Ambulance no10 : personal letters from the front . yed a daymore — the sun was glorious — the views 84 AMERICAN AMBULANCE perfect — and the woods enchanting —though shells bursting in the air took theplace of birds! We had a splendid lunch,and afterwards went out and visited thenumerous guns and trenches. I tookmany wonderful photos (cest a dire theyought to be), I saw about five different-sized guns, and then we advanced to thetrenches. Finally we reached the first line,where silence reigned supreme except forthe occasional bang of a rifle or the inter-mittent explosion of shells. We went toa
Ambulance no10 : personal letters from the front . yed a daymore — the sun was glorious — the views 84 AMERICAN AMBULANCE perfect — and the woods enchanting —though shells bursting in the air took theplace of birds! We had a splendid lunch,and afterwards went out and visited thenumerous guns and trenches. I tookmany wonderful photos (cest a dire theyought to be), I saw about five different-sized guns, and then we advanced to thetrenches. Finally we reached the first line,where silence reigned supreme except forthe occasional bang of a rifle or the inter-mittent explosion of shells. We went toan advanced post (several metres in frontof first line), and there carefully lookingthrough a hole I saw the German then expressed a wish to be able to photothem, and I was shown a place where Icould stand up and quickly get a snap-shot. I regretted having made the wish,but I saw they were looking at me, and Idid nt intend showing a white liver, so upI jumped and took two. The bullets didnot whistle all around me, as I suppose I. FIELD SERVICE 85 ought to write, and although I was suc-cessful in taking the picture I do not in-tend to try the game again. In fact, I have now seen all the trenchlife I want to — and do not mean to visitthem further. The point is that if Ishould be killed or wounded on a sight-seeing expedition it would not be verycreditable, and we run quite enough riskwhen on duty. Strange to say, I felt far less nervousin the first-line trenches than when onservice at Pont-a-Mousson or Montau-ville — in fact I felt quite a sense of se-curity in those splendidly built trenches,while in a town the shelling is so muchmore dangerous; and when you have to goout into it sitting on that little Ford jos-tling its way over the bumpy road, thesensation is not a very comfortable , as I told you before, I am afatalist now — absolutely. We made our way slowly home to Pont- 86 AMERICAN AMBULANCE a-Mousson and there saw shells burstingover a l
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectvoluntaryworkers
