Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1916-02-27

heavy chains and an accelerated rum
BILE of something great and irresistible
bearing down on him with uncon-
trollab1e momentum.
He cannot turn to the right, for there
are many wagons so with all his might
he swerves to the left. half expecting the
car to go over an embankment he knows
to be somewhere at this part of the road.
Instantly the thing. drawn by wild, I'M
governable horses, dashes by with sick
enng rattle and humping. missing the am
bulance SO narrowly that the driver has
felt the danger as though of q hot gust of
air.
Little by little the wagons disperse
through the woods to the various bat
teries. They take roads changed day by
day to counterfeit the range calculations
practically alone except for the ploddinE
masses of troops. It is very near the
trenches now for above-ground work. The
flashes of rifles and grenades exploding
in the first line can he seen on a little
rise of the hill to the right.
The Germans are beginning to open fire
on the road, for he hears the crashes
in front and smells the suffocating
smoke of shells exploded short
time ago over the spot he is now passing
He knows many of the larger shell holes
in The road, but frequently the car bumps
dangerously into others. and it seems at
times that something must give. 1t is
hardly a road now, but continuation
of shell holes. No vehicles are allowed
to pass but the ambulances.
The driver scans sharply the right OF
the road and finally pulls up at some
thing that looks like low mound. he
blows the horn softly and almost IN
stantly two brancardiers come up from
somewhere 1t is the trench post just
back of the third line from where the call
was sent some time ago. In the day
time the ambulances remain some distance
back under the cover OF the WOODS anu
the wounded are carried down in trenches.
Several months ago this post was in
an old stone house where the mound
now stands. 1t has since been razed
by the almost incessant shell hre, ana the
post is now deep under the ground where
the cellar of the house was. Previously
many of the doctors and attendants were
killed by the fire.
AS the driver dismounts there is
heavy crash as a shell explodes some
distance away. apparently on the road
he has just come over. The French
guns seem to have become silent, and
now the Germans are directing an oc-
casional fire at the batteries along the
road. The driver hopes 1t VIII stop oy
the time he goes back.
There is a wounded lieutenant. the
brancardiers hastily explain, too badly
hurt TO be brought down by the regu-
lar stretcher carriers. Would mon
sieur go over into the woods where he
lies? Half dozen soldiers spring out
from the darkness and follow the car
as it continues over a section of road
seldom taken by the soldiers. who pre-
fer the trenches running up to the
first line along the sides The car
passes around a dead horse that prob
ably strayed from somewhere in back
and was caught by a shell. Now the
trenches are everywhere.
The driver stops the motor and the
soldiers push the car along. This is to
avoid attracting the attention of the
Germans. only screened from sight by
the blackness. Frequently rife ball
pings past the car as some German
shooting at the French trenches holds
his rifle too high. During an attack
being hit.
Finally, when within a few hundred
feet of the first line, they pull up at
another mound along the road and the
car is quietly turned around while two
men carry something over. It is a man
on a stretcher: but it is too dark to Zee
low groan as the stretcher is unavoid-
ably jolted on its way into the car. A
hand is raised and voice pleads,
Have mercy and go slowly"
ut Is very bad. be quick" the BRAN