October 9

We left Paris at six o'clock in the morning in two automobiles, the party consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Harjes, the chief surgeon, the head nurse, R. and his chauffeur, and a French caporal who is to represent the army and keep military records, etc. We all have uniforms something like the English, and good warm overcoats.

We had all the necessary papers and authority, and the purpose of the trip was to find a suitable place to locate for the time being.

We first went to Compiègne. It was a clear, crisp morning. The little town was jammed with British and French troops. Automobiles were tearing about the streets. Everything and everybody was at high tension and the atmosphere was charged with excitement. Twenty minutes by motor would take us into the German lines. An aeroplane was heading directly at us. "Is it a taube?" everyone was asking. "No, it is English," was presently announced, and we found ourselves cheering the aviator with the crowd.

We were informed that the local ambulance was of sufficient capacity and no help was needed. We went to Pierrefonds and a couple of other places, with the same result. The next stop was at a place called Ricquebourg, which was close to the firing. There was a concealed French battery on the hill, not more than three hundred yards from the automobile, which suddenly fired a dozen shells at the Germans. We waited in terror for their reply, but nothing came.

There was an ambulance located in a chateau nearby, but it seemed too close to the line of battle for comfort or wisdom, so we turned back and went to a couple of other small towns. At one of these places was a General B., the medical head of the Red Cross Division, whose territory we were in. We asked him if he could put us anywhere, and he said that Ricquebourg, the place we had just left, would be a good base; that, although close to the front, the French positions were very strong, and we would have plenty of time to evacuate should the Germans advance.

We, therefore, turned around and went back to Ricquebourg accompanied by the old general in his automobile. The French ambulance in the chateau had practically nothing to work with. They had neither cotton nor gauze, and were using strips of the chateau's sheets for bandages. All of their equipment was promptly packed into two dress suitcase sand they were moved out; we taking their place. The head nurse and I were left on the premises to get things ready.

The waste of war was forcibly illustrated on our way from Paris to Compiègne. All along the road were evidences of the great battle of the Marne, which had just taken place. Automobile trucks smashed to pieces, automobile trucks burnt, supply wagons broken down, dead horses, parts of equipment, trees cut down and shot down, villages burnt; devastation everywhere.

The Germans had no time to save anything that went wrong. If one of their automobiles got out of order, they simply took it to the side of the road and touched a match to it, so the French would not get it. Senlis was almost leveled to the ground, many blocks of houses had been systematically destroyed, blown up and burnt. The story is that the Mayor of Senlis when asked to pay an enormous ransom to the Germans, refused to do so, at which the Germans took him out, forcibly made him dig his own grave, and then stood him in it, and shot him in the presence of his wife and children. Senlis is about twenty-two miles from Paris.

Our chateau at Ricquebourg is a most beautiful place. It belongs to the Vicomte de Labry, who is now in the Army. His wife ran away when the Germans came through the first time, and the chateau was then requisitioned by the Government as a hospital.

It was originally built on piles in the manner of the chateau at Chantilly, and is still surrounded by the moat which has been turned into a beautiful pond, with swans and old fat carp. The place is thoroughly fitted out with modern improvements, and the grounds are very extensive and well kept.

We sat down to supper, with the officers, in the beautiful old dining-room amid the roar of cannon, the brilliant French uniforms, the old silver and candles and mahogany. I felt as if I were living in a Meissonier picture.

The excitement and kaleidoscopic change of scene that we had been through during the day, made it impossible for me to sleep; so at 2 A. M., I gave it up and went down stairs and talked to the two sentries.

October 10

The head nurse and I spent the morning fixing up the place for a hospital. We had six French soldiers to help us, and the three men servants of the house. We moved everything out of the four large rooms on the first floor, which we wanted for wards, and stored the furniture on the third floor. The curtains were taken down, the walls draped with sheets, etc. We had a busy day of it, and our French soldiers were a stupid, lazy lot.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, three of our ambulances came up bringing two other nurses, and a great deal of material. This was unloaded and stored away; the ambulances returning to Paris with the chauffeurs, leaving the two nurses.

By six o'clock we had finished, and one of the French officers asked us if we would like to see some of the German shells bursting. We all said we should, and went out along the road with him for about a mile and a half, where cutting into the fields, we ascended a long sloping hill with a small patch of woods on the top.

The officer said we should be able to see the position of the French batteries half a mile away, where the German shells were bursting, as soon as we had reached the crest of the hill. We had just crossed the summit when suddenly he exclaimed: "Listen, here comes one now!" We held our breath and waited to see our first German shell. There was a sound like the roar of an express train, coming nearer at tremendous speed, with aloud singing, wailing noise. It kept coming and coming and I wondered when it would ever burst. Then when it seemed right on top of us, it did, with a shattering crash that made the earth tremble. It was terrible. The concussion felt like a blow in the face, the stomach and all over; it was like being struck unexpectedly by a huge wave in the ocean. It exploded about two hundred yards from where we were standing, tearing a hole in the ground as big as a small room. That was close enough for me; I thought of the wounds I had seen at the Majestic; of my home and mother, the girl I left behind me, and everything else. The officer said it was from one of their 202 m.m. guns (eight inches) and that it had been fired from a distance of about ten kilometers.

[Note: When shells come from a long distance, as these did, they lose some of their spin and steadiness of flight and begin to turn on their long axis. The result is a very curious sound, wow---wow---wow---wow, which increases in intensity as the shell comes nearer, but at long ranges, when it has lost its initial velocity, the noise of an approaching shell is audible for several seconds before it arrives. This has enabled many men to save their lives. The force of these big shells is tremendous; there are several instances of death caused by concussion alone.]

At short ranges, the shell travels faster than sound;

I said, " Suppose they send the next one a little wide it might come right on top of us."

"Yes," he said, "but it is not likely; they don't often put them over this way."

While we were talking, another one came in about the same spot. It nearly took us off our feet. I looked at the officer. Nobody was smiling now.

" Look here," I said, " let's get out of this." And we got.

October 11

We completed the work of installing our equipment. M., one of the nurses who came last night, is a good executive; she knows how to give orders to those slipshod French soldiers, and gets lots of work out of them.

At 2 P. M. all the rest of the party arrived with nearly everything that we possessed. J. and DeQ. also came from the Majestic, as I had arranged for them to come and help us out during the first week.

