Julien H. Bryan

“ Intelligent, generous, sweetnatured, broadminded, quick to see and to appreciate all that is beautiful either in nature or in art, rejoicing humbly over her own great gift, endowed with a keen sense of humour, Christine's is a thoroughly wholesome and lovable character. But charming as Christine's personality and her literary style both are, the main value of the book lies in its admirably lucid analysis of the German mind. ”

“ If Crowhurst makes a little paper cutter out of a compression band or perhaps a salt and pepper shaker from a Boche machine-gun bullet, and we feel that it would mean more to us than it would to him, we persuade ourselves that it is really ours and get possession of it at the first opportunity. ”

“ She has faced bombardments and aerial raids, she has calmly removed her charges under fire, she has tended the wounded and dying amid scenes of carnage and confusion, and she has created order and comfort where but a short time before all was chaos and suffering. And all the while she marvels at the uncomplaining fortitude of others, never counting her own. ”

“ Women and children flock around in swarms whenever we are working on the crates. They watch us like hawks, eager to seize the tiniest splinter which may fall from a broken board. They figure that one good-sized basket of chips will cook a supper which otherwise they would have had to eat cold. We used to sight-see a little mornings; but every big thing like the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower is closed for the duration of the war and it isn't very interesting wandering around the outside of buildings. ”

“ It can never hope to be rebuilt. We were forced to drive slowly through the town, for barbed wire, waiting to be hauled to the trenches, lay about in huge piles, sometimes projecting out into the street; and big logs, to be used for dugout supports, were scattered about. Half a dozen fresh shell holes and an occasional arrivé a hundred yards or so away added to the pleasure of the trip. We finally got to the old château where the post is located and had barely climbed out of the car when one of the stretcher-bearers met us, and said two couchés were waiting. ”

“ You can't help spending money in Paris. Besides the usual little items such as cafés, opera and expensive meals, you want to buy everything you see. I have just paid out two hundred and ten francs for a new uniform for use in England, and one hundred and fifty more for a few little Parisian trinkets to take back to the family. Dinner last evening with Anderson cost me forty alone, and some films and printing paper at Kodaks, brought this up to ninety. Every time I change a one-hundred-franc note I see my chances as a first-class passenger on the trip home getting smaller and smaller. ”

“ We of the American Ambulance Field Service have no desire to pose as heroes. I went over, as did so many of the others, with the object of seeing war at first hand and of getting some excitement, as well as being of some service. But we do not care to be talked of as young heroes trying to save France, because that was not our idea in going, at any rate not at first. ”

“ We chose the Regent Palace in Piccadilly as our hotel because it had been recommended as the place where all "officers" back from France spent their permissions.
Ever since we arrived, we have been on the go. Sometimes it's sightseeing, and again it is shopping, and every evening we try the theatres. Last night we saw the "Maid of the Mountains," and the day before, "Inside the Lines." There are far more amusement places open here than in Paris, and a good many more civilians. The people seem happier---I suppose because they have not had the war brought as close to them as the French. ”

“ Fully exposed to the enemy, who were less than one mile away, we started up the hill, which commences a few rods behind the post. As we drew near the top we obtained a magnificent view of the whole surrounding country. Before us lay the summit of Hill 304, whose clayish brown soil had been plowed up again and again during the three years the mighty struggles have been waged over it. To the east rose Mort Homme. Along its gentle sloping crest we could distinguish the first line German trenches, and thirty or forty yards below them, the French. ”

“ Today Payne offered Frazer the revolver which he borrowed from the little armory in the barn at Suippes if the latter would unload his big Boche torpedo. And although he had only two days more to spend in the section and didn't know a single thing about the construction of the affair, since it was German, he put it in a vise in the tool-room, and took it apart with a pipe-wrench. It could have gone off just as well as not and he wouldn't have been any the wiser. It doesn't wound like a hand grenade, it kills. ”

“ Half a dozen new holes have sprung up in the road itself overnight and there are twenty or thirty more on either side. But the town itself is worse. Every night it is crowded with burros, troops, supplies, and ammunition caissons going in every imaginable direction. I got caught in the jam near the barbed-wire stores last night and had to wait ten minutes until the road was clear once more. I shouldn't want to be a traffic cop in this place. Six roadworkers were killed here by one shell last week, and one of the officers from the post was wounded by shrapnel yesterday. ”

“ I have been twice to La Harazee and once to Suniat. They call the place St. Thomas because of a little village of that name which used to be here. I guess it has been totally destroyed by German fire, for I have never seen anything of the houses. There is, however, part of a wall standing near the post, which looks as though it might have belonged to a church. The post itself is one of the best we have ever had. It is an old gravel-pit in the side of a hill, and is very well protected on three sides. ”

“ It's bad enough when you are busy working on the car. But when you have to wait for someone else to finish a job, you get a little nervous, especially when they are peppering the road. The star shells also worry one. You feel that the Boches have spotted you each time and you try to figure the number of seconds before a shell will arrive . . . . If we find it is impossible to repair a car sufficiently to tow it back to Dombasle, or even to Montzèville, it has to be left out there on the road to the mercy of the enemy. If they don't shell it, we fix it up the next evening ”

