"Ambulance 464" encore des blessés

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NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO DALLAS • ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN & C0. ? Limited

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.

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The author working on his diary on the front seat of "464'

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Encore des Blesses

BY

JULIEN H. BRYAN

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

LYMAN ABBOTT

ILLUSTRATED

J?eto gorfe a

Copyright, 1918

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and Electrotyped. Published April, 1918

TO

MY MOTHER AND FATHER

Preface

The American Ambulance Field Service was taken over by our army in France in October, 19 17, and although many of its sections are still serving with the French forces it has lost its former identity. A few drivers remain, and several hundred have returned home; but the majority have joined some branch of the service with General Pershing's forces.

This book is an attempt to tell something of my own experiences as an ambulance driver with Section Twelve, and, at the same time, to give an idea of what the ambulance service is doing and will have to do probably for some time to come. It is my first book and has not been written without considerable effort, and I might even say sacrifice. Many a time last winter I scribbled in my diary until long after midnight, seated on a stretcher in my ambulance, with two kerosene lamps to give a little light and warmth. I felt that I had a story to tell in my own way, and that, if necessary, I could revise it in a comparatively short time upon my return home. But the task has not been so easy as I imagined. I have spent many hours during the three months I have been at Princeton trying to put it into shape, viii PREFACE

and study and drill at the same time. I hope that I have succeeded. If I have, it is because I have tried to tell as simply as possible a few of the many things which happened in our section over there.

We of the American Ambulance Field Service have no desire to pose as heroes. I went over, as did so many of the others, with the object of seeing war at first hand and of getting some excitement, as well as being of some service. But we do not care to be talked of as young heroes trying to save France, because that was not our idea in going, at any rate not at first. But having arrived in France and learned of some of the terrible things which had been done by the enemy and what the French people had gone through, and having become imbued with some of the wonderful spirit of the French, our point of view was altered, and we were ashamed of our primary object in offering our services. Moreover, we realized on getting to the front that our own little section was but a single unit among the five million troops constituting the French army, and that individually we were very unimportant. Nevertheless, I hope w'e did our share in strengthening the morale of all those fine fellows with whom we came in contact. Seeing us Americans actually in the field with them doubtless inspired them with the hope that more would be coming over before long and they have not been disappointed.

PREFACE ix

I regret that I had to return before the war was over. I feel that I have gotten out of my work in France far more than I put into it. The experience and the life did me untold good and when my period of enlistment was up I would have stayed on and entered the Aviation Service had the decision been entirely my own. Family reasons necessitated my return home but I hope it will not be long before I am again in the field of action.

In taking the photographs I used a post-card size camera, with a good anastigmat lens, and I would advise anyone going over with the intention of taking pictures not to get a smaller camera, for although the larger size is occasionally troublesome, little pictures are always unsatisfactory. But this advice may be unnecessary, because our authorities, like the British, are very strict concerning the use of cameras within the war zone. Almost all our films were developed at the front, Gilmore and I using the loft of a barn for a laboratory, with buckets and basins for apparatus. Many Were the negatives we spoiled when the weather was so cold that the developer would not act on the films. Sometimes we printed by sunlight and sometimes by means of the carbide headlights on one of the cars. I took about four hundred photographs altogether, and the best which survive are in this book. I have also used a number of pictures taken by my friends, and wish to thank x PREFACE

them for their kindness in giving me permission to do this. William Gilmore and Ray Williams, both of Section Twelve, supplied three and four, respectively, the latter number including the balloon pictures. Monsieur Bardellini took six of the pictures at Esnes and Colonel Thurneyssen the group of Boche prisoners. The Farnam, the bursting bomb, and Guynemer pictures I obtained from George Trowbridge.

I also have to thank Professor Harry Covington, of Princeton University, who very unselfishly devoted many hours of his valuable time in smoothing out rough places in the original manuscript. My sincere gratitude is likewise due to several friends who have very kindly helped me with suggestions, proof reading and numerous other details.

Julien H. Bryan.

February 14th, 1918. 65 Blair Hall,

Princeton, New Jersey.

Table Of Contents

PAGE

Introduction by Dr. Lyman Abbott xiii

Original Members of Section XII xvii

Introduction

When our President told us that the causes of the war were obscure and that the war did not concern us, he expressed the common feeling of the American people at the outbreak of the war. When in 191 8 he told us that the object of the war was to make the world safe for Democracy and only in the triumph of Democracy could we expect peace, he expressed the common feeling of the American people at the present time. The difference between those two utterances indicates the distance which the American people had traveled during the three intervening years. The war has taught us something; it has taught us much. We now know as never before both the meaning and the value of Democracy.

This volume affords a striking illustration of this change in the American point of view by portraying the change in a single mind and the causes which produced that change. Says the author in his preface:

"I went over, as did so many of the others, with the object of seeing war at first hand and of getting

INTRODUCTION

some excitement, as well as being of some service. But we do not care to be talked of as young heroes trying to save France, because that was not our idea in going, at any rate, not at first. But having arrived in France and learned of some of the terrible things which had been done by the enemy and what the French people had gone through, and having become imbued with some of the wonderful spirit of the French, we altered our point of view, and were almost ashamed of our primary object in offering our services. Moreover, we realized on getting to the front that our own little section was but a single unit among the five million troops constituting the French army, and that individually we were not very important."

The first of these lessons the American people have already learned; the second we are just beginning to learn.

Such a book as this has two distinct values.

It gives the reader at home a vivid picture of the scenes upon the field of battle. Such a book is all the better for not being literary. We get the first impressions of the actor not modified by the ambitions of a literary artist, and the effect of his artless narrative is all the greater because he has not in his mind the effect which he is trying to produce upon the reader. Simplicity, accuracy, and

INTRODUCTION xv

realism are his characteristics. He is so absolutely in the life that he has not in his mind the readers of the narrative.

And for this reason the book produces upon the reader an effect similar to that which the events produced on the writer. We also alter our point of view as he altered his. We wonder that we ever thought that this war did not concern us. We wonder that we ever thought of leaving our kin across the sea to fight for the world's freedom without our aid. The author tells us that by his experience he became imbued with some of the wonderful spirit of the French. In reading the story of his experiences we become imbued through him with some of the same wonderful spirit. The war is no longer three thousand miles away; it is at our doors. We also have passed through a kind of baptism of lire. And by our companionship with our fellow citizens on their field of battle we are inspired by their enthusiasm and nerved by their resolve to accept no peace which does not give us in the destruction of Prussian militarism a reasonable assurance that our sons will never have to take part in a like campaign.

Lyman Abbott.

Cornwall-on-Hudson, N. Y.

ORIGINAL MEMBERS OF SECTION XII

NAME RESIDENCE IN AMERICA COLLEGE

Allen, Wharton Colorado Springs, Col .... Univ. of Penna

Benney, Philip* Pittsburg

Bryan, Julien H Titusville, Penna Princeton ('21)

Craig, Harry W Cleveland, Ohio Univ. of Wisconsin

Crowhurst, H. W., Jr . . Philadelphia La Fayette

Dunham, Dowse Irvington-on-the-Hudson . Harvard

Gilmore, Wm Florence, Italy. "Boston Tech."

Haven, George New York City Yale

Houston, Henry H Philadelphia Univ. of Penna.

Iselin, Harry Normandy, France

Lloyd, J. T Ithaca, N. Y Cornell

Lundquist, S. J. H San Francisco

Orr, Thomas Pittsburg Hamilton

Powell, C. H Milwaukee Univ. of Wisconsin

Walker, Croom Chicago (and Alabama) . . Univ. of Virginia

Williams, Ray Evan . . . Dodgeville, Wis Univ. of Wisconsin

MEN WHO JOINED THE SECTION AFTER WE LEFT PARIS

NAME JOINED IN RESIDENCE IN AMERICA COLLEGE

Bradley, Lloyd P Feb Berkeley, Cal Univ. of Cal.

Chauvenet, Louis Feb St. Louis Harvard

Coan, Raymond March . N. Y. City (& Montclair) Cornell

* Benney entered Aviation in July and lost his life on January 25, 1918, while serving with the La Fayette Escadrille.

MEN WHO JOINED THE SECTION AFTER WE LEFT PARIS

Continued

NAME JOINED IN RESIDENCE IN AMERICA COLLEGE

Joyce, Thomas May Berkeley, Cal

Lloyd, J. T March... Ithaca, N. Y Cornell

O'Connor, Tom May Brookline, Mass

Stanley, Everett March . . . Milton, Mass Bowdoin

Ray Eaton Three fictitious persons whom I have used here and

Ellis Frazer r there, when the mention of the real name has seemed Mark Payne J unwise.