We unloaded the ambulances and had supper. As we were finishing, a general artillery and infantry battle began on the hill two miles away. There was incessant firing of cannon and rattle of small arms. As soon as we had finished, the French officers came up and asked if we wanted to see some of it. All the new men were, of course, crazy to get there. They all wanted to "see some action." It was almost dark, but off we started.

We walked for a long way closer and closer toward the firing; it was through a narrow road in the woods, and as dark as a pocket. I asked the officers when we should get out of the woods so we could see something, and they did not seem to know quite where we were. We finally got very close to it. The officers began to get nervous and suggested that we had better be careful about sentries as they did not know the password, and that if we were challenged and did not give it right off, we should be shot at.

R. and I were slightly ahead of the rest, and we stopped and hid in the bushes by the side of the road. In a moment they had all come up and were about to pass us, when we jumped up and shouted, "Qui vive?" at the top of our lungs.

The effect was tremendous.

"La France, La France," yelled the officers.

"Don't shoot," yelled someone in English.

N. and G. flung themselves on the ground to escape the expected fusillade and the rest stood rooted to their tracks. That sobered everybody up thoroughly, and we turned around and went home. It was a sort of wild goose chase, anyway; we had just been looking for trouble and it was not our fault that we did not find it. J. said that when he heard that "Qui vive!" every particular hair on his head stood straight up on end.

October 12

Six wounded soldiers, our first patients, were brought in at about 10 o'clock this morning, all of them pretty bad. Everything was ready, and three of them needed operating.

The first man had a gunshot wound, the ball traversing the front of the abdomen, apparently without having penetrated much deeper than an inch below the skin. There were no fractures, the mouths of both wounds had been seared up with iodine, but the man had been lying in a dressing station in his clothes for five days. He had a temperature; a high pulse; had been vomiting, and looked bad.

When we took the bandage off, W. said: "Oh! well! I guess we had better leave that alone, hadn't we?"

"My inclination would be to open it up and see what is there," said J., "but, of course, do as you think best."

"All right," replied W., "it won't do any harm."

W. took the knife and started to cut across the body, cutting with the blade of the knife upward and upon a guide. After he had been at work two minutes, he had gone about two inches.

J. said, "I think that incision ought to be carried about six inches further this way. Just give me that knife a moment, will you, old chap ?"

He took the knife and from that moment conducted the operation himself. The minute we got the abdomen open, it was quite plain that J. had been right. The large intestine had been perforated in several places, and the entire inside of the man was chock full of fecal matter, rotten blood, and pus. "For Heaven's sake, light a cigar, Toland," said J.

We took all the intestines out and put them in a basin wrapped in hot towels and did what we could; washing and cleaning out everything inside of him, but J. says that he has been too long without attention to have much chance.

The next man was a German officer---a Prussian who had been hit below the knee by a piece of a shrapnel casing. He had been between the lines, and had lain on the battlefield for seven days without food and water. How they stand it, I cannot see. The leg was, of course, beyond hope of repair; the bone was smashed to pieces four inches below the knee; the leg nearly off and turned out at an angle of 15° and so rotten that it was black. W. was busy, so J. had me give him the anaesthetic. It was the first one I had ever given, but with J. there to tell me what to do if anything happened, I felt quite confident; giving a chloroform anaesthetic and watching the condition of the patient is not a difficult thing to do.

October 13

We now have about as many patients as we can hold, mostly colored troops from Senegal. I was on night duty last night. At about five o'clock in the morning, just as it was beginning to turn dawn, a little French caporal came in to the chateau, and said that there were some wounded outside for us. I supposed they would be brought in in the usual way---on stretchers---and started around the wards to see that everything was all right.

I suddenly had a feeling that somebody was looking at me. I wheeled around and there was an enormous black man, standing on one leg by the side of the door, staring at me. I did not know whether he spoke French or Swahili, but upon addressing him in the former language I found he was pretty good at it. I went to the door.

There was a heavy fog hanging over the place and through the gloom of the early October morning, I saw two of the old fashioned beet carts with their huge wheels and long bodies. From these, men were climbing down. No waiting to be carried for these fellows! Two of them were coming up the stone steps on their hands and knees; another was crawling on his hands and knees along the gravel walk; several were walking; and a couple hopping on one leg.

Most of them had bad wounds, and one was still bleeding freely from the shoulder. There were forty-one all told, and they all had been wounded in the night attack which we had been hearing ever since midnight.

One of the first we attended to, had a shrapnel bullet through his shoulder. There was no wound of exit, and, just as J. was starting to bandage him up for evacuation, he said, "Hello, here is the bullet, right here." He put my finger on a spot on the man's arm. There was an imperceptible little bump, but he said that it was the bullet, and very close under the skin, too. "I'll get that out right now," he said, and took his knife and, without giving the man either a local or general anesthetic, made a two-inch incision.

"Oh, la, la," shouted the blackamoor, "mais qu'est-ce que tu fais?"

"Restez tranquil, Monsieur; je vais ôter la balle," replied Joll, with a grand gesture and magnificent accent.

"C'est bien," he answered, "allez donc."

Joll cut a little more, put in a probe and out came the ball---a couple of stitches, and it was all over in certainly less than twenty seconds. These fellows have good nerve; the man never budged after the first start.

They tell me that the Senegalis charged here with the bayonet last week, and when they had their hands shot off, they kept on and bit the Germans with their teeth. There is a story that at Montereau some time past, a Senegali was brought in wounded. When they undressed him, he had something large under his coat which he was hiding; he did not want to take it out, it was a little souvenir he had got from the battlefield---a German's helmet, and the head of the German was inside it! Some of them have also collected strings of Germans' ears.

The French boys who work in the chateau are perfectly hopeless; they are willing enough, but too simple to do any real work. One of them filled the kerosene lamp with gasoline the other night and lighted it. I arrived just in time to save the house from catching fire. You start them on one job and ten minutes afterwards they have dropped it and are doing something else or nothing else. We have no organization or system. Our material is not classified and nobody knows where anything is. It is very annoying and makes a great deal of unnecessary work. Besides that, nobody has had any definite work assigned to him, no instructions are given to anyone, and the place is in a chaotic state.

