel it, I don’t. I don’t pretend to understand it, but so it is. Life as it has been lived for the last two years in the midst of death seems to have blunted one’s desire for it, and completely changed one’s feelings towards the Hereafter.
AN AMERICAN AMBULANCE IN THE VERDUN ATTACK.
BY FRANK HOYT GAILOR
‘Our artillery and automobiles have saved Verdun,’ French officers and soldiers were continually telling me. And as I look back on two months of ambulance-driving in the attack, it seems to me that automobiles played a larger part than even the famous ‘seventy-fives,’ for without motor transport there would have been no ammunition and no food. One shell, accurately placed, will put a railway communication out of the running, but automobiles must be picked off one by one as they come within range.
The picture of the attack that will stay with me always is that of the Grande Route north from Bar-le-Duc, covered with the snow and ice of the last days of February. The road was always filled with two columns of trucks, one going north and the other coming south. The trucks, loaded with troops, shells, and bread, rolled and bobbled back and forth with the graceless, uncertain strength of baby elephants. It was almost impossible to steer them on the icy roads. Many of them fell by the wayside, overturned, burned up, or were left apparently unnoticed in the ceaseless tide of traffic that never seemed to hurry or to stop.