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Read Ebook: The White Road of Mystery: The Note-Book of an American Ambulancier by Orcutt Philip Dana
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THE WHITE ROAD OF MYSTERY
THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN AMERICAN AMBULANCIER
THE WHITE ROAD OF MYSTERY
THE NOTE-BOOK OF AN AMERICAN AMBULANCIER
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD 1918
THE?PLIMPTON?PRESS NORWOOD?MASS?U?S?A
SECTION THIRTY-ONE
TO ALL OTHER SECTIONS OF THE
AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE
AND TO THOSE WHO HAVE MADE THEM POSSIBLE
Preface
THE position of the ambulance driver at the front is much the same as that of the grouse in open season: every one has a chance to take a shot at him and he has no opportunity for retaliation. That is why so many drivers entered aviation or artillery at the expiration of their term of enlistment of six months.
This transferring came to an end when the American Government took over the Ambulance Service. From then on, all drivers have been of necessity enlisted men. The old American Ambulance, later called the American Field Service, was a purely volunteer organization, and had no connection with any government. It was made up of American citizens who left civil life, paying their own expenses and furnishing their own equipment, and in many cases their ambulances. These men, feeling that America owed a debt to France, banded together to form the original American Ambulance Service, which they laid on the altar of their devotion to a true and great cause.
P. D. O.
Contents
GLOSSARY 171
A SAUCISSE 33
BRANCARDIERS LOADING AN AMBULANCE 57
AN ABRI 77
A DIVISION EN REPOS 95
NORMAL TRAFFIC AT THE FRONT 131
TAKING A LOAD FROM THE ABRI 147
Prelude
THE WHITE ROAD OF MYSTERY
WE are off. We do not know where we are going. After a number of interminable delays and halts we pass through the gates of the city, and leave behind the last vestige of the Known. Ahead of us the road stretches white in the sunlight--the white road of mystery leading on to adventure and redemption. We have ceased to be our own masters. We are units, cogs in the machine, infinitesimal pawns in the giant game, and move as the dust which rises from the car ahead--where we know not, why we know not,--and how we often wonder!
CONVOY formation allows, by the book, for an interval of twenty feet between cars when passing through cities, and for one hundred feet when in the country. The flesh, however, is weak. In cities it is rare indeed to see cars separated by more than a nose except in spasms, while in the country a matter of miles is unimportant. A convoy is like a pack of dogs on the hunt, racing pell mell up hill and down dale one minute, and crawling the next, with an occasional dog straying off and losing itself for an indefinite length of time.
One or more cars must always have taken the wrong road, and lead a hare and hound chase for some minutes before the final roundup, leaving for clues numerous peasants who, when queried, always know just where it went. Of course, by the law of chance, some one of these has undoubtedly seen it, and the lost is eventually found.
Something does--an infuriated bull charges Rover's car and picks off one of his headlights. Rover reverses hastily and unhesitatingly into the car behind, while the farmer's wife makes her appearance, drives off the bull, and saves Rover from extermination.
The main street of the town is denuded of its plate glass, and more houses crumble each time the enemy reports "military advantage gained" by an indiscriminate slaughter of the future crop of France's defenders, and those heroic souls who bear them.
But we are doomed to bitter disappointment. Thirty kilometres from the famous city we are given orders to park our cars in a pile of ruins formerly known as Erize--Erize la petite, and well named.
But they are the only characters of interest here. The fields surrounding the town have as their redeeming feature a system of old trenches, with much barbed wire and an occasional shell-fragment to reward the searcher. The German advance was stopped less than a mile from here, and the trenches have been used since for practice.
In the balloons the observers all have parachutes and usually make their escape, although often they have to spend a little time dangling from the limb of some tree.
WE are told not to stray far, as the order to move may come at any moment. We take walks through the country, and always on returning find the section with "no news,"--but at last the order comes.
IT is cold and chill, and a steady drizzle is oozing from the sky above into the earth beneath, and is making it soft and slippery. I awake, yawn, stretch sleepily, and gaze out into the grey dejection of the morning. I have been sleeping luxuriously on the floor of an ambulance, wedged in between two trunks and a duffle-bag.
