_January 10._ Nightmare of last night not up to actuality. Got up with Mellen's car at Thoms after sticking first short of watering-trough. Cate and I had a stake to plant at the place where Hall fell and start a cairn of stones. At watering-trough, just as I started up, a shell lit near and caused a rush of air by my head. As we planted the stake and gathered stones shells whistled round. Mellen's car a heller to crank. Arrived at Thoms finally sweating blood under my steel casque in spite of temperature--about zero. Found Suckley, Phillips, Carey and Cate present. Carey and Phillips went to Paste for wounded--Suckley to Herrenfluh--Cate and I left alone. Shell N{o} 1 arrives--every one to _abri_--Cate and I stay outside in kitchen. Bombardment of about half an hour or three quarters--can't judge. Last shell sent window, door, and stove in on us and blew us off the bench. Peeped into the next room. All blown to hell--shell had landed just to right of entrance.... A very low P.M. Rice came tearing up from Henry's a minute or so after the bombardment. I saw one hundred yards of messed-up wire moving mysteriously down the road--was attached to Rice's car. He hurdled scalloped tin, etc., where _tringlots_ had been killed. Cate coolest man in Christendom--was reading account of sinking of Lusitania when last shell arrived--just at part where torpedo struck.... When some wounded came in on mules I parted with extreme pleasure. W. P. [Illustration] _A Night Trip_ The most anxious drive I ever had in a checkered automobiling experience was in the evening of September 30. It was at a new post in the mountains, not far from Hartmannsweilerkopf. I was there for the first time when a call came from ---- (a station just behind the lines where a shower bath is established). It was dusk already, but I knew no better than to start. The road is new since the beginning of the war; it follows the steep route of an old path and no lights are allowed on it for fear the Germans might locate and shell it. It is narrow, winding, and very steep, so steep that at places at the top of a descent it looks as if the road ended suddenly. There was barely enough twilight through the mass of trees to allow me to see the pack-mules returning from the day's _ravitaillement_, but I finally made my way to the post. I was given a poor, blind soldier to carry back. What a trip he must have had. If it was trying for me, it was worse for him. It was now dark, a moonless, starless night in the woods. When I started back, I could seldom see the road itself. I had to steer by the bank or by the gaps in the trees ahead. Occasionally I would feel one of the front wheels leave the crown of the road, and would quickly turn to avoid going over the precipice, but with all this I had to rush the grades which I could not see, but could only feel.