A LETTER FROM THE FRONT

With somewhere between seven hundred and a thousand Dartmouth men now engaged in active service of one sort and another, the College is constantly in receipt of interesting and informative letters relative to the work that these patriotic men are doing. Many of these letters are of a personal and private nature, and cannot be published; many others, however, although addressed to individuals, contain news that is of interest to all readers. The editors of the MAGAZINE, believing that the alumni as a body will appreciate the opportunity of learning at first) hand the details of the service Dartmouth men are rendering, have inaugurated the policy of printing in each issue at least one letter of this sort. For this month they have selected from the material at hand a vivid account of the work of an ambulance driver on the French front during one dreadful night in August. This letter was written to his parents by Stanley B. Jones '18, who went to France with the first Dartmouth ambulance unit last May. Mr. Jones writes:

"I want to tell you about the worst forty-eight hours I have ever spent, in which I saw enough war to last me the remainder of my life. If people could only see and hear it all at firsthand there never would be any more of it. This is an uncertain life and no mistake. At 1.15 yesterday morning I was awakened by the telephone operator with a call for two more additional ambulances at the field headquarters. Most of the cars were malade from the driving and continual work of the previous week. I ran up through the dark street in my pajamas, watching the continual lightning of the guns against the surrounding blackness.

"I routed out young Stvetzling from Pittsburg as he had had two days' rest, and as his partner was ill' and as there was no time to be lost by reason of the urgency of the call, I jumped into the ambulance with him. It was pitch dark and we had to creep along, blowing our whistle and using our spotlight frequently as artillery trains and munition wagons rumbled by us. These latter vehicles like to occupy the crown of the roads, knowing full well that they are not the losers in case of collision, with their huge steel-bound hubs.

'We finally reached headquarters and found only three of the cars parked in the wrecked square. After searching through the shell-torn apartment which we occupy here with the rats—and, by the way, you have never seen a real rat until you see one of these boys which are close kin to the gray wolf,—we ran down to the dressing station where we found the doctor, and four of the boys asleep, 'all in' from fatigue. We received orders to hasten as rapidly as possible to the first outpost, for the Boches had launched a sudden and tremendous attack, and the doctor was swamped with calls for immediate help from all posts.

"Out into the darkness again we went, with the guns just tearing things loose, and passed the start of what was to be a continual procession to the rear, comprising wagons, guns and worn-out soldiers, many without helmets or guns and all looking like clay figures in the dusk which comes just before the dawn. Upon turning the last corner before reaching the post, half a mile distant, the awful force of the bombardment hit us along with the worst and thickest gas attack we have experienced thus far. The shells had fairly torn the forest glen all through the valley to pieces. Great trees were down, their white and twisted trunks flung in every direction and their foliage and branches strewn along the road.

"Heaps of new earth arose everywhere between shell holes still smoking, and new ones being made every moment. One burst right behind us, and the noise was terrible with the French 75's all cracking away in the rear. The air about us was simply a place of rushing winds, whistles and the short chug-chug of the arriving Boche shells, making our hearts beat rapidly. We stopped and put on our gas masks, after the sweetish odor had become acrid and burning in our throats and the tears had begun to flow copiously down our cheeks. It is very difficult to see clearly through the mica goggles of the gas masks as they become misty from the breathing very soon and that, added to the difficulty of perceiving anything distinctly through the gas, which settles here in the valley like a dense, bluish-gray fog, makes a drive through it in the dark anything but pleasurable and safe.

"With frequent removal of the gas masks from our faces and repeated use of our little flash light, passing through a valley which proved to- be an inferno of noise and destruction, we finally reached the door of the dugout at the outpost, nearly all in. The little place lighted by three candles, was a veritable bee-hive. The entry was lined with brancardiers, jabbering excitedly and shrieking unconsciously at every concussion of the shells which landed on the hillside and on the very roof of the dugout, which fortunately was about forty feet thick and made of sod, stone and logs.

"A young soldier was laid out on a brancard, improvised into an operating table by the addition of legs and a tired young doctor in khaki was ting a temporary bandage on a jagged wound in his shoulder. Beyond the young soldier on. a bench sat a row of wounded with heads and arms bandaged and all looking stonily before them and apparently noticing nothing. In a cut-in place in the wall sat a black-robed priest, a ruddy-faced, kindly man, who wears a red ribbon of the Legion of Honor and the red and green of the Croix de Guerre. He is always at this point and had a kind word and smile for everybody. Upon hooks hung helmets, knapsacks, old overcoats, belts, etc. The odor of iodine and alcohol filled the place, with a whiff of gas whenever the door opened. In a short time we received a call to proceed to the out-post on a ridge on the top of which the French trenches run via a road where the bloodiest of battles have been fought. We ducked and ran low to the machine and cranked up.

"Believe me, we shook hands and declared that if we were not hit it would be the luckiest thing and also the most improbable that ever came our way. We crept up the road, torn and battered with branches and earth, past broken carts and wounded horses plunging and falling and, every now and then, a goggled figure flitting past us or into an opening in the earth like a strange gnome and the air fairly splitting with the crash of the shells all the time. We finally reached higher ground where the gas was weak and we unmasked and it was certainly a relief to breathe the air once more. All along before us the fuses and star shells were arching up and hanging in midair, and the rattle of the machine guns and rifles formed a minor accompaniment to the awful roar of the artillery. We backed up the steep road almost to the poste entrance stripping the fence from one side of the little plot of graves, many of them only a day old and fresh excavations waiting.

"Our load was awaiting us. At once we helped in four couches, that is, men so badly wounded that they have to lie down, and two assis, or those capable of sitting down. It was a heavy load, as our car was of limited capacity. Finally the head brancardier (stretcher bearer) slammed the ambulance door and with his mates hastened into the underground hole again as we started back with our suffering load. The Boches were pelting hell out of the wooded ridge 100 yards across the road, as a battery of 75's was hidden there, and the shock of the concussion when the shells landed and the rolling clouds of black smoke which rose with fragments of trees and bushes in their midst made us pray that one of the missiles would not fall a bit short. We slid down the narrow, winding road, avoiding so far as possible recently made shell holes on the way, over a corduroy strip which made it very hard for the poor blesses, or wounded, in our care.

"The real party, however, was yet to come. Into the tattered woods again we went, straining our eyes, and one of us walking ahead every little while to lead the driver, as it were, and the suffering blesses moaning pitifully. Then came the real surprise. A little railroad track ran parallel with the road, and about fifteen feet above it on a valley ridge, for the purpose of conveying shells, etc., to the batteries. Since we had crossed this little roadway en route out, one of the largest and most destructive Boche shells had fallen upon the railway at the crossing of the wagon road and transformed the former into a twisted mass of steel and produced a crater about twenty feet across and fifteen feet deep and thus effectually halted our return trip. After a hurried survey my associate and myself decided to try and get our machine with its precious load up the steep hill, around the crater and on to a continuation of the little railway track for a distance of 100 yards until it crossed the road again.

"It was a nerve-racking job, believe me, with that smoking hole beside us and smaller ones on every sidewe bounded over the pitted ground, passed the crater, dropped down two feet— which brought agonizing cries from the poor chaps inside,—on to the track. There was just spacer enough to run a hair line with a wheel on each side of the track, without slipping over the barrier of braided withes and stakes, into a ditch two feet deep. Well, we barely crawled along, but to no avail. The dirt crumbled away on one side and with a sickening lurch over went our car.

"It was terrible and I hope never again to have a similar experience. My associate opened the door and I ran down the road for another car which I had observed. Fortunately we were able to get this car within 100 yards of us. Running back to our disabled ambulance, I met our two assis hurrying down the road as best they could, one poor couché painfully hobbling along with his bandages badly disarranged. Two poilus were carrying another on a stretcher while my coworker and myself took the remainder.

"A shell struck 50 feet ahead of us, but fortunately struck a bank of earth. This shell was apparently aimed at a company of soldiers located near by. In a very few minutes we were in the midst of soldiers who were struggling, running, gasping, some throwing their knapsacks and heavy coats on the ground and relieving themselves of all impediments. We endeavored to enlist their co-operation in gathering together and reloading our suffering charge, but they hurried by shouting: 'The Boche comes ! The Boche comes!' They were being relieved by another division, but seemed to be dominated by the one desire, i. e., to escape that hell before they were killed.

"I now realize more fully than before what it means to be in a panic when reason disappears and the sole thought is one of personal safety. Continually we looked over our shoulders into the dim woods, momentarily expecting to catch a glimpse of the Boche troops pursuing us. Of course all this seems foolish now when danger is past, but when surrounded by fleeing soldiers shouting the near approach of enemy, and with each one seeking his own, rather than the safety of his neighbor, the temptation is great to look out for number one to the exclusion of all others. It is a situation difficult of explanation unless one has experienced it.

"To return for a moment to our charge, we found our last couché sprawled on his face in the road and unconscious. We carried him down as gently as we could to the improvised ambulance referred to and saw our charge disappear around the bend, in the car which we had impressed into service. My associate and myself were thankful to get our wounded once more en route for the hospital and to have at least a few moments to look after our own lives. We caught our breath, put on our gas masks and ran down the road to the post in the valley again.

"It was a sight of chaos unbelievable with dugouts smashed in, rocks thrown everywhere as though the whole section had been juggled in the iron hand of a giant. Upon arriving at the post we learned that our last couché had died en route. I turned for a last hurried survey of the road, and then came a sight I shall never forget.

"Around a bend in the road which we had just traversed, and about 60 yards distant, came two horsemen on fine bay animals. As I looked, a fearful explosion shook the earth and I instinctively 'ducked' behind the passage rampart, only to observe the inside one of the two troopers throw up his hands and fall backward to the ground with a lurch which threw him clear of his horse and sent the latter galloping down past me with blood streaming from his flanks. It was a horrible sight to see a man killed right in front of my eyes and I cannot eliminate the scene from my memory. Investigation disclosed the fact that a piece of shell as large as one's hand had struck the rider full on the side of his head, killing him instantly.

"We walked back to headquarters with the fearful shell noise becoming more and more indistinct and extremely grateful for the preservation of our lives after our trying ordeal. Our entire section did splendid work and the miracle is that we are all here to tell of it. All this may sound overdrawn, but believe me it was all too real to need any embellishment. The Boches engaged in this attack comprised the flower of the army, being the Crown Prince's Imperial Guard and they certainly did raise hell. Tonight the French colonials, mostly coal black Moroccans, are going to try and come back, so we shall have plenty to do."