CHAPTER VII Getting In

Camps and training schools, learning how and drilling. This was the lot of Young America in the latter days of the year 1917 and in the earlier months of the succeeding year, a year long to be remembered and to cut a mighty figure in the history of the United States.

Bloody are the annals of this year of 1918, severe the sacrifices that led the nation into its tragic paths of glory, but so noble and just has been the purpose behind our act of war and so humane our conduct that the whole sane world has applauded. All honor to the fighters first and all praise to the men and the women, young and old, who aided and encouraged the fighters with abundant humanity at home and on the field of strife.

We think of war and see its tragedies mostly through the eyes of the military, but to some of the unarmed participants have come the bitterest experiences and the opportunities for the bravest deeds.

Donald Richards, late student at old Brighton and now Red Cross ambulance driver, too young to enlist as a soldier, but nevertheless keen for action and to do his bit and his best, at once so interested his superiors that after he had fully qualified they quickly placed him where his craving for thrills and work worth while should be amply satisfied. In February, after a month of training he sailed across the big pond in a transport laden with troops and met no mishaps on the way.

Three weeks after landing in France the boy found himself in the midst of military activities and the most urgent hospital work. He was clad to his own satisfaction, mostly at his own expense, in khaki. He had become a capable mechanic on automobiles, was well practised in roughing it, in picking his way in strange country, and above all in the fine art of running, with wounded passengers, swiftly and smoothly over rough roads.

First as an assistant driver, then with a car of his own and a helper, he had been assigned to duty along the great highway leading from Paris to Amiens. Like many others in the area of military activity, this road had been well built, rock-ballasted and hammered hard with normal travel, in the days before the world war, but now, from the wheels of great munition trucks and motor lorries, the wear and tear of marching feet and from little care after long rains, it had been soaked into a sticky mass, with a continuation of holes and ruts, puddles and upheavals. A cross-road led from the Amiens highway straight east toward the battle front and into the wide territory of France held by the enemy. The German front line was not more than seven miles from the evacuation hospitals on this cross-road. These centers of mercy were where the badly wounded were sent for quick, emergency operations, which saved many lives. Between these evacuation hospitals and the Red Cross base hospital in an old château a few miles outside of Paris and also near the Amiens road the comparatively few Red Cross cars and the score or more of Army ambulances plied almost continuously when there was anything doing at the front. And for the most part there was something doing.

From the twenty-first of March, when the terrific drive of the Huns carried them nearly to Amiens, and during which time they occupied Montdidier, until the middle of June, there was pretty constant shelling and scrapping throughout this area. The great German offensive began in March, only a few days before Donald Richards started to run his own ambulance, so that almost his first duties were most urgent and strenuous.

“Whatever the Doctor, Major Little, in command up there, tells you to do, do it,” was the order the boy received from the chief at the base hospital, “but your regular duty is to bring the wounded from the evacuation hospitals, or from the dressing stations to us, when so ordered. Of course, we don’t want to subject our men to the danger of going up to the lines any more than is absolutely necessary, and we surely do not want you to get hurt, my boy, but this war and the call of duty must be heeded first. Either the surgeons at the dressing stations or Major Little and his assistants at the cross-roads hospitals will tell you where to take the wounded. Critical cases are first operated on at the evacuation hospitals so as to save time, but shell shock, slight wounds, men not very seriously gassed, and merely sick men are brought here direct from the field. Hence it will be best for you, if there are no wounded to be brought away from the evacuation hospitals, to go to the dressing stations or into a battle area, to get the wounded in your car anyway you can. For the most part they will be brought to you by stretcher bearers; of course, some will come themselves. I see you have on your steel helmet. Wear it regularly.

“You must prepare yourself for some horrible sights, my boy. Above all things, no matter how much you may be scared, and you will be, don’t lose your nerve. No one, especially at your age, can be blamed for being somewhat flabbergasted under fire, while seeing men killed, maimed, blown to bits by shells, and all that sort of thing, but you must try to overcome this. And be sure to have your gas-mask always handy.

“Now then, have everything in tiptop shape according to our methods; you had better take a hot bath, wear clean under-clothing and brush your teeth. Get a good meal and be sure to take a lot of chocolate with you give out where needed. You should also have extra blankets in case you get hurt, or your car crippled and you have to sleep out. The weather is moderating now and I think it will continue so, but there will be cold rains. Now then, be off in an hour and good luck to you!”

From such a general order, Don saw clearly enough that he would be his own boss a great deal of the time, and that much of his most important work must be carried on according to his own judgment. The boy of sixteen, who had never really engaged in anything more strenuous than mere sport, except the arresting of the German spy back home, was now brought face to face with the duties and responsibilities that were fully man-size.

Don prepared himself quickly for any undertaking that might be before him. He made everything ready as the chief had suggested. He insisted also that the same be done by his helper, Billy Mearns, a city-bred young man who was just now getting familiar with handling and repairing a motor car.

Presently they started. The little truck, new, smooth-running and responsive, delighted the boy. His first duties as helper had been in a rattletrap machine, which ran only when it felt like it and in which they carried convalescents from the base hospitals to a place with terraced gardens and verandas two hundred miles farther south.

Don’s new duties exhilarated him and as he turned his car northward he could have said, with Macduff, when that warrior sought to meet Macbeth, the master war-maker: “That way the noise is. Tyrant show thy face!” for, boy-like, yet with a thorough understanding of the situation, secretly desirous of taking some part—he did not know what—in fighting, he had smuggled a sporting rifle into his car, and he carried a long-barreled revolver in a holster on his hip.

“You see,” he confided to Billy Mearns—they called each other by their first names almost from the moment of meeting—“we don’t know what we are up against, and I hope I may be hanged, drawn and quartered, as the old pirates used to say, if I let any blamed Hun sneak around me without trying to see if he is bullet-proof.”

“Right-o!” agreed Mearns. “But, for goodness’ sake, don’t get too anxious and take some of our Yanks for Heinies! If you do and I’m along, me for wading the Atlantic right back home! They’d do worse than draw and quarter us; mebbe they’d even pull out our hair or tweak our noses.”

“Pshaw! Anybody who couldn’t tell a Hun, day or night, ought to have—”

“His nose examined, eh? Oh, you sauerkraut and onions!”