Ambulance no10 : personal letters from the front . have taken me by theback way that time too. 8 AMERICAN AMBULANCE On the other side of the hill on our rightextended the famous Bois-le-Pretre; butit is no longer a wood — it is just a wilder-ness with a few brown stumps sticking you like to go into the Bois? Iwas asked. I felt I had been in as muchdanger as I was likely to get into, so Isaid yes, and we turned to the left andmounted a steep hill and entered it. Herethe birds were singing and all was greenand beautiful (it was a part where the ar-tillery had not been) but one could see
Ambulance no10 : personal letters from the front . have taken me by theback way that time too. 8 AMERICAN AMBULANCE On the other side of the hill on our rightextended the famous Bois-le-Pretre; butit is no longer a wood — it is just a wilder-ness with a few brown stumps sticking you like to go into the Bois? Iwas asked. I felt I had been in as muchdanger as I was likely to get into, so Isaid yes, and we turned to the left andmounted a steep hill and entered it. Herethe birds were singing and all was greenand beautiful (it was a part where the ar-tillery had not been) but one could seetrench after trench deserted. Here was anofficers cemetery, a terribly sad sight, sixhundred officers graves. Close by werealso the graves of eighteen hundred sol-diers. The little cemetery was quite im-pressive on the side of this lovely greenhill with the great trees all around and thelittle plain wood crosses at each grave. Aswe waited a broken-down horse appearedwith a cart-load of what looked like oldclothes — Les Morts. I had never seen. FIELD SERVICE 9 a dead body until that moment. It was ahorrible awakening — eight stiff, semi-detached, armless, trunkless, headlessbodies, — all men like ourselves with peo-ple loving them, — somewhere, — all gonethis way, — because of — what? I dontknow, do you? A grave had been dug twometres deep, large enough to hold sixteen,and then we were asked to group ourselvesaround the car to be taken pour sou-venir. I managed to do it. I stood thereby those dead men and tried to look as if itwere a natural thing to do. I felt like be-ing sick. Then one by one they were low-ered into the grave, and when they wereall laid out the identification started totake place — the good boots were takenoff — and if a coat was not too bloody ortorn it was kept — Surely we must begoing, I said. No, no! not before wehave shown you the dead in the fossethere. Good God, I cried, I cant dothat now; and I did nt. We returned 10 AMERICAN AMBU
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectvoluntaryworkers
