Philip Dana Orcutt

“ In the last gleams from a star-shell ahead we see something grey by the side of the road. As we are in the woods I take a quick look with my flash. It is one of our ambulances. My friend and I look at each other, and are mutually glad that it is too dark to see each other’s face. A careful survey of the surroundings yields nothing, and we press on—in silence. We jolt into the poste with racing motor and wheels clogged with mud, and go down into the very welcome abri. Our friends there know nothing about the ambulance, so we hope for the best. ”

“ A few deep breaths start the blood slowly moving through my veins, and I walk around in the mud, stretching my cramped limbs. There are the usual new shell-holes scattered about to make us first rejoice in our shelter and then look doubtfully at the all-too-thin layer of dirt on the roof between us and a direct hit. The Germans, when they take up a position, seem to think of it as permanent, dig their abris often as deep as a hundred feet underground, and are absolutely safe in them except when a raiding party tosses a grenade down the stairs. ”

“ The foe thundered at the gates and the gates held,—held for months while the fate of France hung in the balance, and then opening, the hosts of France poured out and drove the foe back mile by mile, bitter miles.
The city does not boast an unscarred building, but these wounds do not bleed in vain. For every one here there shall be two across the frontier when the day of reckoning comes. An awe-inspiring silence broods over the littered streets. There are no civilians here now, but many soldiers, and as one walks an occasional cheer greets him,—“Vive l’Amérique!” ”

“ THE American Ambulance, the American Field Service as it was in the old days, is dead. The spirit of bonne camaraderie and intimacy which each member felt for the others; the time when, members of no army, we served with the French, on equal terms with the poilus in the trenches and the officers on the staff; when, responsible to no one, we served the cause and the god Adventure, content with the past and with no thought for the morrow,—has passed. ”

“ There is nothing quite so uncomfortable to hear as the near whistle of a shell. The more one hears the sound the more it affects him. There is something in the sharp whine which seems to create despair and induce subconscious melancholy. There is a feeling of helplessness and powerlessness that is most depressing. The thunder of the guns or the crash of the bursting shells cannot be compared with the sound of this approaching menace. ”

“ These characteristics could never pass the tests, and now the true spirit of France, the Phœnix, is rising from the ashes of the past a freed and glorified being, radiant in the joy of accomplishment. From the torture she has endured, an understanding of the feelings and desires of others must be born which will banish the taint of selfishness forever. Those who do things are never egotistical—they have no time to talk, and France has been doing things these past years. Those who rub elbows with the elementals and sacrifice for each other and a cause can never be insincere again. ”

“ After an hour or so of sport the going becomes very bad, as there are always many horses killed, and when the fighting is at all severe there is no time to bury them. Then, too, the narrow gauge railway crossing the road every few rods is often hit, and left, like a steel octopus, with its twisted tentacles stretching out in all directions. These add to the sport hugely, and our chief consolation is to imagine the Boche over on his side having fully as bad if not a worse time than we. ”

“ Through fields dotted with wooden crosses with the tricolored ribbon, and pock-marked with shell-holes. We pass aeroplane hangars and batteries of guns. We see more saucisses in the sky and soldiers on the ground. The hand of the Hun lies heavy on the land, and his poison breath scorches the grass of the fields. We see fewer civilians and more steel helmets, and yet the rumble of the guns is no louder. But there is a certain breath of power and energy in the air, and one feels himself waiting for something to happen. ”

“ Outside there is continually the dull thunder of the guns. They are evidently firing tir de barrage, for there is a certain regularity in the wave of sound that rumbles in on us. Perhaps the barrage is falling on the roads behind the enemy lines, cutting off and destroying his supply trains. Perhaps it is trying to sweep some of his batteries out of existence, or perhaps it is falling on his trenches, taking its toll of nerve and life. Again we can only conjecture. There is the continual whine of his shells rushing overhead, and the crump-crump of their breaking in the near distance. ”

“ THE world, judging from what it saw on the surface, flatly declared that France could never stand up under the strain; but what has happened has proved how little of the real worth of a nation or of a man is ever visible on the surface. There must always come the test, the fire which burns off the mask, the false surface beneath which mankind ever hides, and brings forth what is concealed—good or bad. The bad is swept away and the good survives. ”

“ A DREAM of a town, hot but not oppressive under the sun of the Midi, with quaint streets meandering through it, little blue tables set in the sunlight and a park filled with gay-colored soldiers and drab women, was my first impression of Bordeaux. Dilapidated fiacres in tow of hungry horses transport one from place to place, and give the newcomer his first taste of the haggling, without which a Latin would be disconsolate. ”

“ Suddenly the driver of the leading car, who has been admiring the scenery on the right of the road, sees the chef standing on the left making frantic motions for him to stop. Perhaps the driver puts out his hand, perhaps he does not. At any rate, he applies the brakes and comes to a dead stop—for an instant. The driver of the second car may have been adjusting his carburetor or observing an aeroplane, or a peasant girl, or a map—the exact object is beside the question. He suddenly comes to earth when he finds his charge valiantly trying to climb over the car in front—more brakes. ”

“ We do not know where we are going. After a number of interminable delays and halts we pass through the gates of the city, and leave behind the last vestige of the Known. Ahead of us the road stretches white in the sunlight—the white road of mystery leading on to adventure and redemption. ”

