I WAS lucky to have an hour and a half of sleep in the shade of an apple tree before the Colonel's orderly came to fetch me. The Colonel looked very tired, with bloodshot eyes and drawn face. He had probably slept less than I had, if that were possible. He was a kind man, one saw from his expression, and I believe that he suffered a great deal because of all the unhappiness about him. His morning handshake was firm and friendly, but his smile of welcome was sad. "They have bombed Crèvecœur again this morning," he said. "There are eighteen stretcher cases." Three into eighteen, I calculated. Each car carried three stretchers. "That will take six cars, sir. I shall go immediately." Before I left the room he told me that he had been transferred to a town in Normandy. He wished to thank the Section from the bottom of his heart. We had served under his orders for only a few short hours really, and he had learned, he explained, to appreciate the quality of our work and the courage of my men. Would I convey to the Section his congratulations?
Wishing to leave an American in charge, so as not to have the confusion of the night before repeated, I was forced to appoint some one to replace Coster. This meant a public admission that I had given up hope for the four men who had disappeared in Amiens the day before. Obviously we all had, yet it was hard to say so out loud. I whistled the signal for assembly, delivered Colonel Soulier's message of appreciation, then tried to speak of our departed comrades. At first the words refused to come, and I stood there choking back tears and emotion. I thought of the tank crew, lying dead on the floor at Crèvecœur, shot in the backs of their necks. Frankly I feared the worst, though when words finally came I said that we must hope for the best. Harold Willis was the logical man, in my opinion, to take Coster's place, and I made the appointment, subject to the approval of our Paris office. He was a man of mature years, and at the same time possessed great physical stamina. I had unlimited confidence in his judgment, and he had proven in the last war that his courage was not to be doubted. From the old Field Service, in which he distinguished himself, he had gone into the Lafayette Escadrille and become one of its ace pilots. He was shot down inside the German lines, and after many failures finally succeeded in swimming the Rhine to freedom. Undaunted and unafraid he returned to fight on the front again before the signing of the Armistice in 19 18. His breast was covered by two rows of the highest decorations France can confer for bravery. Now he was again serving on the front as a volunteer, white-haired, robust, and fifty years of age. My choice was a happy one and I never regretted it.
This duty performed I led the six cars up to Crèvecœur, where we arrived without incident at about lunch time. The drivers opened tins of canned food and ate hastily while I went into the hospital to report that we were there and ask if we could take the wounded immediately. There was a new officer in charge, a major of colonial infantry. He was a career soldier, very young for the rank he held, and a thoroughly charming fellow, who smiled encouragingly as he went from patient to patient. With me he was most cordial. I must come and have a bite to eat. No, there was no hurry. I must come. Although I wanted to get the cars out of Crèvecœur as quickly as possible there was no way of refusing politely; so we sat down at table together and an orderly was sent to fetch goose-liver patty, bread, and a bottle of red wine. Before the man arrived we saw soldiers running across the courtyard towards the entrance of a bombproof shelter. From the way they were looking up as they ran it was obvious that Nazi planes were not far away, and our lunch was interrupted. I hastened to the cars. Hod Fuller pointed out several waves of bombers coming towards us, and I gave the order to deploy on the same road where we had been the day before. Hod needed no second invitation. He was one of the last men to leave a place if it were necessary to stay, but if it was not necessary in line of duty he could get out quicker than any man I ever saw. In civilian life he was an aviator, which may explain his fast take-offs. The rest of us were not far behind.
This time the Germans did not bomb Crèvecœur. They dropped their load on an airfield outside that had been in service only a short time. The speed with which they received military information was amazing. Their system of espionage must have been very nearly perfect.
At the same time that the air field was being bombed two strange-looking planes flew back and forth over our heads in wide circles. One wing was painted white, the other gray, so that with certain cloud effects one saw only half the plane. They were some distance away to the north when I saw two white puffs leave them and float slowly towards the ground. "They're dropping parachutists behind the lines," I exclaimed. As the wind was blowing the other way they did not come towards us, so we hastened back to the village to report what we had seen. The authorities had also spotted them, and armed patrols had been sent out to scour the countryside. I could not help admiring these two lone Germans for having the courage to drop out of the skies in broad daylight onto enemy country. Undoubtedly these men are fanatics, but I still maintain that it takes courage to be a fanatic of this type who risks almost certain death to serve his cause.
Once again the Major grabbed me by the arm and led me in to luncheon. There was no hurry. The Germans would not be back so soon, he said, and besides there were still several wounded who were receiving first aid and would not be ready for a short while. One must eat. This time the food was put on the table and we were actually reaching for it when the soldiers again ran across the courtyard in the direction of the abri, and the whole performance was repeated. We did not see the gray-and-white planes, however, as they had disappeared, and we never heard if the parachutists were captured or not.
After a third attempt at lunching, interrupted by a third alarm, the Major and I gave up. Meanwhile the last of the wounded had been treated and we loaded them as quickly as possible. Obviously the Boche had no good intentions towards Crèvecœur.
The one encouraging sign we saw that day was a large number of very businesslike-looking French tanks on the road. They were headed towards the front, and gave us hope that the counter-attack which we had been expecting might be in preparation. Alas! it never came.
Again that night we worked from hospitals to the station, loading Red Cross trains until very late. When finally we were able to throw ourselves on stretchers, or here and there for a sleep, we were truly exhausted. Clinton Curtis shared an ambulance with some one and I curled up in the back seat of the staff car, fully clothed, not even removing my boots. At any moment I knew that I might be called, and I wanted to be ready to obey at once. Through the car's open window I could hear rumblings from the town below as the great convoys of trucks and tanks passed through. The military movement in Beauvais was enormous, but I could not tell whether the convoys were moving towards the front or away from it. I rather thought, judging from what I had seen earlier, that they were moving up. And we had seen, all during the early part of the evening, regiment after regiment of Senegalese infantry heading north. They moved silently, their black faces sullen and without expression, and many carried their packs balanced on their heads, preferring this to the more orthodox method of carrying them on their backs. Head-balancing was a habit they had learned in their own African homes, so they stuck to it here. Despite lack of expression they had a cruel look, and I have heard that the Germans feared them. Personally I have never considered them great fighters except on the attack, and this again made me think that the offensive might not be far off. We wanted that offensive badly, feeling that the French could cut off at the base this pencil-like thrust that the Boche had made as far to the east as Abbeville. While it is only a guess, I still believe that this tactic might have been successful in delaying France's defeat, thus giving the English time to reorganize their forces and swing into battle. But I am not a military man by profession, and I really do not know. One thing I do know, however, is that the great French Army could have put up much stiffer resistance to the enemy had it been properly commanded by the men in high places. Even a rank amateur of war, like myself, can see that. Of course, at the time, I still did not believe that the Germans could conquer the country---certainly not in a few weeks.
