CHAPTER II
TO THE FRONT
THAT swift ride through France in the new Red Cross ambulance wasquite devoid of any startling incidents. There were the usual bits ofwell traveled and rutty roads and long stretches of fine highway, theoccasional detours by reason of road mending; here old men and boyslabored to keep up the important lanes of traffic for the oncominghosts of Americans and the transportation of overseas supplies. Thelads overtook heavily laden lorries, or camions as the French callthem; they passed columns of marching men and those billeted invillages or encamped in the wayside fields. They noted the slow movingforward of heavy field pieces and here and there they came to drillgrounds where lately arrived Americans were going through mock trenchfighting or were bayonet stabbing straw-stuffed bags supposed to beHuns.
Everywhere the boys observed also that there were more people in thetowns and villages than the sizes of these places seemed to warrant,and in the fields and woods, in uncultivated or otherwise barren spotslittle settlements of tents and rude shelters had been established asevidence of the wide exodus from the battle-scarred areas far to theeast and north. Hundreds of thousands of people, driven from theirruined or threatened homes, had thus overrun the none too sparselyinhabited sections beyond the war-torn region.
“_Non, non, non, non!_” That was the common refrain directed by Herbertand Donald to the solicitations of the French, for the purchase ofsundry articles, mostly of edible character, whenever the car wasforced to stop.
“If you want to get rid of your money very quickly,” Herbert explainedto the three Red Cross nurses riding with them in the rear of theambulance, “you can sure do it if you patronize these sharpers. Theirgoods are all right generally, but the prices--phew! They must thinkevery American is a millionaire.”
“And yet one must pity many of them; they have suffered and aresuffering so much,” said the eldest nurse, a sweet-faced woman whosegray hairs denoted that she was past middle age.
“They seem to be very patient and really very cheerful,” remarkedthe somewhat younger woman whose slightly affected drawl and rathersuperior bearing indicated that she belonged to the higher socialcircles somewhere back in the U. S. And then up spoke the third, a mereslip of a girl, who had been quite silent until now.
“I have wondered and wondered what it would all be like, what thepeople would be like; and now I’m glad I’ve come. Perhaps when the waris over we can do something for these----”
“We will every one of us be glad to get home again,” said thegray-haired lady. “You, my dear, will prove no exception, however nobleyour reconstructive impulses are. But these people, no matter what theyhave gone through, will be well able to take care of themselves.”
And as the car presently dashed on again, Donald remarked to Herbert,so that their passengers could not hear:
“Don’t you think, old man, it is very true when they say thatpatriotism over in the dear old United States has had a remarkableawakening?”
“Yes, you can call it that, perhaps, if we were ever really asleep.You refer, I know, to these nurses, evidently ladies of refinement andculture, coming over here for duties that they must know can’t be anycinch. The women, if anything, have led the men at home in their zealfor helping toward making our part in this scrap a good one.”
“Very good and all honor to the women,” Don said, “but I guess, fromwhat you and I have both seen and will soon see again, that which ismaking America’s part in this war a good one is mostly the scrappingability of the lads with blood in their eyes. The humane part of itcomes afterward.”
“And a little before at times also,” asserted the lieutenant. “Thereis the morale to keep up--the general good fellowship and well-being.If the boys know they’re going to be treated right if they get winged,then they’re heartened up a whole lot; you know that.”
“I do,” Don eagerly admitted. “Don’t think I’m throwing any rocks atthe splendid efficiency of the Red Cross; if anyone knows about themI ought to, from every angle of the service. But I have also seen thekind of work that threw a scare into the Huns, and believe me that wasnot a humane, not a nursing proposition, as you know.”
“Yes, I know that, too. And it may be funny, but I’ve had a sort ofhomesick feeling to get back and see more of it, and the nearer I getthe more impatient I am.”
“Same here. But this boat is doing her darndest for a long run and wecan hardly improve the time even if you get out and walk.”
“From watching your speedometer register something over thirty milesin less than sixty minutes I am convinced that only a motorcycle or anairplane would help us better to get on.”
The ambulance did get on in a very satisfactory manner. Here and therealong the road and at all turns and forks splotches of white paint onstones, posts, buildings, bridges or stakes and by which the transportand freight camions were guided, made the way across the three hundredmiles quite plain. The lads paid no attention to the French sign posts,here and there, which announced the distance in kilometers to somelarger town or city and then to Paris farther inland, for the routeavoided these places wherever possible and ran into no narrow andcongested streets or masses of people.
At the next stop, for a bite to eat in a small village, themiddle-aged nurse expressed some disappointment at not going into Paris.
“I have been there many times in former years when my dear husband wasliving; we stopped there once for several months. But they say now thatthe city is not like it used to be--I mean the people, of course, inmanners and gayety; the mourning for the dead and the fear of invasionor bombardment----”
“There is no longer fear of invasion,” Herbert declared. “That time hasgone past. The business in hand now is whipping the Huns clear acrossthe Rhine and into Berlin, if necessary, and we are going to do that inshort order!”
“It’s terrible. So much death and suffering,” said the young girl. “Andthe Germans, too; who cares for them when wounded?”
“They have a Red Cross and very excellent ambulance and hospitalservice,” Don explained. “We pick up a good many of their wounded andtreat them just as well as our own.”
“You have seen this yourself?” asked the gray-haired woman.
“My friend was in the thick of it, around Château-Thierry,” Herbertannounced eagerly. “He was wounded, invalided, but he is going back formore work.”
The women all gazed at blushing Donald, who hastened to get even.
“He needn’t heap it on to me!” he exclaimed. “He’s going back, too,after having been gassed and sent across the pond to get well. And, yousee, he got to be a lieutenant for bravery.”
“You both seem to be very young, too,” remarked the eldest nurse.“Hardly through school yet; are you?”
“No, ma’am; we are both students, junior year, at Brighton Acad----”
“Brighton? Well, I declare! Why, my brother is a teacher there;Professor Carpenter.”
“Oh, hurrah! He’s a dandy! The fellows all like him immensely!” Donshouted.
“It’s fine to meet his sister over here, Miss Carpenter,” Herbert said.
“It is indeed a pleasure to know you both,” said the lady, andproceeded to formally introduce the other two nurses.
Then they were on the road once more and two hours later had safelylanded the women at a Red Cross headquarters on the way, a few milesnorth of Paris. The boys parted from their gentle passengers with realregret; then sped on again, headed for the Army General Headquarters.
The Brighton Boys in the Argonne Forest Page 3