Читать книгу "Back from Hell" - Samuel Cranston Benson - Страница 5

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My first formal call when I got to Paris was upon Ambassador Sharp. This, however, was not until I had been in the city several days. I had become acquainted on the ship with a party of Serbians who had been mining up in Alaska and were now going back to fight the Austrians. They had some difficulty and delay in arranging their passports, so I remained with them until they got away.

When at last I called on Mr. Sharp and told him I wanted to go to Belgium, he asked me why I didn't stay and do relief work in France. He informed me that I would not be allowed to go to Belgium anyway, as the German Government had already required the United States to withdraw many of the consuls. He said my work was needed there in France. Of course I agreed with him—under the circumstances! Acting upon his suggestion and with his letter of endorsement I went to Neuilly and applied for work in the now well-known American Ambulance. I was accepted almost immediately and then I carefully removed my frock coat and folded it up. Without delay I received a uniform and equipment and set to work. The outfit was issued to me free, although men with plenty of money had to pay for theirs. I remember having my picture taken in uniform and sending it to my parishioners in the States, who wrote back and told me of the interest and comment it caused when shown at a church social.

From the outset we were very busy. I was put on the base or Paris squad in the beginning, as most all of the new men were, temporarily, and the very first night I was sent out with a Swiss Frenchman to a depot at Aubervilliers, which was being used as a receiving hospital. There on the floor of that great building many hundreds of wounded soldiers lay mutilated and suffering. Some had their jaws blown off. Others had eyes or noses gone. I shall never forget that dreary night. There was a cold rain driving and I was soaked to the skin, but there were many human beings who suffered worse than I did for their country's sake. When I saw one man who had been hit by a German dumdum or explosive bullet, I gritted my teeth. We were kept working all night transporting those poor fellows in Ford ambulances from the railroad station to the different hospitals, as the French officers instructed. On each trip we carried three lying-down cases, or if the wounded could sit up we conveyed five. For some time thereafter this was our main work.

But after several weeks had passed, the winter began to break and with it the spring offensive opened up. I was with section two of the Ambulance, later called section Y, and a very capable man from the Middle West, was in charge as commander. This section had been stationed at Beauvais, doing local duty mainly, but occasionally working up toward the Soissons Sector and on a line directly south of Ypres, afterward being transferred to the East. The wounded, whom we carried, were little more than bundles of mud and rain-soaked, blood-stained masses of human pulp. Most of them were French soldiers, we being with the French forces, but we did have also quite a number of British Tommies and still more Belgians. I shall always think of those Belgians as such plucky fellows. No matter how badly wounded they were, as a rule when we talked with them, and spoke about getting the "Allemands" or the "Boches" or the "Kaiser" they would double up their fists and jocularly show fight by hitting him an imaginary undercut, or they would draw their open hands across their throats and say, "The Kaiser Kaput!"

At first I liked the Belgians best. One night we carried a Belgian soldier who had both legs and both arms fractured, and every time we made a move he must have suffered the tortures of hell, yet never a sound came from him. In fact their stoicism was remarkable; hardly ever was there any groaning or complaining.

But as time went on and we became better acquainted with the French disposition, through intimate contact with French individuals, we liked them better. At first, I had not cared much for the French. I am ashamed to say it now, as it was my own lack of appreciation, but when my eyes at last were opened, my regard for them became high and lasting.

One day after a terrible bombardment near S——, a blessé or wounded soldier, whom we had carried back to the hospital said, "Comrade, I love the Americans." I did not reply at once. He continued, "Do you love the French?" "Yes," I said, "I have come to love them very deeply. At first I did not know about it but now I do." He lay very still and white, and after a moment said, "Mutual understanding is the basis of love," and then he went to sleep. He never woke up.

Many a poor mangled poilu who was just about to "go West" spoke in the same strain, and I came to realize that the old love for America which LaFayette had kindled over a century before, still lurked in the heart of France. America threw off the tyrant's yoke in 1776, and France threw off the despot's chains in 1789, and thirteen years is a very small difference in ages between brothers, nationally speaking. Since then both Republics have made a lot of mistakes and rectified many of them, but let it be said both have made marvelous records in the development of democratic government and they are now working and fighting side by side, comrades in the cause of human liberty.