I

GETTING READY

J a n uary 1 9 1 h t 1 9 1 7 . 21 Rue Rayn ouard, Paris

Six weeks ago this morning, my alarm clock got me out of bed at five o'clock, in my little two by four room in the Erie Y. M. C. A. and off I rushed to my daily work, driving stakes and chaining track with the Engineering gang of the New York Central. It had all been very interesting for a few weeks after I left high-school last June. But after six long months it was becoming monotonous and I was aching to get away, to try my hand at something else. Since I was staying out of school for a whole year, waiting until I was eighteen before I entered college, it didn't take much to urge me on when I read a poster saying, "Volunteers Wanted for the American Ambulance Field Service in France." My father was enthusiastic about it. So immediately after the holidays, I left my home in Titusville, Pennsylvania, and sailed on the French liner "Espagne" on the eighth of January, along with twenty other fellows in the same service. We had a wonderful trip, no submarines and very little unpleasant weather. Six of the men, including my cabinmate, joined the Paris

Service which works for the big American Ambulance Hospital in Neuilly. The rest of us went to the headquarters of the Field Service on Rue Raynouard, where we are now, waiting to be sent to the front. Soon several of the fellows will leave, to fill vacancies in one of the old sections. But there is a rumor going around that a new section, Number Twelve, is being organized and that our bunch is to be part of it. No wonder that we are all hoping that this is true, for it will be far better to go out with fellows whom we know than to break into the cliques of an old crowd.

We are living just across the river from the Eiffel Tower, in a wonderful old house in Passy. Its grounds, which cover an entire block, have come down from the old Hottinguer and Bartholdi families. Ben Franklin, they tell us, used to stay here when he was in Paris and some of his first kite experiments were made in the park behind the house. All our quarters are downstairs and the upper part of the building has been turned into offices for the business end of the service. Dr. A. Piatt Andrew, •Steven Galatti and Dr. Gros have separate offices here. Then there is the mailing department and Mr. Fisher's room, where we go to see about getting our necessary papers. The first thing we did on arriving yesterday was to report at the latter place to receive directions concerning the "Permis de Sejour,"

which we must get from the Prefecture of Police if we wish to remain in France.

Living in Paris just at present reminds one of the joys of an Arctic expedition. It's terribly cold, and raw and damp besides, and there is such a scarcity of coal that even after the government has carefully divided it among the inhabitants, there is just enough for a few hours' comfort and then a room at 45 or 50 degrees F. all the rest of the day. It is so bad in the quarters here that the ink has actually frozen in my suitcase. Every night there is a mad rush to undress as soon as we hit the bedroom and we make pretty good speed in dressing in the morning, too. Whenever we feel we can't stand it any longer, we pay out fifteen centimes, about three cents in our money, for a ride in the subway which they call the Metro; they tell us it is the only warm place in Paris, in this, their coldest winter in twenty-seven years. The poor, of course, suffer the most. They can't afford to buy much coal when it sells for seventy dollars a ton. And so, daily, it is given out by a special card system at booths all over the city. Every morning crowds of poor women collect hours before the time of distribution, patiently wait their tufn, and then go away one by one lugging a fiftypound sack of the precious stuff.

January 25th. 21 Rue Raynouard, Paris.

Section Twelve is no longer a dream. All the necessary men are here and the twenty-two Fords have just had the last touches put on their ambulance bodies at Kellner's. We have no section leader or chef, as yet, nor have we been given our respective cars; but they tell us we will probably get our orders from the French Automobile Service to leave for the front next week. It won't be long before we get the cars.

From the stories of fellows who are in on permission from different parts of the front it appears that a Sanitary Section consists of twenty to twenty-five ambulances, each of which carries three stretcher or five sitting cases. There are also two big White trucks for supplies, extra parts, and the luggage of the eight Frenchmen who go along as mechanics, cooks and assistants in clerical work. Then they usually have two staff cars, one of which belongs to the "Chef Americain" and the other to the French Lieutenant in charge of the Section. They live in a small town, often a destroyed one, between the front line trenches and the first hospitals in the rear; and for ordinary work they send about five men out each day for twenty-four hour duty at their different posts. These are little first aid stations, usually eight hundred or a thousand yards behind the first line trenches. In hilly country, however, one can often go in a car to within four or five hundred yards of No Man's Land; but in level stretches like Champagne one seldom gets closer than two miles. The wounded are carried by stretcher bearers from wherever they have fallen to a tiny Poste de Secours, in the second or third line trenches. Here they are given quick treatment in the one-room underground hospital, and are rushed on afterwards through the communication trenches to one of our posts. These are underground, too, and are little better than the posts in the trenches. But they can handle more men here and do emergency work, like amputating, if necessary. Besides, when a big attack is on, blesses are brought in much faster than we can remove them and they take care of them here for a few hours, and sometimes for days if necessary. Our work is to load up the ambulances with the assistance of the brancardters (stretcher-bearers) and carry them back to an evacuation hospital ten or twelve miles behind the lines. These are rather crude affairs and seldom employ any women nurses. When they become crowded or get cases too difficult to handle, they send the wounded to bigger hospitals further back, usually in a nearby city.

