"We spent the next two hours cruising slowly about the streets, waiting for the next shells to come, and then going to see if any one had been hit. I had three dead men and ten terribly wounded--soldiers, civilians, women. The next day I was glad to be off for the quiet front where things happen in the open, and women and children are not murdered." "Seven shells fell within a radius of 200 yards of the cars, with pieces of brick and hot splinters." A French official said of the Dunkirk bombardment: "I was at most of the scenes, but always found one of your ambulances before me." A Moroccan lay grievously wounded in a Dunkirk hospital. One of our boys sat down beside the cot. "Touchez le main," said the wounded man, feebly. He was lonely. The boys stayed with him for a time. The man was too far spent to talk, but every little while he said: "Touchez le main." Through the darkness of his pain, he knew that he had a companion there. The young foreigner at his side was a friend, and cared that he suffered. It is difficult to put in public print what one comes to know about these young men of ours, for they are giving something besides efficient driving. I have seen men like Bob Toms at work, and I know that every jolt of the road hurts them because it hurts their wounded soldier. A young millionaire who has been driving up in the Alsace district, remarked the other day: "I never used to do anything, but I won't be able to live like that after the war. The pleasantest thing that is going to happen to me when this thing is over will be to go to the telephone in New York and call up François. "'That you, François? Come and let's have dinner together and talk over the big fight.' "François is a Chasseur Alpin. I've been seeing him up on the mountain. François is the second cook at the Knickerbocker Hotel, and the finest gentleman I ever knew." [Illustration: The section that was "shot up" at Verdun--American Ambulance Field Service, Section Three. Ralph Blumenthal, the Princeton All-America football centre, standing at the right. Next him, Waldo Pierce, the artist.] [Illustration: Philibert, Eighth Duke of Clermont-Tonnerre, Fifth Prince of the name, Forty-fifth Count of the name, stooping at the left to repair a bad tire. He was chauffeur of the car that carried us to Verdun.] IV THE AMERICANS AT VERDUN The French have been massed at Verdun in the decisive battle of the war. So were the Americans. Our little group of ambulance drivers were called from the other points of the 350-mile line, and five sections of the American Ambulance Field Service and the Harjes and the Norton Corps work from ten up to twenty hours of the day bringing in their comrades, the French wounded. One hundred and twenty of our cars and 120 of our boys in the field service were in the sector, under constant shell-fire. Several were grievously wounded. Others were touched. A dozen of the cars were shot up with shrapnel and slivers of explosive shell.