“ A SAUCISSE
We have gotten our baggage ready, and are sitting around in the darkness smoking our pipes and thinking. Tomorrow we are going up to the lines. A big attack has been scheduled, and we are to take care of the wounded. It is to be our first work, and any fighting at all seems a “big attack” to us. We are a green section, fresh from Paris. We have never heard a shell whistle, and have been thrilled by the sound of guns twenty miles away. What will be our sensations face to face with the real thing? ”

“ It is pretty sport. A little white machine, sometimes catching the glint of the sun, dashes towards us at a great height. It is sighted, and then the high-pitched boom-booms of the contre-avions start in, and the shrapnel breaks at varying distances around the machine like powder-puffs, which float along for some minutes. After a little of this harmless sport the Boche gets out of range, the guns cease, and the machine, having in the meanwhile disposed of some bombs or taken some photographs, dashes off, to be followed shortly by one or two Frenchmen. ”

“ All along the roads lie piles of broken stone, which are continually replaced by loads from the rear. At intervals are placed abris filled with roadbuilders who watch until a shell hits the road in their sector. Then, almost before the dirt settles, they rush out armed with shovels, and pile this rough stone into the hole and rush back again to shelter, to wait for the next shell, which is not long in coming. This rough patching is consolidated later when the sector quiets down, but does admirably for the time-being, as the mud and traffic push it rapidly into shape. ”

“ The life has worked its way into our hearts, and the call to return rings in our ears. But the relief from the tenseness and the joy of anticipation of America and Home exceeds all else. The wind blowing across the waves starts somewhere in America, and we take deep breaths. ”

“ We have ceased to be our own masters. We are units, cogs in the machine, infinitesimal pawns in the giant game, and move as the dust which rises from the car ahead—where we know not, why we know not,—and how we often wonder! ”

“ So it is now in this fierce blast from Hell’s furnace, the Great War, that the National fire is rekindled and each metal is slowly sinking its own individuality into the common form carefully stirred by the hand of the Almighty, and in the white heat, as the pure metal is tempered until it rings true and measures to the old standard, the slag is cast aside. ”

“ That that time has come, and that the Old World, throwing down the gauntlet to the New, has found it unexpectedly ready, is shown by the presence of the Stars and Stripes on the battlefields of France. The mask of our isolation by the ocean, that time-worn excuse, has been rudely torn aside by modern inventions, and the affairs of Europe have become by their intimacy our own. ”

“ PLUNGED suddenly from the commonplaces of peace into the seething cauldron of war, France has had to adjust herself. Every one without exception has lost many who were dear to him and much that he had considered essential. ”

“ The going is worse, and we stop to get our bearings. We shout and presently a form rises from the darkness. At any hour of the day or night it is possible to rouse by one or more shouts any number of men anywhere. You can see no one, as the world, for obvious reasons, lives underground in the rabbit burrows of abris, but when needed comes forth in force. This is very convenient, as often when driving at night one finds his car stuck in the middle of a new and large shell-hole, and help is necessary. ”

“ It is hard to realize that the earth is shaking in a cataclysm only a little north, but we know that this must be endured until the power of Germany is destroyed—that the world may be as peaceful as is the sea tonight. ”

“ It is a group of men carrying stretchers on which are what were men a few minutes before, who, standing within talking distance of us, were blown out of existence by the shells which whistled over our heads and, bursting, scattered éclats and dirt on the steel roof that sheltered us. ”

“ At the mountains they are finishing rounds of golf or sets of tennis, and the pink and gold of the sunset is crowning the peaks with a fading burst of glory. Soon the fights of the hotel will shine brightly forth into the gathering gloom, and the dance music will strike up. ”

“ This war is to make Democracy secure only in that it is the continual struggle between the new and the old, a struggle whose issue is certain before the start—civilization moves to the west.
America is the vanguard of the European civilization moving westward. It has taken the sum of the civilizations of the earth to bridge the chasm of the Atlantic. ”

“ We bridge for a brief moment the chasm of three thousand miles, and in revery gaze upon those persons, those places, and those things we have known. Our thoughts here are always in the past. We cannot think of the present, and we dare not think of the future, but there is always the past to live in,—the past of events and memories. ”

“ One cannot think about this war for long at a time, and when one meditates it is to speculate on what is happening at home. One gloats over imaginary dances, theatres, and all varieties of good times. ”

“ THE roads at the front are cared for by a class of unsung heroes, the roadbuilders. Back of the lines German prisoners are often used for this work, but it is a rule of warfare that prisoners must not be worked under fire, and the Allies observe this as the other rules of civilized warfare. The roads are the arteries of the front, and during an attack the enemy does his best to cripple them. If he succeeds, the troops in the trenches, cut off from food, ammunition, and other supplies, are at his mercy. ”

“ It is the hour before the dawn, and the cold, grey mist hangs over all, robing the jagged ruins and harmonizing the rough outlines into something more human, while accentuating the stare of the vacant window-openings. ”

“ America is the last section of the circle of the world, which completed, civilization moves back to its starting place. Power increases with civilization and, with each step civilization has taken, the conquests have been proportionate. ”