6 ''AMBULANCE 4 6 4 n

Such places are twenty-five or thirty miles behind the front and are very similar to our base hospitals. From here patients are sent by train into Paris for major operations or to the south of France to recuperate.

Mr. Fisher took five of us out in the Ford truck Tuesday morning and gave us a short driving-lesson in anticipation of the final test for the French driver's license which we must have before we go to the front. It was comparatively simple for most of us; but some real excitement started when Payne, one of the Espagne men, started driving. He is sort of a queer duck, anyway. The first night he was in Paris he crawled over the picket fence around the Eiffel Tower and was almost shot by a sentry. He did nobly on Tuesday, however. He had barely taken the wheel before we saw that he had never driven much before. He jammed on the accelerator just as we were rounding a corner, headed for a tree, and unfortunately missed it by a few inches, or we would have stopped here. Then he speeded up considerably, and skidded for thirty feet along a trolley-track embankment, scraped the side of an old dray horse and then ducked under its nose just for spite. We finally ended up two miles further on, with Mr. Fisher hanging firmly to the wheel and doing his best to get Payne's feet off the pedals so that he could use his own and stop the machine. . . .

Payne now thinks he ought to have another practice lesson before he goes to the front. We agree with him.

We were given the second dose of typhoid and para-typhoid bugs today. Dr. Gros stuck something like a billion and a half in each fellow's arm and we certainly knew afterwards that they were having a grand time all by themselves in there. Everybody feels rotten and some of the men have gone to bed already, although it is only seven thirty. It is para-T, not typhoid itself which makes one's arm so sore a few hours after the injection.

When we first got here, we could do pretty much as we pleased, as long as we saw about our papers and had our uniforms made. But now that the Section is going to leave soon, and since they are shorthanded at Kellner's anyway, the whole bunch goes out there every afternoon and unpacks and mounts Ford chassis. Women and children flock around in swarms whenever we are working on the crates. They watch us like hawks, eager to seize the tiniest splinter which may fall from a broken board. They figure that one good-sized basket of chips will cook a supper which otherwise they would have had to eat cold. We used to sight-see a little mornings ; but every big thing like the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower is closed for the duration of the war and it isn't very interesting wandering around the outside of buildings. Entertainment in the evening is not difficult, for many of the big theatres and both the Opera and Opera Comique are still running. Anderson, my roommate on the Espagne, who is now at Neuilly, and I have gone three times already to the Opera, where we saw Manon and L'Etranger. The music was wonderful but I think we enjoyed the comfortable warmth of the building almost as much. Everyone goes, from the poor poilu, in on a few days' furlough, who listens enraptured from his two-franc seat in the fourth balcony, to the bemedalled Russian and Italian officers, who, as guests of the French Republic, occupy the seats in the Orchestra Circle far below. There are usually many women in the audience, but most of them are widows; at least you seldom see one who isn't in mourning for a brother, a son or a husband. . . . Broadway is still lit up after the theatres are out, but here everything is dark. It is against the law to use electricity for illuminating signs or store-window^s. I have noticed that some of the fashionable shops are using long tapering candles which probably burn out by themselves in the early hours of the morning.

i. The remains of two ambulances, destroyed by German shell-fire. They were brought into Paris to encourage the new arrivals.

2. The twenty-one ambulances of Section XII, assembled in the yard at 21 Rue Raynouard.

3. One of the many towns which the Boches leveled to the ground in 1914- i. Winter sport — washing our cars in the river Couzances at Jubecourt.

2. Three little residents of "Rat-hunt" alley, in Jubecourt. All of them have hobnails in their shoes.

3. Ten miles behind the lines, in our dining room, the cowstable in Jubecourt. Every evening a few poilus dropped to sing and tell stories with us.

January 315?.

Today we started all the new Ambulances and drove them down into the park below the house. Here they were carefully lined up and examined to see that no part of the equipment was missing. Then after dinner Mr. Fisher assigned each one of us to a car and gave us its number. Mine turned out to be four hundred and sixty-four, and the name plate on its side read "Schenectady Ambulance." It was very kind of the people in Schenectady to donate the machine, but it is certainly a terrible pet name for an automobile to have. There are a lot of Americans who don't know how to pronounce the word Schenectady, to say nothing of the queer noises the Frenchmen make trying to say it. Already it has been called everything from Shenickadaydy to Skinneckodidy. The motor seems to be O. K. I took it around the block for a trial run after dinner and had no trouble with the engine. A taxi collided with me up on Rue Raynouard, however, when I was completing the test, and smashed in my side-box pretty badly. The big machine turned from a narrow alley into the main street without sounding its horn and I couldn't stop in time after I saw it. The io "AMBULANCE 464"

damage done was very slight, and it will only need a new box which can be easily replaced.