IN ACTION
Everything is wrapped in the silence of the grave except for an occasional crash as some battery sends its message into Germany. We arrive at P 2, which is distinguished from the rest of the world by a foot square of white cotton and the universal red cross. There is room inside the gate--a log dyke against the mud--to park the cars: "Room sideways or deep," as one member of the section described it as he watched his boots sink steadily into the mud.
"This or the next?" inquires my companion in reference to a cross-road which appears on our right.
Having no idea I answer, "This one," and we turn. An unaccountable number of jounces greets us as we continue.
"They must have strafed this road a good bit since our last roll," my friend comments.
Friendships at the front are for the most part sincere--but sometimes short.
IT is about ten o'clock in the evening. We have been given a load at P 2 and are returning to the hospital. We turn from the battered Bois d'Avocourt into the Bois de R?cicourt, and passing through the Bois de Pommiers roll into the valley. We cross through the town, and when the sentry lifts the gate pull slowly up the hill towards Brocourt. Punctually at five-thirty this evening twelve shells whistled over R?cicourt and struck the hill, but fortunately not the road.
We crawl up the hill, the road luckily having escaped injury during the afternoon, and at length reach the hospital. Then, much lightened, we start back. Coasting slowly down the hill we have a perfect opportunity to observe the horizon.
The sky tonight is softly radiant, a velvety black with myriads of brilliant stars in the upper heavens. Opposite us is another hill, crowned with trees which break gently into the skyline. Above these the sky flashes and sparkles in iridescent glory. The thundering batteries light up everything with brilliant flashes, and the star-shells springing up over No Man's Land hang for an instant high in the air with dazzling brilliancy, and then fading, drift slowly earthward. The artillery signals dart up everywhere. A raider purrs overhead, and golden bursts of shrapnel crack in the sky. All merge together, first one, then another standing forth to catch the eye for a brief second, the kaleidoscopic brilliancy lifting one up out of the depths of the mire to forget for a moment why these lights flare--treacherous will o' the wisps leading men on to death--and one sees only the wonderful beauty of the scene: a picture impressed on the memory which makes all seem worth while. One sight of these causes the discomforts and dangers of the day's work to fade, and they become a symbol--a pillar of fire leading on to the victory that is coming when Right shall have conquered Might, and the tortured world can again breathe freely.
Two of our men are asleep,--one on the floor, another in a bunk. The rest of us wrap our coats around us and smoke pensively. We think of home, and wonder what our friends there are doing just now. It is August and slightly after midnight. The time difference makes it a few minutes past six in the States. At the seashore they are coming in from canoeing and swimming, sitting around before dinner, discussing the plans for the evening and the happenings of the day. At the mountains they are finishing rounds of golf or sets of tennis, and the pink and gold of the sunset is crowning the peaks with a fading burst of glory. Soon the fights of the hotel will shine brightly forth into the gathering gloom, and the dance music will strike up.
Each tells the others just what he would be doing at the moment were he in the States, and comments. It is all done in an absolutely detached manner, just as one describes incidents and chapters in books. We think we would like to be home now, but we know that we would rather not. We are perfectly contented to be doing what we are doing, and do not envy those at home. Nor do we begrudge any of them the pleasant times they may be having. In fact, if we thought they were giving them up we would be miserable. One cannot think about this war for long at a time, and when one meditates it is to speculate on what is happening at home. One gloats over imaginary dances, theatres, and all varieties of good times. I have often enjoyed monologue discussions with my friends, or imagined myself doing any one of the many things I might have been doing. It is the lonesome man's chief standby to five by proxy.
The section in formation, we roll off with the sun shining brightly on grimy cars and drivers, down the roads, passing ruin after ruin, with a burst of speed past a corner in view of the German trenches, and we again begin to see familiar ground. The green hill back of Erize, with shadows of the woods and the scars of the old trenches, appears in the distance, and my friend looks at me and chuckles.
EN REPOS
A BATCH of mail was given out the morning after our return. When we moved, our address seemed to have been lost, for only a few letters, of no interest to any one, managed to find us. We have been too busy to miss them, and when they arrived in a bunch there were no complaints.
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