I was on night duty to-night again with S. and had a terrible time. The place was packed with men, and six nurses with four orderlies would not have been too many. Four men were dying---one delirious and yelling at the top of his lungs. It was ghastly. I know that neither of us sat down for more than ten minutes the whole night. It was a continual run from beginning to end. The supplies not being sorted out and arranged, made it twice as bad. Nothing could be found when it was needed. No kerosene, not enough candles, no mackintosh. The morphine could not be found at all. The furnace fire went out and I had to go down and rebuild it. The kitchen stove fire went out and I had to rebuild it, too. We had about ten men who were out of their heads, and who should have been watched. There were men all over the house, in the first, second and third stories; five out of ten men had dysentery, so it can be imagined what it was like. One French soldier died during the night; he did not have any chance, it was an abdominal wound which had gone through everything. He was quite conscious all the time and before he died, called me to him, and gave me some little messages for his wife. He was only about twenty-four. Another head case died at 7 in the morning and two more will probably die during the day. The head case that died had oral aphasia; he could understand what you said to him, but could not talk himself. He tried hard enough, but the words meant nothing. He could only talk gibberish.

We cannot have another night like that. It is not right. We have got to do one of two things---get all the patients on one floor, or else have three divisions of nurses and orderlies, one for each of the three floors. I got to bed at noon and slept till five o'clock.

When I came down stairs I was met in the hall by the little French priest.

"Oh, Monsieur," he said, "there are six poor Germans out there in a little outhouse, and, oh, Monsieur, they are so cold, and cannot you have a fire made for them, or do something for them?"

I said that I did not know that there were any Germans in the place, and asked when they had been brought there. He said he thought they had been there a couple of hours.

I asked: "Has nothing been done for them? Is nobody down there?"

"No," he replied, "and, oh, Monsieur, it is so damp and cold and they are suffering terribly, please have something done for them!"

I went into the operating room, and there was W. with the six new surgeons who had just arrived, watching J. operate.

"Doctor," I said, "the priest tells me that there are some Germans down in the barn who need attention."

"Oh, yes, yes," he said, "that's so."

"Well," I continued, "the priest says they are very cold and that there is nobody there."

"That is right," he replied, "I guess there isn't. Well, you just go down there and fix them up and superintend all that, won't you?"

"I didn't know they were there until five minutes ago;" I said, "what do you want done---are you going to keep them there all night, or move them up to the house?"

"Oh, well," he answered, "I can't quite tell about that yet, but you just go down and do what you can."

I went down to the stables, and there were the six poor devils lying on stretchers. It was a little one-story stone house, with no floor, so they were on the ground. There wan a cold drizzling rain falling and moisture had collected all over the walls. The place was damp and clammy as a sewer. The next room had an old broken stove in it, and was chock full of furniture and rubbish. I did not even know whether the stove would burn. I went back to the operating room and said, "Doctor, I will have to have two or three men to help me do that work, or I won't get it done for two hours." All of the four new aides immediately volunteered to help.

We cleaned the room out, swept the floor, hunted about until we found some kindling and coal, and finally got the fire going. In the meantime, those Germans were lying on the ground with practically no clothes on; two of them had their legs entirely bare as their trousers had been cut off when the wounds had been dressed. They were in a bad way from the cold, apart from their wounds. I got a dozen empty claret bottles, filled them with hot water and sent up for hot bouillon and blankets.

One of the new men is Neil Stevens, Yale '11 of Morristown, N. J., who was with me at St. Paul's School. We were so busy working, that we did not recognize each other for fifteen minutes. The other aides are Edwin Pyle, Williams '11, of New York, Benjamin R. Allison, Dartmouth '11, of New York, and Mather Cleveland, Yale '11, of Denver.

The idea in putting the Germans down there was from the little French General B., who said that all septic cases must be confined to a separate building.

We have not sufficient staff to give those Germans any attention where they are now, and putting them there is quite unnecessary. All French hospitals put septic cases in with their other patients. The poor Germans are a pathetic lot---two of them, boys of about seventeen.

I took two big heavy blankets and wrapped them round the bare legs of one of the men. He took my hand and kissed it!

One of the lads in the chateau here told me that when the Germans were in it a month ago, the men slept on the kitchen floor. When the officer came to wake them up, he just walked in and kicked them.

The woman working here said that when Von Kluck's army marched along the road in front of the chateau, which they did for fourteen hours, an officer walked behind the lines and hit the men on the heads with a little stick if they were out of line. One fellow had gotten out of step. A close-cropped officer ran up and spat in his face.

Poor fellows, they are like a lot of ill-treated animals, not knowing whether to expect a kind word or a kick.

Our organization or lack of organization is shocking. Generally speaking, no instructions come from the chief surgeon or head nurse about anything. There is no regular assignment of duties to anyone except the chauffeurs, of whom R. is in charge.

In the medical department we need one or two first-class operating surgeons, and four extra nurses to do this work. There is no history of our work, or our diagnoses, sent on with the patients to permanent hospitals. This is unbusiness like, and the information which we have gathered is wasted.

In the cuisine, the meals are irregular and a la carte; that is, people come down at any old time and order any old thing they want; there is much unnecessary work, due to lack of uniform practice. The chef has no help and works from 6 A. M. to 11 P. M. He has the French boys, but they are hardly any use.

In the transportation department there has been no work done in planning the routine for breaking and making camps. This is of vital importance. If we were to be told to-night that the Germans were coming in three hours, the only things we could get out of the hospital, would be the automobiles and the personnel of the staff; every bit of our equipment would have to be left behind.

They have got a French battery on the hill behind us now, which sends shells almost over the roof. We are within easy range of the German cannon. I think the place is getting too hot to hold us. Last night when they were shooting, a candle fell off the table. The house often shakes, so that it seems impossible for the windows not to break, but none has as yet.

October 15

J. and I took a short walk this morning after dressings and saw a German aeroplane being fired on by the French batteries. It was about two miles from us. The German aeroplane flew over the French lines and dropped three smoke bombs about a hundred yards apart. They explode quite high in the air, leaving a trail of smoke. This gives the German artillery their line of fire. The last bomb had hardly dropped, when the French batteries opened on it. We could see the shrapnel shells of the batteries explode near the aeroplane distinctly. They leave little puffs of smoke, which remain hanging in the air. I don't believe they came very close to it, though. The aeroplane was not hit, and continued on. It was quite high up.

