The Prescott daily news., 1915-08-13
Close to Bursting Shell.

Boom! A sudden explosion on the other side of the town that sounded like stage cannon in 'Shenandoah;' sudden high pitched vail with an in termittent hiss in it like rocket with q crooked stick. and-baDg!-a shell burst less than 100 yards from us with n tearing. shattering report that bowed us over our plates as though q leaden pipe had been dropped across our neckS.
 And so it went for thirty minutes until the smelling ceased as suddenly as it had begun. The medecin chef gave us each an extra glass of cognac, which we gratefully swallowed in one gulp. Les boches on dit: Bon soir!' he said, laughing, and it was a pleasant thing to find oneself laughing too.
 AS the church bell was tolling II o'clock that night a sudden light shone into our eyes. and we looked from our blankets at sleepy orderly who stood in the stable doorway and beckoned with ghostly forefinger
 Hill II. at once, he saia~f larsely and clattered away down the court yard, looking gigantic behind his can dle flame.
 Without single light, but with a cloudy moon to guide us, the car moved along the deserted streets, feeling its way through the tree shadows. Sen tries are jumpy folk at these hours, and a moving lantern in the middle of the road brought us to a dead stop while throaty 'Qui vive! from the darkness at the side marked where a rifle probably covered us.
 "The password-and then on again until 'Hin IT was reached This time we left the car as close against the nearest dugouts as possible, for now the stray and wild bullets were zip dipping overhead and along the road as thick as June bugs around a candle, and, though most were stopped by the barrcades or flew too high, there were plenty looking for billet. A dim red light showed us the 'Poste de Secours
 Surgeons Night Work.
 We shufIled down it's passage and entered. One of two lanterns was smoking badly, and 1t was through haze that we saw, at one end of chamber perhaps forty feet long by ten wide. in which one had to stoop, five or six slightly wounded infantry men asleep on the straw which cover cd the earthen floor; at the other end n rude operating table. from which two orderles were lifting the cause of our tourney. In corner the surgeon was washing his red hands In basin. That was all.
 But perhaps not quite all.
 ''The orderlies whispered encourag- ingly into ears that did not hear as they strove to quiet the rolling to and fro of the bundle of red and White bandage which was head or bound to the stretcher the twitching arms and legs in which the broken nerves were struggling Presently, however, they stopped lifted and passed out under the stars We started to follow with the accouterments and rife, but the surgeon dried his hands and stopped us In silence he picked up an infan- try tunic, bloodstained and cut into ribbons by shrapnel and his scissors. From an inside pocket he drew let ter, creased and smeared with blood.
 "'Gardez bien pour lui,' he said as he handed it to us, and just inside the envelope we could see a piece of press ed white lilac. as clean and unspotted as on the day some one who had been left behind had put 1t there.
 "We were glad after all that one of the lanterns was smoking"