We were fairly comfortable in the ambulance, and I, especially, had great relief from the fact that the nurse had strapped my leg in a sling attached to the top of the vehicle. We smoked cigarettes and chatted cheerfully, exchanging congratulations on having got “clean ones,” that is, wounds probably not fatal. The artillery officer told me he had been supporting our battalion, that morning, with one of the “sacrifice batteries.” A sacrifice battery, I might explain, is one composed of field pieces which are emplaced between the front and support lines, and which, in case of an attack or counter attack, are fired at pointblank range. They call them sacrifice batteries because some of them are wiped out every day. This officer said our battalion, that morning, had been supported by an entire division of artillery, and that on our front of four hundred yards the eighteen pounders, alone, in a curtain fire which lasted thirty-two minutes, had discharged fifteen thousand rounds of high-explosive shells. I was impressed by his statement, of course, but I told him that while this was an astonishing lot of ammunition, it was even more surprising to have noticed at close range, as I did, the number of Germans they missed. Toward the end of our trip to Contay, we were much exhausted and pretty badly shaken up. We were beginning also to realize that we were by no means out of the woods, surgically. Our wounds had merely been dressed. Each of us faced an extensive and serious operation. We arrived at Contay, silent and pretty much depressed. For twenty-four hours in the Contay casualty clearing station, they did little except feed us and take our temperatures hourly. Then we were put into a hospital train for Rouen.