I wore my uniform for the first time this morning. It gives you the most wonderful feeling to be able to ride in the Metro and walk around down town without having every soul in Paris stare at you as if you were some terrible slacker.

February $th f 19 17. Still at 21 Rue Raynouard.

They gave us our chef the day before yesterday. He is Harry Iselin of Section Two; and tonight, they had the farewell banquet in honor of Section XII. Dr. Gros and Dr. Andrew both made interesting speeches afterwards. Mr. Simonds, War Correspondent of the New York Tribune, spoke for a few minutes, and after him came the finest talk of the evening, perhaps the most touching words I have ever heard. It was given by Monsieur Hughes Le Roux, a famous French journalist and adventurer. He told us in almost perfect English how he had lost both of his sons early in the war and he bravely described how one had died and how he had barely managed to get to his bedside and hear the story from his own lips before he passed away. He showed us. why the work of the American Ambulance meant so much to him and he made every man who had come from a mere desire for adventure, feel that it was really his duty to help France. A few toasts to the two nations followed this, and with them came the end of a pleasant evening.

Every time I start a letter home something unexpected happens and I put it off another day. Yesterday when I was reading the Paris Edition of the New York Herald, I got so interested in the account of our probable break with Germany that I bought a Daily Mail and a Matin besides, and spent all the time when I should have been writing, bickering with the fellows over the news. Then on Friday the new men from the liner Chicago arrived and when I was introduced to one of my cousins from Pittsburg whom I hadn't known was coming over, I didn't bother with letter-writing any more that day. Unfortunately he was seized with pneumonia yesterday on his way back from Bordeaux in a convoy of Fords. He is now in a serious condition at the American Hospital in Neuilly. His chances are said to be about even. Bliss, another Ambulance man, died last week from the same disease.

The "Ordre de Mouvement" for the Section has just come. Unless the Eiffel Tower falls on our cars during the night, we shall leave here at noon tomorrow.

Thursday, Feb. $th, 19 17. Montmirail

Section XII left its comfortable (?) quarters in Rue Raynouard today, after a grand review and military send off by Capitaine Aujay, the Frenchman who directs all the Automobile work in Paris. He delivered a thrilling speech in French which none of us understood until it was carefully interpreted afterwards.

It took us several hours to get out of Paris, for we had to go eastward across the whole city. Several of the cars had engine trouble and one received a bad bump from a street car. Otherwise nothing unusual happened. By the time we came to Champigny, a little village twenty kilometers from the city, it was noon, and we stopped there for lunch. It was a funny meal, served in a queer little cafe. First a loaf or so of stale bread and some wine appeared and after a long wait some prime ribs of horse. This appeared to be the last course, but as we were about to leave, in came a plate of rice and a minute later some cheese and jam.

In the afternoon we started up at a faster pace than before, with orders to keep the cars about fifty yards apart. It was extremely cold, and the bitter wind, which was blowing directly against us, seemed to go right through our heavy mackinaws. Now and then someone would stop, to change a spark plug or a tire, or perhaps to put in a little oil. Often, when he tried to pass another machine in order to get back to his old position in the convoy, a heated scrap would arise. Sometimes they raced for two or three miles, trying to push each other off the road. And before the afternoon was over, the cars were strung out in a line four miles long, with each driver jealously guarding his position while he kept it, and madly attempting to get it back again if it were taken away.

It was quite dark when we entered Montmirail, but we could not help seeing the ghastly ruins of the place, which the Germans had leveled in their advance before the Battle of the Marne. The staff car, which had gone on ahead, found an old dance hall where we could spend the night, and a place nearby in which to park our cars. We drained our radiators hurriedly, and had supper at a little cafe. Then as soon as we got back to quarters most of us took our blankets from our cars, and turned in without undressing.

Saturday, Feb. 10th. Longeville.

I learned a hard lesson last night about sleeping. Never make your bed on a slope. I had fixed mine on the straw, with one end considerably lower than the other, and when I awoke this morning I was actually five feet lower down the hill than when I went to sleep. I had, moreover, slipped out into the cold air half a dozen times during the night.