As I listened to the strange, rumbling noises from below, and tried to figure the situation out in my tired mind, I heard still another noise, the welcome sound of rain. I hoped that it would come down hard, probably prayed that it would, and make the ground so soft and slippery that the heavy bombers would not be able to take off from soggy fields in the morning. With that comforting thought I fell into a troubled sleep, dreaming a fantastic mixture of all that had happened since we left Paris only four days before. The men played an important part in my dreams, particularly Coster, King, Wait, and Clement. I was trying hard to save them from burning buildings in what must have been Amiens, and the walls collapsed, not exactly burying them, but cutting them off from my view. Then Charlie Stehlin, the smallest and youngest driver in the Section, and Hamlin, the biggest, walked calmly, hand-in-hand, out of the ruins towards me. They seemed to have some huge joke between them and they were laughing. Before they reached me a bomb fell squarely on them and there was nothing left except a huge crater in the street. A parachutist from a gray-and-white plane dropped slowly in my direction, pointing a machine-gun at me, and as he was about to come down on my head he and the parachute went up in a puff of black smoke. A strange, persistent noise that I did not recognize woke me up. It was rain coming down hard on the roof of my car, and outside misty daylight spread over the countryside.
"Ah," I thought when I was thoroughly awake. "They'll be stuck in the mud today, the lousy bastards." Stuck in the mud! But so would we if we did not hurry and get the cars out of the field. This had not occurred to me before, and I cursed my lack of forethought.
A walk around the encampment showed me that the ground was already quite soggy, and that there was no time to lose before we should be completely bogged in. The ambulances and staff car were light enough and could probably still cross over the field to the road, but I was worried about the trucks and especially the kitchen.
McElwain was the first person I saw. He was on the ground in a sleeping-bag, his head in a pool of water, and sleeping as soundly as if he had been at home in his Boston house. "Get up, Mac," I yelled. He opened an eye. "You're getting pretty tough." He grinned at this. It pleased him. He wanted to toughen up, and certainly succeeded. Despite the fact that he had passed the forty mark in age, and had led a far too sheltered life, he turned out to be one of the old war horses upon whom I could count in any emergency, and at any time of the day or night. He was one of the first to receive his well-deserved citation for the Croix de Guerre.
"Get up," I repeated, "and help me rout out the fellows. We must move from here quickly, or else . . . ...
Mac crawled out, like a hermit crab from its shell, fully dressed. He, too, had wanted to be ready and on call. In fact most of the men had slept like this, and we had every one on his feet in a few minutes. The staff car ran across the field easily, but the ambulances were heavier and had to be pushed. Their wheels spun helplessly in the mud and they gave us some trouble, especially the ones that had been parked on the far side of a slope. The light repair truck was not difficult to handle, and after we got it out all hands stood by to help Weeks with the heavy truck and kitchen. They were dangerously near the sunken road.
"All set?" Weeks shouted. He was at the wheel and the men were divided between the truck and kitchen, ready to push. "All set," I answered, and the wheels began to turn, slowly at first and then faster, shooting out globs of mud behind. The trailer swung nearer the sunken road, which dropped a sheer eight feet, and I yelled for those on that side to clear out. Most of them did and escaped. Only Hamlin got the order too late and crashed over the edge. For a moment I thought the kitchen would surely topple on him, and I breathed again only when Weeks, with his usual skill, pulled it clear and into the field.
When we got down to Hamlin he was in great pain. He had managed to crawl a few yards, also thinking that the kitchen was coming over on top of him. His huge body lay sprawled flat on the ground and he was moaning slightly. It was his right leg, he said, and we hurried to get the boot off before it swelled.
The doctor who examined the leg said that the foot was fractured in two places, and that it would take some time to knit. Hamlin did not agree. "I'll get some kind of a cast put on it," he told me when the doctor was not within earshot. "I'll be back to help you in a couple of days. Maybe a week at most." He smiled through tears when I sent him off to Paris in his own ambulance with another driver, and I hated like hell to see this swell big guy, with his dirty face and four-day beard, leave the Section. He was the driver of my Number 1 car, and topnotch in everything he did. The doctor, unfortunately, was right and the convalescence was long. Frank Hamlin never returned to the Section.
Also Moore and Folds were not improving, and I sent them to Paris. That meant the loss of seven men in four days. I began to get nervous. We could not hold out very long and properly operate the cars if the casualty list continued to mount at this rate.
Obviously the field where we had been bivouacked was not a satisfactory place, and I asked permission of the Colonel, a new man of whom I was not too fond, to locate something else. He said that we could go ahead, and we found not far away the ideal place. It consisted of two large, open hay shelters with tile roofs. One of the shelters contained farm machinery, which we moved out to make place for the cars. The other was partially filled with baled hay. This one we used for dormitory and refectory, and it was very satisfactory, even pleasant. The tables and benches were brought up from the house we had first occupied in the town, and bales of hay were used to block off "apartments." My own particular general headquarters, bedroom, sitting-room and bath, which I shared with Willis and Benson, was a long room, open at one end, which was ordinarily reserved for cows. We tried to sweep away the straw and chaff that covered the floor, but found that our predecessors had left much filth over a period of many years, and therefore decided to leave well enough alone. Although the chaff got into our eyes, beds, down our backs and into the baggage, it at least had the advantage of absorbing some of the odor remaining from the departed cows. A table, a chair, stretchers on bales of hay as beds, and we were quite comfortably installed. This was to be our home, more or less happy, until the day the Germans moved into Beauvais.
ONE of the first things we did in our new quarters was to build a shelter of hay bales against flying bomb splinters. The men who worked on this detail were very proud of their job, and it was the "show place" for our limited number of visitors. The only trouble was that it never served, and, as far as I know, no one ever entered it except to point out its splendid qualities. When bombers came over the boys had too much curiosity to go under cover. They wanted to see what was happening. Little by little the shelter disappeared as French soldiers carried away the bales either to feed their horses or to sleep on.
Foraging parties went out, when there was a moment to spare, and brought back many useful articles to improve our standard of living. Fresh eggs, chickens, rabbits, vegetables and, prize of prizes, a fifty-gallon keg of excellent red wine. Also they found rubber boots for the whole Section, as well as wash basins and buckets. The last-named were particularly useful, the only water coming from a spigot in a farmyard across the road. A very handy place to wash was rigged up simply by putting the basins in a row on bales of hay, with the buckets, filled by a water detail, on the ground beside them. Like good soldiers we took the limited material at our disposal and made the most of it. I believe these fellows could have made a comfortable home in the midst of the Sahara Desert, water or no water.
In view of the fact that the foraging parties were always carefully supplied in advance with written authorizations to requisition, I was particularly annoyed when the new Colonel (I do not remember his name, if I ever knew it) called me before him at the officers' mess and asked if any of our men had taken a pair of field glasses from the military police. Not even the fact that some one had stolen the M.P.'s only pair of glasses amused me. I was furious. He said that he had heard of our foraging parties and would like a report on the matter. I replied that he would have his report in a moment, saluted more stiffly than usual, turned on my heel and went out.
