greatly to the difficulties of our living in a single leaking tent-twenty men with room only for twelve cots, and between them a narrow lane of mud and trampled overcoats. We sleep by shifts, but probably the troops in front do not sleep at all.

SHELLED ON THE ROAD

With rumors of fighting at Thiaumont and Fleury, the French ambulance section, which is later to replace us, was lined up beside us at Verdun, doubling the service for the night. The road to Bras was empty. From the top of the quarry hill I heard shelling in front and at the Sap de Belfort found three of our cars drawn up beside the road, but with neither drivers nor brancardiers in sight. Stopping beyond them, I walked back and called softly. There was a moment's silence, then a voice from below: "Come down, for God's sake. They're shelling h-l out of here." Almost with the words came a quick rush of sound and an explosion on the road covered me with mud. I slid down the bank to where a group was gathered in the entrance of an abri-a sheet-iron roof built into the slope, with a wooden bench and a steep run of earth steps leading underground to a dimly lit chamber. The shelling moved down the road and ceased-shortrange fire, for the whistle and explosion came almost together, and small pieces, but none of them seemed to miss the road. In the lull that followed the other cars moved on to Petit Bras, where some wounded were waiting, and I turned my car about in the narrow way, working the wheels around with my knee. The noise of its motor sounded terribly loud. We were just lifting in the top stretcher when a case of shrapnel burst low over the car with a hiss of bullets beyond. The concussion seemed to drive my head down between my shoulders, one of the Frenchmen let go of the stretcher, which canted far over, and the wounded man cried out feebly. Then we straightened it and shoved it in as a second case exploded a little to one side. I hesitated a moment, uncertain what to do, then went down to the abri to see if the other wounded could be hurried up. As I reached the shelter a shell struck almost on the roof, and again

the wounded man called out. The sergeant urged me to go on with him, but I refused to drive nearly empty to Verdun, suggesting instead that we bring him back to cover. The firing had again moved down the road. As we lifted him out a French car drove up and the driver called something I could not understand. I answered that I could handle the wounded there and for him to go on. The words were drowned in the next explosion and he staggered past me down the bank to collapse on his knees against the bench, but almost in the instant started out again in search of his companion driver. We found him, also wounded, in the next sap and, with every one under shelter, sat down a moment to rest. Again the firing moved down the road and ceased, though I could hear it in the direction of Bras. After a lull of several minutes we began reloading, but there seemed an interminable delay about getting up the second stretcher from underground. D—, passing with a load, stopped to ask how I was getting on, and told me that the other two at Petit Bras, having tangled their cars in some loose barbed wire, were sitting in a trench of water while the Germans shelled the woods about them-at Bras they were mostly in the cellar. As we started with the second stretcher up the bank the shelling recommenced, the first explosion covering us with débris, so again we returned with it and waited. Every now and again came the ringing of stones and metal on the iron roof. With the third attempt we succeeded in loading the body of the car just as their fire opened again, and from the seat I called out to ask if there were any assis to take beside me; but the sergeant answered: "Non. Partez, partez!" (No. Go on, go on!) One of my spar plugs had fouled, as it often did, and I limped down the road on three cylinders keeping just ahead of the following fire.

There were no cars but D's at Verdun, everything else being cut off by a small-scale tir-de-barrage (curtain of fire). and I was asked to return at once to the sap. I don't hesitate to say that I didn't like going, and as I started back along the empty way I found myself repeating the chorus we had sung those long months ago

A BASE HOSPITAL BEHIND VERDUN

throng-gray helmets, white masks of bandages, sagging muddy overcoats "At Verdun in the gray of dawn I found the old courtyard paved with loaded stretchers, while around the sides and in the dark archways stood a silent, bandaged and over the whole sodden mass the steadily falling rain"