DeQuelen, who is a Frenchman, had an adventure in the ambulance last night. They were stopped by a sentry. He said: "In my best French, I was unable to satisfy him with my pronunciation of the password. He said that I spoke with a German accent. Both of them immediately pointed their guns at us full cock, and it was only by my thorough knowledge of French cursing that I was able to convince him of my nationality." This is a bit dangerous as some of these fellows are pretty quick on the trigger. There have been lots of people shot by sentries in England.

These French territorial sentries are a dumb lot; when I was at Montdidier, an officious old boy, who had evidently just been put on, halted me. I gave him the "Mot," but he had to see my "Carte d'identité" too. He scowled at the photograph, scowled at me; looked back and forth comparing my face with that of the photograph and at last said suspiciously,

"You were younger when that was taken ?"

"No, sir," I replied, "I was older."

"Bien passez!" he grunted.

The Ambassador of the United States, Mr. Herrick, came out to pay us a visit this afternoon. It just happened that the old General B. arrived at the same moment, and we asked him whether the Germans could not be moved from the little outhouse, up to the chateau. Yes, you bet they could be moved; and there was nothing the old boy would not have done for us while Mr. Herrick was there.

When we brought the Germans into the chateau, there was an unexpected scene; a couple of blackamoors almost sprang from their beds. The sight of the Germans put them in a frenzy of excitement and they commenced jabbering at each other in their native language, with their eyes almost popping out of their heads. I guess a couple of them would have been out of bed and at the Germans, if we had left the room. They cannot understand why, if they can kill the Germans on the battlefield, it is not all right to go for them, when you have them in the same room and down on the floor. After an hour, we thought it best to move the Germans into another room. To say that they felt relieved, is putting it mildly.

Fifteen patients were evacuated to Compiègne to-day and four died during the night. It seems to me that some of those fellows we evacuated were pretty sick men.

October 16

Neil Stevens and I got together and drew up an organization chart this morning and made out a schedule showing details of regular routine: meal hours, dressings, day and night shifts, etc. We showed it to the chief surgeon, who approved it. We may have a little regularity at last.

We are pretty full now and this morning we had to move the old Prussian officer, to whom I gave the anaesthetic, from the second floor down to the first floor. We thought he would like to go in with some of his own German soldiers, and accordingly took him into the ward where there were six of them. When he saw where he was going, he said in French,

"What are you bringing me in here for?"

I said, "We thought you would like to see some of your comrades from the Vaterland."

"H'm," he muttered, "I would rather have stayed where I was."

He thereupon turned his back upon his own men, refusing even to speak to them. An hour or two later, he called the nurse over to him.

"Come here," he said in a rough voice, " these men over here are asking a great deal too much, do not pay so much attention to them. They are imposing on you. Of course, if I ask you for anything it is a very different proposition, but these fellows are not worth it, don't bother about them."

One of the new surgeons has his eye infected and it looks alarming. Very much swollen. We have to be careful. R. will not even pick up the end of a stretcher now without first hunting up his gloves and putting them on. Everything about this place is infected and smells of wounded soldiers. It is no joke to have a cut on your hands.

October 28

We have now been moved to Compiègne by order of the general staff and have been here two days.

The Palace is being used as a hospital for pneumonia and typhoids. All the bridges have been blown up and we cross the Oise on pontoons which are crowded with continuous lines of troops.

Most of us went to the English Church Service this morning. While we were sitting there a German aeroplane flew over Compiègne and dropped six bombs on the town. One of them landed in the street 150 yards from us. We think it was caused by Cleve singing tenor to the hymns! The Germans can put up with a good deal, but when they heard that, they couldn't stand it any longer.

The one that landed close to us was a shrapnel bomb, and one other also; the rest were " bombes d'incendie," which fell in places where they did not cause any "incendie." There must be a good many kinds of aeroplane bombs. This one only tore a hole in the street about eight inches deep, and two feet in diameter. There were no windows broken and no damage done to the adjoining property worth mentioning, and nobody was hurt, although there were some people within fifty yards of where it fell. The one which dropped in the Avenue du Trocadéro in Paris, however, almost wrecked the entire block; every window for a hundred yards each side of it was broken, and I saw stones the size of my little finger nail, driven an inch into a tree, eighty yards from the point of explosion. On the whole, however, aeroplane bombs are ineffective; they never hit what they are aimed at, and the number that can be taken up is limited.

Mrs. Depew, an American living near here, has turned her chateau into a field hospital. It is beautifully equipped.

Compiègne is a pretty little place and while we were there the leaves were all turning red and golden; the air was crisp and cool, and there were continuous streams of every kind of troops passing through the place; in fact, that is why we were delayed there. The Front was changing and it could not be well determined where to locate. We saw aeroplanes everyday, French and German both. Saw them fired on by batteries of both sides. The artillery used to unlimber and hide under the trees on each side of the road during the day and do their marching at night---this on account of the German aeroplanes which would see them if they were moving in the daytime.

November 1

LAST night Mr. Harjes arrived from Paris with orders for us to join the Fourth Army Corps at Montdidier, where, we are told, there are a large number of wounded to be looked after.

At ten o'clock in the morning we started off with our six ambulances, two private cars, Dr. W.---a new surgeon,---a new chauffeur, and two additional nurses.

We arrived at our chateau a couple of hours later. It is in the country two miles from Montdidier, and belongs to Monsieur Klotz, the present Minister of Finance of the Republic. He does not live in it often, and, I have since been given to understand, uses it only as a sort of voting residence, as it is in his district. It is a shabby old house, without modern conveniences, and none too clean, especially after having been lived in by both the French and German soldiers for some time. We got our equipment out of the machines and distributed it in good order.

The place is fairly well arranged for a hospital. There are three big rooms, all adjoining each other on the first floor, with a small hall between them. These three large rooms we will use as wards; they will each hold about ten patients. There are two other small rooms leading off them which we will use as operating room and medical supply room. We eat in the kitchen, as usual, and the rooms for the staff take up the second and third floors. None of the staff's rooms are heated, and there is running water only in the kitchen and a couple of rooms on the first floor. All of the water has to be pumped by hand.

November 2

This afternoon we had an inspection by the Médecin Chef of the local district--- that is, Montdidier and some ten miles on each side. He seems to be a good executive and disciplinarian. He brought with him L., the chief surgeon of the big hospital at Montdidier. They went over everything in the hospital, and spoke right up and told us what they liked and did not like, made a few suggestions, but said that on the whole our installation was exceptionally good.