There had been three details, I knew, but I wanted to check on who had led them. Willis had led one, Jon Thoresen a second, and the Colonel's own sergeant the third. Of course, none of our men had been near the quarters of the military police. We did not even know where they were located.
I asked Willis to come back with me to the officers' mess. "May I make my report, mon Colonel?" He nodded. "Sergeant Thil of your hospital staff led one of the three details. I suppose he had the proper papers and is beyond suspicion. A second was headed by my driver, Jon Thoresen, who happens to be the nephew of the Minister of Norway to France. He had a written authorization and I can testify that he is beyond suspicion. The third was led by Lieutenant Willis here, my second in command." I made a motion towards Willis' breast, covered with the highest honors France can confer for bravery, ribbons of medals that the Colonel himself did not possess. I went on to point out that my men were volunteers in every sense of the word, serving France without remuneration. Not only that, but also those who had come from America expressly, or from any other distance, had paid their own transportation, purchased their own kit and uniforms, and on an average had spent between forty and fifty thousand francs of their personal money for the privilege of being here. From the corners of my eyes I could see the other officers fidgeting in their discomfort, and the Colonel himself was growing redder by the minute. But I was mad and had not finished yet. I would go through with the report for which he had asked. "And, mon Colonel, two of the men gave the ambulances they are driving. That, at the present exchange, comes to about ninety thousand francs additional. Another of my men has given an ambulance anonymously, I learned quite by accident, to be used in a future section. We have not seen the field glasses of the military police, sir. That is all. May Lieutenant Willis and I be excused?" He had seen his mistake and showed the good sense to get up and come over to where we were standing. His excuse, however, was weak. "Of course," he said, "it never entered my head that one of your men might have stolen the glasses. I only thought they might have been taken by mistake."
After that the Colonel gave us no trouble, and was relatively easy to handle, if a lieutenant may be said to handle a colonel. But I never liked him, and was glad when tough little Major Martene, with his hard-boiled ways and tender heart, and eleven years' active service with the Foreign Legion, took over the command about a week later.
Our most fastidious member was William Nickerson. During these troubled times he could be seen every morning, when he was not on duty, stark naked taking a full-length sponge bath. It was as regular as the clock, and several times the bombers not only caught him with his pants down, but with no pants on at all. He had with loving care arranged a place for himself out under an apple tree about a hundred yards from camp, and another near the dining table, which he surrounded with bales. He would stay first in one then the other, as the spirit moved him. "I like a change," he said, when I asked for an explanation of all this luxury. "When I am tired of my town house," he pointed to the sleeping bag stretched out on the ground under the shed, "I move out to my country place. The change of air and scenery does me good." He had a quiet sense of humor and an overdeveloped imagination. The former helped him, but the latter caused him to suffer a great deal more than the rest of us from the horrors of war.
Stuart Benson, artist and noted sculptor, was also one of our more meticulous gentlemen. However, he limited himself to one "home," and that was on a bale of hay near my stretcher. If he snored I don't know it, because, as far as I could learn, he never slept. Nervous, high-strung and charming, he was a friend on whom I could count for any service and know in advance that it would be well done. He painted the signs for the entrance gate, to show that the American Field Service lived within, and for our "office," to indicate where General Headquarters was located. Or he was equally obliging and competent when it came to leading a convoy of wounded over many miles on the darkest nights. He grabbed my arm one day and said there was something he wanted to tell me. Very important, a sort of confession which he had to make to ease his conscience. I had not the vaguest idea what he was driving at. What could a fellow like that have on his conscience? I knew he had been a major in the American Army during the last war, and that for his services he wore on his chest ribbons of the Legion of Honor, the Croix de I'Etoile Noire, and the Croix de Guerre. And I had always thought him very young-looking and active for a man of fifty-three, which was the age noted on his application paper. Arm in arm we walked into a vacant field, and he began his confession. "Pete, I've lied." This rather brutal statement startled me, and I waited for him to go on. "I lied about my age to get into this damned thing. Luckily I didn't have to show my passport or birth certificate, but I've been scared to death somebody would find out. I pulled ten years off my age." This dumbfounded me and I stuttered. "You-you mean-you're-" "Yes," he cut in, "I'm sixty-three years old." When I finally grasped the fact that he was telling the truth I laughed and laughed. He had looked so sheepish, almost like a school child about to face punishment for a misdemeanor, when he told me this, and I thought it was one of the swellest things I had heard in my whole life. He had pulled his age down a whole decade in order to get to the front, and was ashamed of the lie. I could have kissed him on both checks, French fashion, and given him all the Croix de Guerres in the army. I think he was surprised that I was not angry.
Little Charlie Stehlin was on the opposite end of the ladder. The day he arrived in the Paris office, on his return from Finland, to sign up with us, was the eighteenth anniversary of his birth. Benson, who was twenty-one years my senior, had turned forty-five when Charlie was born. The kid had plenty of spirit and guts. He had joined the Iroquois Ambulance Unit soon after its formation, and seeing that it was not getting anywhere had seized an opportunity to go to Finland as an airplane machine-gunner. There were six others from the Iroquois with him, but unfortunately the Finns had not been able to supply them with planes, so he came back and joined the Field Service. Folds had also made the unsuccessful trip to the North. Charlie was sent out on a mission one day, and I noticed that there was a good deal of bombing in the direction he had taken. On his return I asked if he had been in any of it. "In it," he said, and from the intonation of his voice one would have thought that the whole German air force had been out to get him. "In it. Say, you're lucky to have me back." He was young, and his sense of humor had not been highly developed, so I let this go without a smile, at least without a visible smile. His work was good and he never muffed a job, which was more important to me than a sense of humor. Along with McElwain, Thorenscn and Rich, he was the first to receive a citation for the Croix de Guerre.
