World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, American
All this time the men who had come in from the burning village had been
urging us to hurry. Their impatience added so much to our nervousness
that it made us almost angry. Any man who has motor trouble will
appreciate it. At last we started the ambulance. Just as we were going
out the gate--whish! We picked up a tack and our rear tire was flat! It
took me about eight minutes to take off that tire and put a new one on,
but it seemed like hours. The men who had been telling us how to do it
now climbed into the back of the car and went along with us. We had been
on the road only a few minutes when we met a man coming down the road
pulling behind him a two-wheeled cart. He raised his hands as a signal
to stop. We did. Then, with tears streaming down his face, he began to
talk to us, pointing to the cart which was covered with old rag carpet.
At last he lifted the carpet and showed us the lifeless body of a woman,
of his wife! The body was horribly mutilated, the head and right arm
were entirely gone and the left hand was blown to shreds. As the poor
man looked at the corpse he became fairly frantic, screaming and
moaning. We tried to say some words of sympathy but the only answer he
could give us was, _O, ma femme! ma femme!_ We climbed out of the car
and while we stood there an old man and a little girl came trudging
up--the daughter and father of the woman. They, too, began to cry.
Suddenly the old man reeled and fell to the ground. When we picked him
up he was dead. He had died of a broken heart. We lifted his body into
the cart beside that of his daughter. I never felt so heartless in my
life as I did when we left that man and little girl to stumble on with
their burden of sorrow.
When we reached the village, the situation confirmed all the rumors. The
shelling had stopped, but the burning of the buildings was almost as
bad. We drove down the street to the public square and just then over on
the opposite corner a large caliber shell came crashing in, striking a
school building, exploding and producing a fearful effect. Twelve
children were killed and the entire schoolhouse destroyed. The force of
these large projectiles is almost inconceivable. Very often a single one
will completely annihilate an entire building, reducing it to a pile of
bricks, dust and kindling wood. I have seen one of them practically
demolish two houses separated by several feet.
Well, at last we got to the hospital. Shells had burst around it but
none had struck it as yet, and the few people who were there were badly
frightened. We carried a load of wounded back to the base and with the
help of the other ambulances after several hours we evacuated the
hospital. Before the work was finished, however, the Germans had shelled
the road and it became a difficult matter to pick our way along and
dodge the craters. A shell burst just in front of one of the cars and
covered the driver with fine pieces of stone and dust.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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