November 2

Went to Montdidier this morning to get patients to fill our hospital. Upon returning after our first trip to the chateau, the Médecin Chef told us that all our ambulances would be needed immediately for urgent work on the field, as he had just received a message that there were over a thousand wounded at various points all along the line between here and Roye. All our automobiles were immediately brought to the station, I driving No. 6, a Packard 30. Here we received instructions to go to some six First-Aid Stations directly behind the trenches. We first were sent to a place called Fécamps. It was a little cluster of about twenty houses, barns, etc....and there were some three hundred wounded there, who had been and were being brought in from the trenches one-half a mile away. The worst cases were lying on straw in the small outhouses, barns and cottages that the furniture had been cleared out of. There were about twenty dead already. Two more were dying and there were several others with awful undressed wounds. One with a leg nearly off at the hip. Another blind in both eyes and his chin shot away. It was too horrible to enlarge upon.

If it had not been for the Harjes Ambulance Corps that day, they would certainly have been up against it, on handling two hundred and fifty lying down cases. The people at Montdidier had no equipment to speak of, for handling lying down cases, while our five-stretcher Packards brought in thirty on each trip. If it had not been for us, half of their lying down cases would have had to stay there overnight, and half of those that stayed, would surely have died. It was very cold. There were wounded men everywhere! Every road we took, we would pass men coming in on donkey carts, beet wagons and every other available vehicle in the surrounding country that could be pressed into service. Sixteen hundred wounded were sent into Montdidier that day, and two hundred and fifty of the worst were brought in by us. If we do no other work, to-day justifies our existence. I think we have saved the lives of at least one hundred men. A German aeroplane was directly over us atone place, and quite low down; it was being fired on by the French batteries and mitrailleuses the whole time. Some of the shells came very close to it. We were quite near enough to see the flash of the powder in daytime. Unfortunately it escaped.

At a place called Wassy, there was a little church where we got a lot of wounded. It was just like a scene in a play. The pews were piled up against the wall outside; the whole floor was covered with straw; and the wounded men were lying about everywhere; a little priest giving the last rites to a dying man in the corner; the place dimly lit by candles; the little china Madonnas standing on the shelves. The mud, the uniforms, and everything else, was just as you would expect to find it; and up at the end of the street not a hundred yards from us, was a company of French infantry imposition. In the afternoon, before it grew dark, you could see over the valley where some French infantry were along a fence three-quarters of a mile away, and every once in a while the little puff of smoke of a bursting shrapnel would appear above them. It seemed like a dream, and I could hardly realize that war was going on right under my eyes and that those men out there were doing the same thing and getting the same wounds, as the ones who now lay in front of us on the straw.

It was a big day at Montdidier station. The station itself is a First-Aid Hospital, and literally every square foot of the platform, interior and all about it was packed with men on stretchers, while the other wounded men walked and hobbled about, or sat on the curbs waiting for the trains. The old Médecin Chef was right on the job all the time, and nothing moved without his orders. He had the whole situation at his finger ends. They tell me that he had every soldier out of the station at twelve o'clock that night except about twelve cases that transportation undoubtedly would have killed. All the wounded were sent from here to Creil, where they are redespatched to permanent hospitals all over France. The Médecin Chef says that it is the one great drawback of the system, in so much as that when he puts them on the cars here, he does not know whether they are going to travel for twenty-four hours or eighty-four hours; all he can do is, grade the wounded,---from the most serious to the least serious; and send them through with that information. All the hospitals in Montdidier, including ours, are, of course, loaded to capacity, and there is no more room for anyone else in this town.

November 6

There has been another big battle last night. I could hear the guns from about quarter to eleven until after one continuously,---the mitrailleuse and rifle fire were as steady as the roar of the ocean, and the heavier cannon firing was incessant. Each shot from the soixante-quinzes costs ten dollars, and from the one hundred and fifty-fives, thirty-five dollars!

Steve and I got up at four this morning, and reported to the Médecin Chef at five thirty, as per order. There is no firing now. We are again sent to Fescamps, but there are not as many wounded as we had expected, only about forty, and only half a dozen of them serious. The men said that the Germans had attempted an advance which was repulsed; and that they had lost heavily, while the French losses had been slight. The Germans, they said, got into the French barbed wire entanglements, where they stuck and were shot by the French on one side, while their own artillery dropped shells among them from the other side. This is not uncommon, many men of both sides are wounded by their own shells.

The Médecin Chef kept all our automobiles waiting at the station all day long, in case he should receive further orders, but the orders were not forthcoming and we did nothing. We hear that thirty of the one thousand and six hundred died on the trains before reaching Creil. It is terrible, but there was nothing else to do---everything here is loaded to capacity.

November 8

Helped with the dressings this morning. We certainly have a prize collection of bad cases here; nineteen out of twenty-three are thoroid cases, with half of them paraplegia---that is, both legs paralyzed. We have one German soldier. The poor cuss is like most other soldiers of Von Kluck's army that I have seen---worked to death! He is as thin as a rail and his body is covered with eczema and other varieties of skin diseases. Besides that, he is shot through the kidneys and spine, and has his skull fractured.

W. wants me to take charge of hospital stores entirely and to act as purchasing agent. The stores are in a mess, and need someone to straighten them out and keep them in good order.

November 9

Helped at the dressings again this morning. W. trephined the German who had a large gutter fracture of the skull. There were very few loose fragments and the operation can hardly help him. He will surely die in a day or so, he is absolutely "all in"; both of his legs are paralyzed, too.

Moved all the stores from the first floor to the second, where there are three small rooms better suited for them than the present one; classified them and disposed of the stuff that we do not want.

Had a splendid meal this evening. One of the biggest assets we have, is our chef. You can go into the best restaurants in London or Paris and not get one bit better food than we are getting in this old dirty chateau. The chef is a wonder; he works from six in the morning until eleven at night, and seems to be perfectly O. K.

November 10

Saw the poor German before I went to bed. He had been moved to a little room by himself and is there alone, dying, in a strange country among strange people. He was semi-conscious, and as I stood beside him he looked up at me in a dreamy way and murmured, "Ah meine arme, arme mutter!" He is cold and has hardly any pulse, so it is only a question of a few hours.

November 11

Slept badly and got up at 4 A. M. and read "Pan-Germanism" in the kitchen.

At 6 A. M. Cleve, who is night orderly this week, came and said that the German had just died, and asked if I would help take him out to the mortuary.