I do not know what it is about war that makes men grow beards. Perhaps it is the all-absorbing interest of war that makes one forget about one's personal aspect, although I do not believe this to be the reason. More probably the explanation is that in civilian life they have always wondered what they would look like with something hairy on the chin, and have been too timid to try the experiment for fear of ridicule. One cannot ridicule a soldier who is on the front and constantly under fire, so this gives courage to experiment with one's beard-growing abilities. Be that as it may, at best only my theory, four of the drivers, encouraged by the days and nights of great activity which had not left them time to shave, let their beards grow. Oddly enough each one of them took on the appearance of a universally known character, and Ralph Munger took on the personality, in appearance only I hope, of two rather dreaded individuals. He looked like a mixture of Lenin and Trotsky, a sort of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde idea, only in this case both bad. Queer things beards do, for Munger had far more of the Doctor Jekyll in him than of the men he resembled. On the other hand there was Bill Nickerson. His thin, nervous face, partially covered with a heavy growth of reddish hair, had something Christlike in its expression, yet no one would ever have dreamed in his wildest moments of accusing Nick of having any Christlike qualities. Johnny Cutler took between ten days and two weeks to turn himself into a youthful Honest Abe Lincoln, the hard-working rail splitter. Johnny was honest, certainly, and tops as an ambulance driver, but I am sure that if I had told him to split rails he would have asked me why, and slipped away from the job to catch a sleep as soon as my back was turned. Hard work, except ambulance driving, and Johnny Cutler just did not get along well together. The only one who really seemed to fit the part, in our private Passion Play, for which nature and his hirsute qualities equipped him was Laurence W. Morgan, age twenty-two, Brookline, Mass., Harvard '39. With such a pedigree he must, of course, play a royal part, and instead of resembling Lenin, Trotsky, Honest Abe, or even Christ, he turned slowly, as the days passed and the chin hairs grew, from Larry Morgan into Henry the Eighth. He resembled that great monarch in that he could do amazing things with food, and I am sure that he would have loved the six wives, although I am equally sure he would have had none of them executed. At heart Larry was a conservative person.
Rats were quite a problem, especially in the cow shed, until Grima Johnson arrived bearing a peculiar-looking mongrel which he had picked up along the road somewhere. Bomber was the first name it received, and this was later discarded for Blitzy. This stuck, and Blitzy became a prime favorite with the Section. It was a mixture of wirehaired fox and most anything else one can imagine, with floppy ears and a quizzical expression. Be that as it may, one could forgive Blitzy's doubtful parentage when one considered his qualities as a rat catcher. There, at least, this dog was an undisputed champion. I personally watched him dive under the stretcher on which I slept, scratch a bit, growl, and bring out a father, mother and five baby rats, all with their necks broken in the most approved manner.
But watching Blitzy was not our only sport in the rare moments of calm. We tried baseball. Cutler had a bat and ball, and on one memorable occasion we actually got as far as choosing sides before the bombers routed us from the field. This time there were dog-fights and two planes, one French and one German, hurtled to the ground in flames. We gave up baseball, finding it difficult to concentrate under the circumstances.
Hutchinson's hat afforded a certain amount of amusement and distraction for tired nerves. It was a large straw affair, farmer type, and Hutch was about as fond of it as Grima was of the dog. At first it amused the boys to grab it from his head and toss it about while he rushed from one to the other in a desperate effort to recapture his treasure. But even the novelty of this wore off as nearly all the scrimmages were interrupted by the bugler across the way whose duty it was to blow three blasts whenever the Boches were coming over. His tooting, off and on all through the day, became monotonous, and Cam Burrage tried to solve the problem. He brought from one of his various trips a child's tin horn and tooted back. The effect was amusing only for a very short while, and failed to stop the bugler, to whom orders were orders.
One must admit that our pleasures were simple, even puerile. We took them when we could and where we could, trying hard to forget the true grimness of our life, the horror of all that was going on around us, trying to ignore the constant danger which threatened our lives and those of our friends, hoping to get a laugh from hearts that felt crushed and where few laughs remained. This was a war of nerves, and, being non-combatants who could not fight back with arms, we had to resist a most terrible enemy with our own foolish little inventions.
This foolishness helped. In fact it was necessary when one considers that we rarely had any sleep, and never a moment's rest for our tired, frayed nerves. We had to protect them as something vital to our very existence. Once our nerves were gone we would become useless, and this we wished to avoid at any price, even the risk of seeming childish. In the last war one worked under a strain for a short period at the front and then went back a few miles to where it was calm and a simple matter to pull oneself together and be fresh to return for more. This time there was no such thing as rest for mind or body. We would carry loads of wounded thirty or forty miles to the rear, with German planes continually strafing the roads, only to arrive at the hospital as it was being violently bombed. I cannot say how long the human nervous system could stand up against this sort of warfare. It is my firm belief, however, that the average man would break after three months, and that even the toughest could not endure over half a year.
Often when I had a moment free I walked over to the Agel Hospital, about three hundred yards up the road, and visited the triage. This is the room where the freshly wounded are received, given first aid and assigned to the different wards, or sent to the operating room. In this particular hospital four operating tables were occupied night and day. I would wander from one blessé to another, examining their open wounds and wondering at their heroic calm. It was extraordinary to me the way they accepted their fate without a whimper.
In one corner there was an aviator. I had seen him shot down in flames that afternoon by six Messerschmitts, and was amazed that he had come out alive. I asked how he had done it, but he did not know. The skin was burned away from his face and his eyes were tightly closed. Perhaps he was blind. The doctor could not tell until the swelling went down. The flyer mumbled something through swollen lips, and I listened closely. He was saying that next time the Boches would not get him so easily. He was already thinking of his return to fight in defense of France. And there were millions more like him, men who would have defended their country to the last, had they been given half a chance. A succession of rotten governments had sold them out; a general staff of doddering old men, thinking in terms of 1914-1918, had sent them to be slaughtered; politicians like Pierre Cot, who now has the audacity to tell this United States of America, by interviews in the press, what should have been done and what should be done, had destroyed their aviation.
This heroic aviator, sitting in the triage, perhaps blinded and tortured by pain, mumbling about what he would do when he got back on the lines, is the real France. Never accuse the true Frenchman of cowardice, do not blame him for his defeat. Blame the senile old men and dishonest politicians, the former because they were impotent and incapable of helping their country, the latter because they placed their bank accounts above patriotism.
As I look back on what has happened I know that-France was overwhelmed---but is she beaten? Not the France that I know, not the men like this mumbling, wounded aviator. It is my firm belief, certainly my greatest hope, that General Charles de Gaulle, who represents the spirit of the France I love, will march one day at the head of his army of free Frenchmen, up the Champs-Élysées and through the Arc de Triomphe, a conquering hero.
Red Cross nurses in the triage worked marvellously. Their faces were pale and drawn with fatigue, yet they continued hour after hour, calmly and efficiently doing their jobs. Never have I admired women more than I did these girls, many of them out of gentle homes and straight from civilian life, as I watched them go about their gruesome work, cleaning wounds, clipping off jagged bits of flesh, swabbing oil on burns of several tank corps men, dressing and bandaging. Their devotion and courage were beautiful to see.
In another corner, across from the burned aviator, I spotted an English Tommy, and wandered over to talk with him. When I spoke in his own tongue he smiled feebly and asked for a cigarette. I hope my face did not express the shock which I received when I leaned over to give it to him. I had smelt the terrible odor---gangrene! The mask of death was slowly spreading over his youthful features, yet he could still smile and ask for a cigarette. In a place like this there are many odors, but none so sickening and ghastly as that of gangrene. It is indescribably horrible, not only because it spells death, or at best amputation, but also because it is the worst smell in the world. After I gave the boy a package of cigarettes, lighting one for him with a trembling hand, I was forced to go out into the night for air.
