We are at one end of a valley which, opening gradually, runs into the basin of the Rhine. Our two ambulances are backed up against a hay-loft dressing-station among a little group of houses frequently mentioned in the _communiqués_. At this minute the place is as peaceful as any Florida glade; it does not seem possible that war can be so near, so completely hushed. There is little military in the appearance of a few stretcher-bearers, dressed in the discarded clothes of peace, throwing stones into an apple tree; there is not a gun to be seen; there is not a sound to be heard unless you listen to catch the splash of a mountain stream or the tinkle of the bells tied around the necks of the cows grazing high up on a green but ladder-steep mountain-side. Coming down the road towards me is a little barefooted boy driving a half-dozen cows to where some girls are waiting in a pen to milk them. A little later, when my companion and I sit down to dinner with the young _médecin auxiliaire_ in charge of the post, there will be some of this milk on the table. But long before dinner-time the whole surrounding aspect may change as if by black magic. Tree-hidden batteries, some only a hundred yards away and some on the tops of neighboring and surrounding mountains, may speak together with their "brutal lungs" until the echoes, rolling and accumulating, make a grand, persistent roar. Even trench-weary soldiers will unconsciously duck their heads and stand ready to run to the bomb-proofs if the answering German shells begin to fall close to them. After dark the wounded will arrive, carried on stretchers, rested on men's shoulders, or pushed in wheelbarrows, to the hay-loft where a doctor, working almost entirely without anæsthetics, treats such cases as the doctors in the trench dressing-stations passed without attention. By this time also, on a night when many wounded are arriving, six or eight more American ambulances will be summoned by telephone. There will be no headlights used; only a great swinging of lanterns and much shouting back and forth in French and English. Although the firing after dark will not be so general, one or two batteries will continue to break out sharply every few minutes. One of our squad leaders will be on hand as driver in charge of the situation. "Are you ready to roll?" he will call to somebody as the doctor comes up and speaks to him. A dark figure standing by a car will lean over and spin a crank, an engine will sputter and pour forth smoke, for we must use a double supply of oil on these grades. Then an ambulance will back up to the door of the barn and the driver, leaving his engine throttled down, will help in lifting the stretchers.