“This, after I had driven away a group of zouaves who had taken everything from him, including his iron cross, and who were debating whether to toss him into the canal then or that night. “Shells have a disturbing way about them, more disturbing to your plans than your equanimity. Shells prevented my having a nice comfortable illness. In southern Russia one can get little to eat. Coarse black bread is the chief food. It causes various disorders. I, afflicted with one of them, arranged a table in the corner of my tent, placed remedies on the table, undressed, and turned in, intending to have a cozy illness of a few days. But as I lay came an angry buzzing. A shell hissed through, carrying away a corner of my tent. That ended my illness. I had no more time to think of it. “The greatest peril I encountered was not from shells. One becomes used to them. One of the greatest dangers I faced was on a dark night drive along a precipice in the Caucasus. It was while the plan to bring troops through Persia to Russia was expected to be successful. I went ahead with some ambulances. It was necessary to take two Russian officers across the mountain. I offered my services. The road was an oddly twisting one. On one side was a high wall, on the other a precipice whose depth no one calculated. But as I allowed myself to look into it at twilight I could see no bottom to it. We started on the all-night drive at dusk. The precipice remained with us, a foot away, most of the distance. Had my car skidded twelve inches the story would have been different. “Then, too, I wandered once within the Turkish lines, mistaking them for our own. But amid a courteous silence I was allowed to discover my mistake and escape without harm. TOO BUSY TO REFUSE HER “I think I owe my opportunity to do my bit, in the way I have, to the fact that I arrived in Flanders a few hours before the fight and the officers were too busy to send me back. I had seven automobiles, and knew how to use them. I took them to Dixmude and offered the automobiles and my services to the cause. I established headquarters at Furnes, which is seven miles from Nieuport, eight from Dixmude, and twenty from Ypres. I drove along the Yser Canal to the parts of the field that were under the heaviest fire, for there, I knew, my cars and I would be most needed. For a year I worked for the relief of the wounded of the French armies. Then I went to Russia, where I found the need of help and the sacrifice of life because of lack of that help almost inconceivable. The French armies have 6,000 ambulances. The Germans have 6,200. Russia, with a firing line of 6,000 miles, has only 600 motor-ambulances. “I established dressing-stations in the mountains. Some of these were 10,000 feet above the sea-level. There, on the canvas stretched between two horses, the wounded were brought, or so they started. For many of them died in the long journey, every step of which was torture to a wounded man.