“ It's a true saying that a Ford will run anywhere you take it. Frutiger ran his machine into a tree on the Suippes road, but instead of climbing it as the Ford joke-book would have it, the car bounded over to the opposite side of the road and laid there for several minutes on its back with the rear wheels spinning around at a great rate, before he was able to shut off the motor. ”

“ The main street of the village is on a steep grade. I pulled up opposite the Epicerie and leaving the motor running, I wandered around the neighborhood to see if I could get the "Vin Rouge." But when I found all the inhabitants in bed, I returned to the spot where I left the car. To my dismay it was no longer there. And looking about, endeavoring to find what had become of it, I saw several hundred yards down the hill, the indistinct form of an ambulance; I ran down to it and found it up against the stone wall of a house. I thought surely the front axle would be twisted or a wheel taken off ”

“ It is too difficult and besides we are so tired that we have no courage to write. Now, I am on the front and our guns are not far from the German's trenches. I should not tell you news about my life for you know what it is. Our life, it is sad and dull, and we are awaiting for the end of the war. ”

“ Now we ran into an old supply station where barbed-wire, shells and trench torpedoes lay scattered around. Across from this, but still in the trench, was a grave, marked by a simple wooden cross. And I noticed that the name inscribed upon it was German and that he belonged to the foreign legion of the French Army. They lost a good many thousand men when they took Mont Cornillet and Mont Haut here. I picked up a Boche helmet a little farther on; the wearer had been killed by a shell splinter which penetrated the steel. ”

“ After we had crawled into bed in the barn, a German aviator shot down out of the sky and played his machine gun up and down the village street. He couldn't have been more than four hundred feet high for we heard the "rack-a-tack" of his machine gun as plainly as if it had been in the court behind the barn. This was a new trick to us, but the old lady who lives next door says they have been doing it all Spring. She tells me she is eighty years old, but every day I see her working in her garden. She is very cheerful and seems to like the work, but she is shy, and hates to have people watch her. ”

“ Several days ago one little chap came up to my car in which I was sitting, reading a letter from home, and asked me how old I was. He was rather surprised when I told him seventeen and couldn't understand why I had come over at that age. He had a brother eighteen, who wasn't to join the army for three months yet.
We aren't nearly so busy as we would like to be. Three days of the week we loaf around Ste. Menehould and then we are on duty for the next twenty-four hours at one of the posts. At times we work on our cars or hammer out souvenirs from Boche bullets and pieces of shell. ”

“ Last night I watched the "tir de Barrage" of a German attack and I was happy. A terrific bombardment started just an hour ago a couple miles north of us and the sky overhead was made brilliant by bursting shells. Then several of our own nearby batteries began hammering away in answer to the red fire "Artillery Wanted" signals sent up from the first line trenches; and gradually every available gun along our front got into action. ”

“ And it was not until the happy-go-lucky Frazer ambled into our apartments an hour later with a broad grin on his face that we learned what was troubling Payne. It seems that the two had been at La Harazee together and Frazer started out for town with two malades and one couché when the relief man came at ten-thirty. He had a close shave at Vienne la Ville where, as usual, the Boches were shelling the main street of the village. He would have gone through at top speed if he had not noticed a poor beggar, with a bad cut in the arm, lying in the gutter. ”

“ The war is no longer three thousand miles away; it is at our doors. We also have passed through a kind of baptism of fire. And by our companionship with our fellow citizens on their field of battle we are inspired by their enthusiasm and nerved by their resolve to accept no peace which does not give us in the destruction of Prussian militarism a reasonable assurance that our sons will never have to take part in a like campaign. ”

“ A heavy bombardment began as I was leaving and shell after shell whistled overhead, apparently going toward St. Thomas. Sad to say, it was all over before I arrived and a lot of new holes around the post and everybody sticking pretty close to his abri were the only signs that anything unusual had happened. While we were eating lunch a blessé came in who had lost the thumb and first finger of each hand half an hour before while attempting to unload a Boche grenade. He suffered terribly but never made a whimper during the long ride into Suniat. ”

“ Everyone goes, from the poor poilu, in on a few days' furlough, who listens enraptured from his two-franc seat in the fourth balcony, to the bemedalled Russian and Italian officers, who, as guests of the French Republic, occupy the seats in the Orchestra Circle far below. There are usually many women in the audience, but most of them are widows; at least you seldom see one who isn't in mourning for a brother, a son or a husband. ”

“ Simplicity, accuracy, and realism are his characteristics. He is so absolutely in the life that he has not in his mind the readers of the narrative.
And for this reason the book produces upon the reader an effect similar to that which the events produced on the writer. We also alter our point of view as he altered his. We wonder that we ever thought that this war did not concern us. We wonder that we ever thought of leaving our kin across the sea to fight for the world's freedom without our aid. ”