AT ABOUT this time there was a strange moment of calm in the German activities. They were probably consolidating their positions, gathering their forces in preparation for a terrific blow. Be that as it may, I decided to run into Paris for a day and night. It was only an hour away, and I felt sure that I would be back in Beauvais before anything broke. There were certain things that I should talk over with my superiors, and then I could see Josette. It seemed like years since we had said good-bye to each other a week ago.
What sort of a change I expected to discover in Paris after such a short time I do not know, but I was highly shocked to find it totally unchanged. People went about life just as before I left, apparently without concern for what was happening up in Picardy. Food was plentiful and delicious, cafés and restaurants filled, and night clubs hanging out the standing-room-only sign. It seemed fantastic after all I had witnessed, like another planet. Did they not realize what was happening? Could they ignore the danger? Had they been kept in ignorance of the refugees and of the fighting? Was this ignorance, or indifference, or both? I asked myself the question again and again. Now they had not even the illusion of their Maginot Line. I did not attempt to understand, but followed their example and tried to forget for a few short hours in Josette's excellent company.
In Beauvais nothing had happened when I returned. Calm reigned, and I felt even more sure than before that it was the calm before the storm. Something terrible was brewing. I could feel it.
We were glad to see new faces when Stuart Benson brought back from Paris one evening three French Army cinema operators, two journalists, and a movie star. The cinema men were going to make a documentary picture of our work. Unfortunately the officer in command of Beauvais refused them permission to do this, despite the fact that they had the necessary papers from the War Ministry. The journalists were Quentin Reynolds, writing for Collier's, and Kenneth Downs, of the International News Service, both out for a story. The star in our rather troubled sky was Robert Montgomery. Stuart and I guided them through Agel Hospital, the triage and operating room, then down to the railway station to see the loading of a Red Cross train by the Section ambulances. Bob Montgomery helped out on a car that night with Larry Morgan.
In the morning, just after sunrise, there was a certain amount of fireworks as anti-aircraft guns and machine guns potted intermittently at Nazi observation planes. But I felt that I had neglected my duty as host in failing to give them a really first-rate bombing.
The cameramen and journalists returned to Paris. Montgomery stayed on. He had signed up with the Field Service in London, and was assigned to the Section. The men and I had frankly been a little leery of Bob, and there had been some speculation as to how he would work out. For one I decided to treat him just as I treated the other drivers. I was wrong if I had thought that he expected special treatment. He threw himself wholeheartedly into the work, doing the dull jobs as well as the interesting ones willingly. I congratulated myself on the addition of a good man to the Section, and the fellows spoke of him as a "swell guy," the highest compliment they could pay. Bob had trouble, however, about his contracts and was able to stay with us only two or three days, during which time he saw comparatively little action, and I was sincerely sorry to see him forced to leave on account of business reasons.
One of my many trips took me into the charming town of Compiègne, fifty miles north of Paris. I had lived there off and on for the past six years, and knew every stick and stone of the place. It was a famous horse country, stag hunting being the favorite pastime, and I had ridden a great deal over the beautiful bridle-paths through the forest. It was here that the Armistice was signed in 1918. It was here, in the same railway car of 1918 and on the same spot, that Hitler signed the Armistice of 1940.
Jon Thoresen was with me when I went there this time. On our way we had seen many German bombers passing high above us to the south. I counted sixty. In this part of the country they dropped propaganda leaflets, advising the French to lay down their arms and refuse to fight England's battle, and so forth. Jon and I found several leaflets along the road. These same planes continued on their way and joined others, coming together from different directions, to bomb Paris for the one and only time during the war. I thought it an odd idea to drop tracts proposing peace in the country and bombs in the city. There is no explaining the German mentality, but it seems to have worked admirably in the conquest of France.
We found that the Hun planes had visited Compiegne a day or two before us. The center of the town from the bridge over the Oise to the square in front of the Hotel de Ville was still smoking. Luckily they had not touched the fine old fifteenth-century Town Hall itself, as everything about it was laid flat. I pointed out the landmarks, so familiar to me, around the square. It was hard, even by using my imagination, to believe that the heap of smouldering bricks and debris on that corner had once been the animated tobacco shop in which I had bought hundreds of packages of my favorite cigarettes. It was equally difficult to recognize the wine shop across the street that had supplied my liquid needs and quenched my thirst. And farther along, the sad remains of the cleaning shop that had kept my clothes in order. I think what hurt me most was the store of my kindly old bootmaker. There was nothing left save an empty space, a bomb having landed directly on it. "My God!" I exclaimed to Jon, at the same time looking down at my feet. "The fellow made the boots I'm wearing."
Coming back to Beauvais we passed through some of the towns that had been destroyed in the last war, and I remarked that many of the houses razed by recent bombings were the ones reconstructed since 1918 with reparations money from the Germans. They had not stood long, these poor, ugly little brick dwellings, and the same families had been chased from them twice in a generation by the invading Boche. The popular belief that bombs or shells never strike the same object more than once was proved to be a fallacy.
Every day the little cemetery grew. It was on the spot where our camp had been when Hamlin had his accident, and the dead from Agel Hospital were buried there. Side by side, in graves marked with modest wooden crosses, slept heroes from England, France, Morocco, Tunis, Senegal, Algeria, and Germany. The Germans were treated like the rest. Though they were enemies the French did not forget that they had died for country and were heroes. One grave apart was that of a French colonel. His nerves had broken, his heart also perhaps, and he had committed suicide. The passage of stretcher-bearers, carrying the dead from hospital to field, became more and more frequent with the growing intensity of the war, until it was an almost endless chain.
Once again I made a hurried trip into Paris. This time it was to enlist in the motorized cavalry of the Foreign Legion. This was no gesture of bravery on my part. On the contrary, I fear that I was looking for an easier job than ambulance work. Motorized cavalry is formed of scout units composed mostly of mounted machine guns and armored cars. At least in this branch of the service one had the chance of shooting back and defending oneself. Ambulance men take it on the chin in the toughest sort of way, and then have to turn the other cheek for more. I passed my examinations and would have received a commission as second lieutenant, had not the war ended so abruptly.
Of course I did not wish to leave the Section, but I felt that I had organized it in such a way that it could now be run without me, and therefore my usefulness was ended. However, the real reason for my wishing to join the Foreign Legion was the fact that the old Lafayette Escadrille was being reformed, and to get into it I would have to pass via the Legion. Willis was one of the leaders in this movement, along with Doctor Edmond Gros, of the American Hospital at Neuilly, and Paul Rockwell, a hero of the last war and brother of Kiffin, who was killed while serving with the Escadrille. I was some years past the age for a pilot, but in view of my extraordinary eyesight and general physical condition, Willis assured me that he could put me through. Sadly enough this effort was wasted.
