Three weeks after landing in France the boy found himself in the midst of military activities and the most urgent hospital work. He was clad to his own satisfaction, mostly at his own expense, in khaki. He had become a capable mechanic on automobiles, was well practised in roughing it, in picking his way in strange country, and above all in the fine art of running, with wounded passengers, swiftly and smoothly over rough roads. First as an assistant driver, then with a car of his own and a helper, he had been assigned to duty along the great highway leading from Paris to Amiens. Like many others in the area of military activity, this road had been well built, rock-ballasted and hammered hard with normal travel, in the days before the world war, but now, from the wheels of great munition trucks and motor lorries, the wear and tear of marching feet and from little care after long rains, it had been soaked into a sticky mass, with a continuation of holes and ruts, puddles and upheavals. A cross-road led from the Amiens highway straight east toward the battle front and into the wide territory of France held by the enemy. The German front line was not more than seven miles from the evacuation hospitals on this cross-road. These centers of mercy were where the badly wounded were sent for quick, emergency operations, which saved many lives. Between these evacuation hospitals and the Red Cross base hospital in an old château a few miles outside of Paris and also near the Amiens road the comparatively few Red Cross cars and the score or more of Army ambulances plied almost continuously when there was anything doing at the front. And for the most part there was something doing. From the twenty-first of March, when the terrific drive of the Huns carried them nearly to Amiens, and during which time they occupied Montdidier, until the middle of June, there was pretty constant shelling and scrapping throughout this area. The great German offensive began in March, only a few days before Donald Richards started to run his own ambulance, so that almost his first duties were most urgent and strenuous.