I suppose I have handled about forty or fifty dead men since I have been here, but this was the most extreme case of rigor mortis I have seen. Cleve said that the man had only stopped breathing fifteen minutes ago. He was absolutely as stiff as a poker. I put my hands under the back of his neck, and Cleve took his feet, and we lifted him from the bed to the stretcher as though he had been a log of wood. Cleve said that this is usually due to degeneration of tissue through fatigue and bad condition. We took the poor fellow out in the gray dawn to the little outhouse which was being used as a mortuary, and laid him at his last rest beside a French soldier.

To-day is the first clear day we have had for a week. The weather has been disagreeable and rainy ever since we have been here.

November 14

About three in the afternoon the Médecin Chef sent for all of our cars again, and as we were short of a chauffeur I was detailed to car No. 9. When we got to the station they had fifty men to take to Breteuil---twenty-two kilometers west of us. We got them there in two trips, and I hope I never have any more like them. I almost froze, but the patients told me they were not cold. They were pretty well protected from the weather, and the interior of the ambulances kept warm by the heat of their bodies. The French sergeant who went out there with me was telling me about the trenches. He said that most of the men have been in the same positions for a month now and have made them almost like underground houses; that you can drop a shell right on them and not hurt anybody. When they hear one coming they all duck inside. They have mattresses and beds in some of them, and it is practically impossible for either side to dislodge the other.

I don't believe there is going to be much doing until Spring; there have not been any wounded to speak of in our Army Corps since November 5, and the 13th Army Corps next to us gets only a few.

November 17

In Paris to purchase supplies and drive out a new car. Shopped all morning, and most of the afternoon, and then stopped in at the Majestic Hotel Hospital to see Joll, who is now in charge of it. He took me through the wards and showed me all the old patients whom I had left there six weeks ago.

I don't know when I have felt so strongly as at seeing these men again. It was marvellous! Most of them were almost well, and all of them were far on the road to recovery. The boy with the side of his face half gone, I did not know, when he spoke to me. The swelling had entirely disappeared, and he spoke as clearly as I do. Joll said the wound had nearly closed. Harry Bell looked like a different man. His leg was in a patent adjustable splint that Joll had recently invented, and was nearly well. Joll showed it to me in detail---an unusual but evidently effective device. Two spikes or nails were driven through the leg; one through the bone of the femur and the other through the joint of the knee, on each side of the fracture. Either a longitudinal or rotary movement could be accomplished by turn buckles. There was no shortening of the leg at all now, whereas, when I left, the leg was between two and two and a half inches shorter than the other. It is wonderful!

Two head cases were up and walking about the wards, and another man was pushing a chair. He spoke to me and I did not know him. It was the French soldier with the broken shoulder and the two bayonet wounds in the stomach that were discharging fecal matter,---now entirely well. Tears came into my eyes as I shook his hand, I hadn't expected ever to see him alive again. The little English boy with the perforating wound of the left thorax had put on ten pounds and waved at me from across the room, as if he had never known what it was to be sick. Every other bed had a new face on it, and the men who had been there when I left, had got well and had been sent home.

The last man I saw was the English Captain Seabrooke with the terrible leg, that I helped dress every day for two weeks. Jell said I would be surprised when I saw him; but I was hardly prepared for the rosy-checked, splendid looking fellow in the bed I had bent over so many times. He too had put on at least ten pounds. A lump came in my throat and I could hardly speak to him. The wound that they used to take a basin full of stuffing out of, is now only two inches long on each side. His wife was there, and she is going to take him back to England in a couple of weeks to walk again, within six months.

It was a very impressive hour. There in front of the eyes of those men and women were the tangible results of the work that they had been faithfully doing, day and night for two months past; the realization of their training and toil. Suffering alleviated, hearts gladdened, and limbs and lives saved. Can there be greater satisfaction in any vocation?

November 21

They have at last got a plumber from Montdidier to drain the cesspool at the east end of the house. It had overflowed into the cellar where it is four inches deep, under Ward No. 1. I discovered this on November 14th,a week ago, and called attention to it then, but nothing has been done until to-day. Our drinking water comes from a twelve-foot well in the cellar fifty feet from this cesspool. There is also another cesspool fifty feet from it, on the north side of the house, and a waste drainage well in the yard, fifty feet to the south. The soil is sandy and porous. Our drinking supply is, therefore, in the center of three waste wells at short distances from them; one of which is now overflowing. I consider this situation dangerous. Everything about this old place is filthy, and there is no telling what the Germans did when they were here.

November 22

Out of kerosene, coal and gasolene all at the same time. G. drains a couple of the other cars and is despatched to Compiègne to replenish our supply.

We run short simply because W. will not appoint anyone housekeeper, and therefore no one looks after these things. It is very annoying and unnecessary.

November 24

We ran out of coal again last night. G. had only bought five hundred pounds two days ago, and at nine o'clock at night, it was discovered that there wasn't another bit in the house! Steve and G. searched everywhere, but half a scuttleful was all they could get. It looked as if we shouldn't get any breakfast in the morning, and there wouldn't be any fire in the furnace for the patients after midnight.

The chef, wise man, had, however, foreseen just such an emergency, and had hidden away enough coal for just one meal ---about two scuttlesful. This he produced at the psychological moment, and the patients and ourselves got a hot breakfast, although the furnace fire did go out. Fortunately, the cold snap has abated somewhat, and the wards, although chilly, were not cold enough to be dangerous.

November 26

Thanksgiving Day and busy all the day long with all sorts of odd jobs about the house. We are to have a big Thanksgiving dinner to-night, and M. and I made a big pitcher of apple toddy for the occasion.

Nearly everyone congregated in the medical supplies room in front of the fire, and the pitcher kept going the rounds for almost an hour before supper. At half past six we all went together to the kitchen for our Thanksgiving dinner which was magnificent. The chef outdid himself. B. had brought out two turkeys, which were specially selected for us by the head waiter at Maxim's. Toasts to Mr. and Mrs. Harjes and the chef were drunk, and the feast went off with great éclat.

December 5-8

Nothing of particular interest has happened. Have seen Dill Starr of Philadelphia who tells me he is going to join the British Army and will leave for London in a week. He is to be with one of the armored motors.

Last night there was a bit of domestic excitement. The chef got so drunk that he was hardly able to cook supper. I don't blame him a bit! The man has been under quite a strain for the past two months. He has been working sixteen hours a day, under very irritating circumstances and is nervous and upset.

What ought to be done is to let the chef go to Paris for a week and have a good spree and change of scene. He has been on the job steadily since the beginning of October, doing work that is enough to drive anyone to drink.

We don't want to fire him, and there is no necessity for it. If we keep him on, it will just mean repetitions of this sort of thing, until he gets it out of his system. I say let him go to Paris and get so soused that he won't want to do it again for six months.

December 17

I was talking to Offert last night, and he told me about how he got wounded. It was in the big advance on Andichy, in the early part of November. The story is characteristic of the infantry advance against entrenched positions in modern warfare. He said the men were ordered from their trenches about ten in the morning, in broad daylight, and told to advance. They got up and went toward the German position in extended order, with the usual interval of about five or ten feet, advancing by rushes. He said that they never saw a German; they never saw any smoke; they just walked into one continual hail of bullets and shrapnel. Most of the men did not even fire their guns off. There was nothing to shoot at. They kept on for some six hundred yards, and when they had lost two thousand men, gave it up and came back.

First got hit in the ankle. "That's enough for me," he said to himself, and seeing a dead horse fifteen yards away, thought, "If I can get behind that horse, I will be safe." He tried to crawl there, but before he could, another bullet went through his spine. Of course he hasn't any chance. Complete paralysis below the waist, and he will die within a few months. [Note: He died about January 15th.] A wounded German was brought into Montdidier to-day, who had some dum-dum bullets in his pockets. He had split the points of each bullet halfway down, so that it would fly into pieces when it struck anything. They stood him up against the wall in short order.

December 18

Mr. Benjamin R. Allison is the author of a stirring piece of poetry, which he composed on night duty last night. It is entitled Just Call an Aide, and is as follows:

If there's anything
Beneath the sun
Thou would'st have done,
Just call an Aide.

If in the morn for any cause
Thou would'st arise
E'er darkness flies,
Just call an Aide.

Or in the morn if water warm
Thou'st none to shave,
Don't be dismayed,
Just call an Aide.

Then when the patients all are fed,
Their faces washed, and made their bed,
The floors all scrubbed, and backs all rubbed,
The dressings made, the lunch-times come,
And still there's something left undone,
Just call an Aide.

Now, if a patient has colique
And wants le Basin très très vite,
What should he do?
Just call an Aide.

Or if the furnace fire is low
And house gets cold,
To make it go
Just call an Aide.

When Docs all sicken of their stunt
Of exercising at the pump,
And tank goes dry; what should they do?
Just call an Aide.

Or if there're bandages to burn,
And the chauffeurs can't decide whose turn
It is to do the job,
Just call an Aide.

And if the nurses want some wood,
And cannot find their Mr. Goode,
What must they do'
Just call an Aide.

Or if the chef should cook some meat
Not fit for Soixante Quinze to eat,
What? Waste it! No!
Just call an Aide.

Or when it's time to go to bed,
And still a job there's left to do,
Don't think that it is up to you---
Instead
Just call an Aide.

Mr. Benjamin R. Allison also was this afternoon arrested as a German spy! Why? Oh, it was quite evident! He had his hair brushed like a German! Allison can't speak French and was marched down the streets of Montdidier between two soldiers, followed by a crowd of a hundred people.

The fear of German spies has now reached such proportions, that the whole French nation is hysterical on the subject. Everyone is suspected of being a German spy! It would be as much as a man's life was worth now, to go into a restaurant and order beer and weiner schnitzel. He would probably be stood up in front of a firing squad, before he even had time to explain himself.

December 23-26

Nothing doing until Christmas Eve, when we had a very pleasant party. We had some apple toddy for everyone before supper and then we all visited the wards, which the nurses had decorated very nicely, and the quartette, consisting of Cleveland, Allison, Pyle and myself rendered a few Christmas carols, including "Old Black Joe" and "The Marseillaise." The patients enjoyed it hugely---all of them coming in strong on the last mentioned. There was only one really sick man in the chateau, and he was by himself. The others are all more or less convalescent, and are a pretty jovial lot. After a fine dinner served at seven, instead of six, we went up to the sitting room where W. unveiled a little Christmas tree, that Mr. and Mrs. Harjes had sent us, which had very nice presents for everyone hung on it.

Christmas Day was not very different from other days, excepting for a fine midday dinner. In the afternoon Miss L., Miss MacC. and I took the little car out to distribute small packages of candy to the children in the neighborhood, but we had no sooner started, when an order came to get out three ambulances for Breteuil. We took twenty-one "malades" over there, and had supper in a small cafe, with a genial party of French soldiers and gendarmes; liberal hot grog (which we certainly needed) and good song. A very pleasant evening.

February 7

I arranged yesterday to go out to spend a day in the lines near X, and left bright and early in the little car.

At Gerbigny I met Captain Gain who was at our hospital. He commands the 155 m.m. battery in front of the town, and he took me all over the French positions. Gerbigny is not in the best of repair, as every few days a big German shell arrives there, but no one seems to care much. I was most agreeably surprised to find how well organized and equipped the French artillery and infantry are in that neighborhood. The artillery is all marvellously hidden---you can go within 50 meters of a battery of four pieces without seeing them. I do not believe the Germans have an idea where the majority of them are. Some of the guns have been in the same position for three months. The French, on the other hand, seem to have the German positions located. They have splendid maps which the aeroplanes make of their trenches and batteries. The Germans are not in a very good position, being all on a more or less level plain, whereas the French are splendidly placed. First we went to a battery of four 155 m.m. cannon which were behind a steep hill with a marsh in their rear. It would be almost impossible to put a shell on them unless it came down vertically. They either hit on the top of the hill, or go over it into the marsh where they usually fail to explode. The guns are beautifully hidden by curtains of brushwood, trees, etc. They are pointed very high in the air, an angle of 40° giving them their maximum range. They are sighted by knowing the angle made by a fixed point on their flank, their own position and the enemy's battery; they sight on the fixed point and adjust the guns accordingly. From each gun runs quite an elaborate little telephone system; it connects with everything, even wireless on the aeroplanes. This particular battery had seven "postes d'observation" to the front, which telephone them how their shells are going and correct their fire. We then went to a battery of "120 m.m. long" cannon. They were in a wooded swamp and wonderfully hidden. You could stand within fifty yards of them, and not know there was anything there. This particular battery has been in position since November without the Germans ever finding it. The quarters of the men were excellent, and they are very comfortable, well-made dug-outs and thatched shacks, and the insides perfectly dry. I was much impressed by the spirits of the men and their good condition; also their discipline; a sharp contrast to the slouchy reservists and stupid medical men at the rear. I took a good many photographs, and we spent some time talking to the soldiers.