We were awakened one morning at dawn by the gunfire to the southeast, and not very far away. I listened carefully. It was not anti-aircraft, but cannon, and I thought we must be flanked on that side at least. It seemed impossible that the Germans could have advanced that far, although I had long since arrived at the conclusion that nothing was impossible. All morning long the barrage kept up, at times more violent than others, and I was worried. The sound of drum-fire barrages was all too familiar to me from the last war, and here was one if it ever existed. None of the French officers knew what it was and co-ordination was so bad in the army that they could not find out. Finally Watts came back from a trip to Senlis with the explanation. The Germans had scored a direct hit with a bomb on an ammunition train in the railway station at Meru. The place, he said, was a shambles and the train was burning. Of the station there remained absolutely nothing standing. A piece of flying steel from an exploding shell had crashed into a wall just in front of him as he hurried past, filling his eyes with brick-dust.
The errand he returned from had been a strange one. Dave Burton was driving with Watts, and they told us the story. They had carried a crazy woman from a village near Beauvais back to the hospital at Senlis. Her particular mania was undressing. Several times they got her clothes back on with great difficulty, but on arriving at Senlis their attention had been attracted by passing German bombers and they had forgotten her peculiarity. An attendant from the hospital opened the ambulance doors and she dashed out, clothed only in Nature's dress, across the lawn at full speed with several people in pursuit. We laughed at this story, certainly more sad than amusing, which showed that our nerves were getting bad. I have seen very nervous people laugh at the funeral of some one they loved.
"Nick's summer home has been bombed," I heard one of the boys say excitedly. Nickerson also heard the remark and rushed out to his favorite apple tree. A wag had carefully gathered bits of steel from a bomb that burst in a near-by field, and had hammered them into the trunk of the tree in a most realistic manner. Nick was excited and showed it to every one. I think he was quite proud of his summer home now that it had become so important, but I noticed that from then on he gave it up in favor of the town house. He might have hung out a For Rent sign for all he used it after that.
Ralph Munger came to me one morning, looking more like Lenin and Trotsky than ever, and said that his side-kick, David Stetson, had disappeared during the night and had taken their car with him. He thought he knew where Stet was and could lead me there, so we climbed into the staff car and started out on a search. It was a small country road, leading in the direction of Amiens, over which Ralph directed me. All along the sides were machine-gun nests, heavily camouflaged and manned by Senegalese troops, who watched us suspiciously. American Field Service was written in large letters across the doors of my car, but there was not much difference in their sluggish minds between the words "American" and "Allemand." Many times we were stopped and asked for our papers, and I wondered how Stet could have passed through here in the night without a special permit, which I knew he did not have. There were also many gun emplacements beside this road, the famous seventy-five millimeter cannon being most in evidence, and we passed a long line of tanks waiting in a forest. The French seemed prepared to put up stiff resistance here. Farther on a German armored car, destroyed and cast aside, showed that there had already been fighting.
I knew that Munger and Stetson had already been up here to work at an advanced post, and my companion explained that this had been on Stetson's mind. He had wanted to return, knowing that ambulances were needed, but had not asked my permission as I could not have given it without the Colonel's orders.
Ralph's guess was correct. We found the car and the driver, and I had great difficulty trying to be severe. I told him that I would not punish him this time, but the next. . . . And I explained, which was true, that it would be impossible for me to run an efficient Section if this sort of thing happened. "Suppose," I said, "one morning I find that all of the drivers have had similar ideas during the night. Where will I be when the Colonel calls for a dozen ambulances?" Munger drove the car back, and that was that.
And so our life went on for nearly two weeks at Beauvais. "Never a dull moment," some one remarked facetiously. Part of our work was long hauls, even as far back as Paris, although most of it consisted of shorter runs towards the front, or between the local hospitals and Red Cross trains.
My job now consisted mainly of spending my nights and days on the station platform at Beauvais and directing the unloading of the ambulances, getting them out as quickly as possible from this nasty spot, or driving to the hospitals and hurrying up the loading there when it was not going fast enough. We were running the cars directly onto the platform, so that the wounded could be moved from car to train without putting them on the ground or carrying them by hand any distance, thus speeding the movement considerably. If there happened to be no cars in when the bombers came over I would drive full tilt up the road and stop any ambulances until the Germans passed off. The station was a most unhealthy place.
Section One received compliment after compliment from high French officials, during these distressing times, for its splendid work under continuous bombardment. And it is my proudest boast that there is not a single case where one of my men failed in his duty, not a solitary wounded or sick soldier or civilian, man, woman or child, that was not brought back by my drivers when they were instructed to do so. After the smoke of battle cleared away and the Armistice was signed. we found ourselves richer by three army citations for the Section, and eighteen individual Croix de Guerre citations for the men. In five weeks of active service our twenty cars (the two lost at Amiens had been replaced) handled the amazing number of twelve thousand five hundred sick and wounded, mostly stretcher cases. Sections during the last war rarely handled as many wounded in a year. But everything was like this in 1940---more terrible, more concentrated.
Beauvais had been bombed quite regularly ever since our return from Amiens. One day, however, the Traitor of Stuttgart (supposedly a Frenchman who was broadcasting from that city) announced by radio that at 2 P.M. Nazi planes would begin in earnest to flatten out the city. We waited anxiously. The Traitor's word was kept to the minute, and from that time on the Germans were constantly over the town, wave upon wave of them, dropping their tons of bombs.
After each raid our cars would comb the streets for wounded. Twice I saw direct hits on the cathedral, one of the loveliest in France, and fires began to spring up everywhere. As most of the watermains were cut there was no means of combating them. We pulled the dead and wounded from the Hôtel Dieu, which was in ruins, and out of the hospitals, which were equally smashed, and from houses that had caved in on their occupants. The place that had been our home on that first night out of Paris was hit by incendiary bombs and burned to the ground. The ambulances were continually being covered by debris and flying glass from explosions, and it was difficult to get about now as many of the streets were blocked and wires everywhere were down. Bombs rained ceaselessly all around us, killing and wounding hundreds of people, and not one of us was touched, not even a scratch. We seemed to have our own private guardian angel. Or were we just plain shot with luck?
There had been a slight lull and most of the cars were in camp. The men were lying about on the hay and in the open, getting as much sleep as they could, when and where they were able, like good soldiers. I saw a lone German scout plane fly over very high. As it came above us a white sphere dropped from it. I thought it was a parachute and hastened to warn the company of soldiers billeted in the farm across the road. But the sphere did not drop. It must have been a small balloon, some kind of signal, and shortly afterwards we received the worst bombing I have ever seen.
As soon as the planes had gone I got our commanding officer's permission and we rushed down into the town. It was in shambles. The station, where I had been not half an hour before, was flat, and a Red Cross train flamed from end to end on the tracks by the platform. It was the train we were supposed to load that night. Luckily it was still empty.
We helped French soldiers drag five people from under a house that had collapsed. They were piled one on top of the other, oddly enough. The two on top were dead, and so were the two on the bottom. A man in the center was completely unharmed, and we soon revived him. He grabbed his mutilated wife and shook her, crying madly, "You can't be dead! You can't!" Before another crumbled house a woman stood rocking unsteadily on her feet and pulling at her hair. She mumbled crazily something about her three children being inside. There was no use looking for them, even had this been possible. Fire was already beginning and had smothered them if they had escaped death by the explosion. We went on, running in and out of burning houses, shouting to find if any one was there, and hurrying the wounded up to Agel for first aid. People wandered about the streets half crazed, calling out names and weeping. Why the civilian population had not left Beauvais I could not understand. Only after this bombing were they ordered to evacuate.
THE German Army was advancing swiftly and we received instructions to retreat to Corbeil-Cerf. Six cars were to wait until the hospital was completely evacuated to be sure that no other wounded came in to Agel. I sent the main convoy back with Harold Willis, and waited to bring up the rear. Clouds hung low and there was a heavy mist. I thanked my own particular saints for this, as it would keep the planes away. Even now I love a rainy day, and heave a sigh of relief when I look out of my window in the morning to find the earth well hidden beneath a blanket of pea-soup fog. This must be a hangover from war days when the most beastly weather was our best friend and protector.
The morning drew on. French cars were emptying the hospital, and we were held back, being much faster. Would they never finish their work? The hours seemed very long, and I kept my eyes on the clouds. Shortly after eleven o'clock they began to lift, and almost at the same time the sound of airplane motors, quantities of them, came to our ears. Then there was a terrifying scream of sirens, followed by machine-gun bursts and bomb explosions. They were the Stukas---the dreaded dive bombers!
Down they came, full speed ahead, sirens shrieking, machine-guns rattling, one after another, and dropped their bombs. Then down again and again, with only the machine-guns and sirens, until we were so covered with dust and smoke that they could see us no longer. I had watched them from behind the trunk of a tree, carefully keeping on the far side as protection against machine-gun bullets, and the pilots' heads had been visible, so low had they flown their planes.
Curiously enough the Stukas, which I had not seen before, but of which I had heard and read, terrified me far less than I expected. Perhaps I was too interested in what was, to me, a completely new phase of warfare to think of fear and danger. The sirens, of course, were only to batter down one's nerves.
Stetson and I had been caught walking up towards the hospital. I wanted to get back and see what had happened at the camp, to learn how many casualties we had suffered. The dust and smoke filled my eyes and nearly blinded me, but under the excellent camouflage which they offered I ran as hard as I could down the road towards camp. "Get off the road," a French soldier yelled after me. "Do you want to get us all killed?" "You fool," I shouted back over my shoulder without slowing up. "Not even the Heinies can see through this stuff."
Another miracle, or the act of our private guardian angel! Bombs had fallen on every side of the camp, but none on the camp itself, and machinegun bullets had spattered about like hail on a tin roof, yet neither a car nor a man had been touched.
As soon as the dust and smoke were blown off by the fresh breeze two observation planes passed back and forth to see what damage had been done. They skimmed roof-tops and trees, so low that one was tempted to throw stones at them. Their intermittent strafing was easy to beat by keeping a tree or an ambulance motor in between oneself and the plane. A lone machine-gunner was potting at them from down the road, and his aim was good.
One of them crashed over a near-by hill, sending up a column of black smoke. "Bastard!" I exclaimed to no one in particular. "You'll never bother us again." Death to me meant nothing now, and if it were a German who died I was glad. Hard I had wished to be when I arrived in Beauvais two weeks before, and hard I had become.
After this the Frenchmen at the hospital really hurried, finishing the evacuation quickly. No more wounded came in even after the bombing, as the town was empty, and we were on our way at Major Martene's orders without a second invitation. Certainly we were not sorry to leave what had been our temporary home. Nazi motorized troops usually moved in after a bombing of this sort. It was a kind of mopping-up operation before an advance, and a very effective one.
Yet, I repeat, the dive bombing of the Stukas was far less terrifying, in my opinion, than the rain of death and destruction let loose by the giant bombers flying along so calmly five miles above and beyond the range of anti-aircraft guns. The Stukas at least gave you a thrill for your money, and it was all so fast and over so quickly. Then, too, you can yell satisfying curses at something that is not very far away. But the scream, prolonged and agonizing, of hundreds of bombs coming down from such a height is the most horrible sensation I know. All you can do is lie flat on the ground and hope that none of them has your initials marked on it. There is not even any satisfaction in cursing at such a distance.
Subsequently I read a newspaper report in which it was stated that the Germans often wasted bombs on objectives that had already been completely destroyed, and amongst other towns Beauvais was cited as an example. I can readily believe this.
Corbell-Cerf was peaceful after Beauvais, and I enjoyed a room for the second time since leaving Paris. Harold Willis had reserved it for me. We were billeted in a fine old château, or to be more exact, the Section was in the stables---as usual. I think we would have felt uncomfortable, perhaps even unhappy, in anything more pompous. My room, of which I was very proud because it actually had four walls, a floor, a door and a window that opened and closed, comforts to which I was no longer accustomed, had evidently been the domicile of one of the grooms or stable-boys in happier times. There was also an electric light that worked, and good cold running water down the steps just outside. We had never known the luxury of electricity in Beauvais, and for several days before we left the water-mains which supplied us had been cut by bombs.
Somehow or other the gods were with us, and let us sleep until five the next morning, when a couple of bombs dropped in a field close by and nearly shook me out of bed. Yes, I was sleeping in a real bed. The ancient building quivered noticeably, but held its own against the force of the explosion.
The Major decided that this was no place to keep his wounded. The Boche had sighted activity in the woods around the château and would soon begin to hammer at it in earnest. "A convoy of ten cars to leave at once for the Foch Hospital near Paris, Lieutenant Muir," he ordered. "Yes, Sir. Immediately." I liked Martene's abrupt, military manner. There was never any doubt in my mind as to what he wanted when he gave an order. He was rough, coarse of speech, hard-boiled, bad tempered, and beloved by all who came in contact with him. His officers and soldiers would have gone through fire for him, and I think this also applied to the members of Section One. His exterior was not pleasing. He was short, fat, bumpy-faced, and never very clean. But inside he possessed qualities that men liked---honesty, justice, and unlimited courage. He inspired confidence.
Two hours after the ten cars had left, the Section was ordered to retreat, this time to Bouffemont, across the Oise River. The Germans must be coming fast. From now on my work became more and more difficult. How to keep liaison with the men and cars was a constant problem. We would arrive at one point, ambulances would be dispatched on different details and in different directions, and before their return the base would be removed. There was only one solution. Some one must stay behind until all the drivers had come in to direct them to the new base. This job naturally fell to the Section Leader. At Corbeil-Cerf I chose to wait alone. There was no use risking two people where one was quite sufficient. I was proud that every man came individually and volunteered to remain with me, some of them even insisting, and I admit that I felt damn lonely when they had gone.
