Friends of France : $b The Field Service of the American Ambulance described by its membersVarious
History
Friends of France : $b The Field Service of the American Ambulance described by its members
Various
American Field Service; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, American
To go from this place to the sorting-point behind the lines to which
the wounded are taken is the worst run we have. It means almost always
wondering if your car will make the grades, if you acted properly in
letting yourself be persuaded to take three wounded instead of the
specified two. It means coming upon comrades _en panne_ and lending
a hand or hurrying on with the distress signal, stopping to pour
water into your boiling radiator, halting to pass convoys, arguments,
decisions, "_noms-de-Dieu_," backing to a wider place, wheels that
nearly go over the edge, pot-bellied munition-wagons that scrape off
your side boxes, getting into a ditch and having to be pulled out by
mules or pushed out by men.
It is a journey fraught with worry, for there is always the danger of
delay when delay may mean death and is sure to mean suffering for the
wounded in your car. And sometimes when, with bad cases aboard, you
are stuck and can't get out until somebody turns up to help you, it is
unbearable to stay near your car and hear their pitiful groans.
But the down part of the journey is full of more acute dangers. You are
at the mercy of your brakes. If they fail you, there is only the bank.
A quick turn of the steering-wheel and you are all right; that is,
there will be only a cruel shaking-up for the men you are carrying and
a broken radius rod or perhaps a smashed radiator. But this is better
than going over the bank and better than running amuck through a train
of mules with their deadly loads of explosives.
Only during the last two months have we been able to use the first ten
kilometres of this road at all. Even now for the climbing part of the
journey we take none but the more seriously wounded, leaving the rest
to be carried in light wagons pulled by mules, until they get to some
mountain-top relay-point where our cars are stationed. Most of these
relay-points are very close to one or several French batteries. Some of
them are established in the midst of thriving cantonments buried in the
woods and within sight of the German trenches on a sister mountain-top.
Others, farther removed from the enemy lines and higher above the level
of destruction, are on summits suitable only for the biggest of the
French guns and reached in turn only by the very long-range German guns.
[Illustration: THE HARVARD CLUB OF ALSACE RECONQUISE]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account