Went back to lunch at Gerbigny with Captain Gain and his two lieutenants---all of them intelligent and agreeable. They told me some amusing stories of life in the trenches.

At points where the trenches are very close together, they shoot messages over to each other with bows and arrows, and when there was snow they threw snowballs at each other; said that in one small village there were trenches on each side of the main street occupied by the French and Germans, and that chickens used to come and feed between them, and that both sides would throw out grain to them, to try to make them come near enough to be caught.

At one place they said that a calf came walking along between the two lines. He was promptly transformed into a sieve. A German then jumped out of his trench waving a white handkerchief and ran for it, at which a Frenchman did the same thing. They both had a good-natured tussle for it and a boxing match, and finally ended up by cutting it in halves, and each taking a piece back to his comrades.

Lieutenant Kula told me that in Belgium, they put their battery in a certain position and almost immediately the Germans located it and a dozen shells came right on top of them. They quickly moved to another place. The next morning bright and early, a dozen more shells landed within one hundred yards of them.

"Ah, mais c'était tout à fait dégoûtant," said Kula. They had to move again.

The next morning there was another volley of shells right on the range! One of the men noticed a dead German lying on the field some distance from them and thought he saw him move. They investigated him. He was not dead nor wounded, and underneath him was a telephone! There he had been lying for three days correcting the fire of his friends.

After lunch we again walked out along the river bottom toward Andichy, where the Germans are, and inspected a new one hundred and fifty-five piece that had just been placed there to fire on a supply station that the Germans had recently been working from. We then went up to a battery of four "soixante-quinze"guns, which were within two thousand yards of Andichy, or, rather, what is left of Andichy---for there is hardly a house standing.

Throughout most of the afternoon there was a general exchange of artillery fire, and while we were there the Germans fired upon us; we replied, and I found myself in the middle of a real battle. Our battery was wonderfully hidden in a little ravine and had only been in position four days. It was just on the crest of a rise and hard to get at. The German battery we were attending to was in a small apple orchard just on the edge of Andichy. We could see their position easily. It was direct fire. There was no question about the superiority of the marksmanship, and the greater effectiveness of the shells of the French battery. They poured shells into those Germans so fast, that they did not know whether they were going or coming; they can shoot twenty-six a minute with these guns and there were four of them. Four times twenty-six is one hundred and four, so it can be imagined what it was like. They say it is the best light field piece in the world. The recoil of these seventy-five millimeter guns is so perfectly absorbed by a special hydro-pneumatic cylinder, that it never has to be repointed after the first shot. They can stand a full glass of water on the wheel when they are firing, and not spill a drop.

The German seventy-seven millimeter guns on the other hand jump slightly at each shot and have to be repointed. They can only fire six to seven shots a minute. We would fire steadily for ten seconds or so, and then stop and see what had happened. The Germans, I don't believe had more than two guns, and did not seem to be good shots. At any rate our volleys of shells made their fire very wild; some of their shots missed us by three hundred yards, and the closest they ever got was about one hundred yards. Their shells all exploded upon impact, and were not much good anyway. They were loaded only with ordinary powder and were not powerful. When they exploded they just sent up a little cloud of blue smoke, like an ordinary rock blasting charge, whereas the French shells, loaded with melinite, sent a column of black smoke fifty feet into the air, and tore up everything around them. Our first shot sent a tree down over one of the German pieces. At the end of three-quarters of an hour the German fire was silenced. I don't know what we accomplished. All I do know is that I should have hated to be in that orchard, where they were. The Germans are now using aluminum to make the screw heads for their shells. They are short of copper over there and have been requisitioning it everywhere. I picked up some pieces, and the officers told me about it.

Afterwards we sneaked up along the side of a hill and got up on a ridge to the right where we were about one thousand and two hundred yards from the German trenches; one could see wonderfully from that point, ---the trenches of both sides right in front of us with both batteries firing and the shells bursting. There are about six hundred yards between the French and German trenches here. The German infantry, however, saw us and kept shooting at us, so we had to get out after a few minutes.

The men's quarters and commissary are wonderful; regular underground palaces, with sculpture of "Guillaume-le-Cochon" and Queens from Montmartre done in mud, that ought to go in the Louvre after the war is over.

I was much impressed again by the good spirits of the men and their condition and healthy look. "Oui, ils sont très gais dans les tranchées," said the captain; and they are!

The officers' quarters, general mess, ravitaillement, etc., are just around the corner of the hill where the "soixante-quinze" battery was; they again are almost impossible to hit, unless a shell is dropped vertically on them. The shells either land on the crest of the hill or else just miss, and go two hundred yards into the valley below. They have been there for three months and the place is like an Adirondack summer resort. They live in luxury. Brick walks, flowers, terraces, rustic benches, etc. The Commandant has a little Italian pergola which he has built out of odds and ends of stuff, a telephone, an iron bedstead, and, in fact, everything that goes to make life comfortable, and right over the crest of the hill, fifty yards from his house, are big holes from the shells in every direction.

I talked to the Commandant and some of his officers and they again were intelligent and very agreeable.

During the afternoon I saw a couple of men working in the field when a shell dropped fifty yards from them. They just looked up at it and then continued with their work.

I stayed out there until it was dark, and then went back and took my automobile for Montdidier. It was a most interesting day, and the captain said that I was very lucky to see so much firing. All the way between X and Y there are secondary trenches all ready for the artillery, bomb proof, etc. The impression that I carried away with me was good.

I was also surprised and pleased to find that the Germans were not so terrible as I had thought.

The defence of modern warfare is so much stronger than the offence that it is simply suicide to advance, but generally speaking the French seem to be the stronger, here at X. I should say they could hold the Germans indefinitely.

Modern warfare is a good deal more a question of ammunition and equipment, than of men. A couple of machine guns in a trench are as good as a regiment. How long it will last, is not for me to say; it seems to be an absolute standoff all along the western front.

Some social, or economic development, I believe will be more likely to end it, than actual fighting.