However, the peasant family next door was still there, which cheered me some. I went over to talk with them and found that they also were preparing to leave. The father of the family asked me to come in and drink a glass of cider with him. "Just as well not leave it for the Boche," he said. He had fought for four years against the Germans in the last war and did not want to be captured by them now. The mother, a kindly woman slightly faded, was weeping frankly. She had never left the farm before, and knew no other world. It was everything they owned. Now they would have to leave their well-cultivated fields and glossy cows and chickens. What else could they do? The enemy was coming. I suggested that the Germans might not harm them, and that they would be better off at home than on the highroad. A picture of the endless stream of miserable refugees between Beauvais and Amiens flashed before my eyes, and I compared it to this prosperous farm. Certainly, in their places, I should have preferred the risk and stayed at home. But they would not listen to my arguments. The Germans had put the fear of God in them and they must go. As we argued two little girls and a boy came into the room and stared at us, wide-eyed and bewildered. Perhaps it was on account of the children that they were leaving. I finished my glass of cider, wished them luck, and returned to the woods by the stable, leaving them to their feverish preparations.
Off to the south I could see planes circling in combat. They were too far away for me even to hear the machine guns, and I could not tell whether it was friend or enemy that came hurtling to earth from a great height, leaving behind a streak of flame like a shooting star.
I opened a can of sardines, drew the cork from a bottle of red wine, cut myself a slice of army bread, and settled down to eat and drink. From where I sat, alone under the trees, the main road was out of sight, and from time to time I went and had a look to assure myself that the trucks and tanks that I heard constantly rumbling along were the retreating French Army and not the Germans.
Meanwhile, the peasants had left and I was alone with the woods and château, with only the cows and chickens and my thoughts for company. I wondered who would feed and care for these poor dumb animals from now on.
Several times French soldiers came into the woods. Once they brought a comrade who had been hurt in a truck accident. It had overturned and he had been lucky to escape with his life. I dressed his wounds as best I could, washing them with iodine and bandaging them. A stiff drink of rum helped, and he thanked me very much. Then two very badly wounded men were brought in. Word seemed to have gotten about that a hospital unit was there. I was the unit, and knew practically nothing about medicine. These men had been wounded in their tank by Poles, fighting with the French Army, who had mistaken them for Germans. One was practically dead and the other was crying hysterically. The idea of having been shot by his own allies seemed more than his nerves could stand, and he kept repeating that he had waved a white handkerchief, but that they had fired anyway. I did what I could to ease their pains, which was little enough.
The afternoon dragged along ever so slowly. My watch did not seem to advance at all. A few birds piped muted notes in the woods about me, and the occasional drone of motors in the sky mingled with the deep rumblings on the road below as motorized units of the French Army went by in the greatest, most disastrous retreat of history.
To change the monotony I walked down the road. A Moroccan regiment was resting there and I spoke to a captain, one of their French officers. He was a regular of the colonial infantry, thin-faced, blue-eyed, hard, and intelligent. At first he was suspicious of me, and there was a wary expression in those cold blue eyes that had seen strange things in distant lands. In them I could read unasked questions about myself---what was I doing here alone, in a uniform that was neither French nor English, but rather a combination of both? Perhaps it was my decorations from World War One that reassured him, or the explanation I gave of my presence. Anyway, his stiff reserve finally softened and we talked as friends.
"Are your men demoralized?" I asked. Not at all, Of course they did not like retreating, were not used to it. Naturally they would turn around and go back to the attack if he called on them to do so. They asked nothing better. They had had scarcely anything to eat for four days now, and ammunition was low, but that did not matter. All they asked was to fight in defense of France. Morale was excellent, but orders were to retreat, and orders must be followed. They would hold on the other side of the Oise. The Boche must never get to Paris. His regiment would die first. I imagine my friend, the Capitaine, is buried with his men in a modest little cemetery, the graves marked with plain wooden crosses, somewhere on the south bank of the River Oise. There is no doubt in my mind that he kept his word.
I gave the Capitaine what was left of my rations, hoping that he would eat. He called a junior officer and ordered it turned over to the mess. From the corner of my eye, when he thought I was not looking, I saw him take up a notch in his belt. Then and there I realized that it was not the front that had failed, it was the rear. Without food and ammunition the bravest men in the world cannot hold off a strong enemy, and it is still my belief that the French soldier of the line has yet to meet his superior in sheer bravery. I saluted the column as it filed off, and returned to my solitary retreat in the woods.
The first drivers to arrive back came in at about two-thirty. I instructed them as to where they should go, and told them to turn any of the other eight cars they might meet on the way. But I also asked them to get word up to me when every one was in. Otherwise it was impossible for me to know, and I had not the least desire to remain where I was any longer than absolute necessity required. The fast-moving German columns could not be very far away now.
Five o'clock showed on my watch. This was the hour I had set for myself to leave. And still there were the eight cars unaccounted for. The movement on the road was noticeably thinning, and the units coming by now were the ones which I knew were the last to retreat---tanks, motorized light artillery and machine-guns on motorcycles.
At a quarter past, an ambulance drove into the courtyard and pulled up in a literal cloud of dust. Hutchinson, his face wreathed in smiles as always, jumped out. "Hello, Pete," he greeted. "Had a helluva time getting back. The Frenchies said the place had been taken and did not want to let me pass." He chuckled. "I just said 'no compris French' and buzzed on by. All the cars are at Bouffemont. Let's get going." I named over the drivers that were out. "Well," he admitted, "I can't swear about Charlie Curtis. I'm sure I saw him, but I can't swear to it." We decided to wait until six, just to be sure that Charlie did not return to Corbeil-Cerf. We laughed, talked, killed the bottle of wine I had opened at lunch, and completely forgot about the damned Germans. Hutch has a contagious good humor, and although I am nineteen years his senior I never feel downhearted in his company.
No sign of Curtis at six, so we started off. Hutch led in his ambulance and I followed in the staff car. He took me along at such a clip that I had a hard time keeping up. When the roads were crowded with troops and refugees we drove over sidewalks and through fields. If there was a traffic jam I got out and with my whistle made way for the ambulance, which I explained was full of very seriously wounded. Only once did we get badly stuck and that was before Pontoise, where the last unblocked bridge across the Oise was located. German planes were bombing it and the traffic refused to budge, whistle and shout as I might. The planes missed the bridge, however, and we were soon across.
At Bouffemont we found Jimmy Worden and Burton waiting. They had been left there to tell us that the Section had moved farther on to Montmorency. This news took away my breath. Montmorency was practically a suburb of Paris, and I was beginning to learn that where we went the enemy was not far behind. Worden's statement that Curtis and all the other drivers were in reassured me, and that night we had a gala dinner in a restaurant to celebrate a reunion which in the morning no one had felt sure would ever take place. Both James and Fuller had tried to reach me, and had been turned back.