New Britain herald., 1917-08-16
HOSPITAL THREE
 STORIES IN EARTH
Ambulance Driver Writes Of Ex-
 perienCeS on West Front

Chicago, Aug. 16.-In a personal letter received in Chicago from Rob- ert Redfield, one of the young men mentioned in a recent official citation for merit, there is a description of the circumstances under which the ambulance section worked. The let- ter was dated July Is. It says:
 T know there is certainly no way that in writing I can give you any idea of the experiences I have passed through and the things l have seen. I might just as we'll conffne my re- marks to I am well and hope you . are the same
 "At present I am writing on a hard wood table under an electric desk lamp. I am within a few hundred yards of the German trenches, and hell is loose above me. But here it is perfectly quiet; I am three stories below ground. Here I wait till my car is needed. The air is fresh but somewhat damp; the place is dark. cluttered with stretchers; brancar- dlers pass in and out.
 Across the table sits an officer at a switch board. Every little while, perhaps once every five minutes men come in by the communication trenches, bearing silent, wounded sol- iiers. They are carried into a small room in the second cellar and tha surgeons begin their work. T am surprised at the excellent | control I have over my nerves. This afternoon I opened a box of sardines, l carefully spread the fish on a hunk l of bread, and ate the light lunch l with relish while priest heard cons l fession of a dying man nearby. | l know it sounds hea yf1ess b,1t 1pe hoa to develop the faculty of giving opi- ates to ones sympathetic reactions l Ut is only afterward that I re- member these horrors-a man with l face torn away: a shameful animal thing out of which came slight in- l describable sound, a man suffering from shell shock, mind gone, every muscle of his body quivering.
 Sky Split and Sundered.
 Well, if I am on deck and they have a load of wounded ready [ emerge from the quiet cavern into a world where the sky is shattered, split, sundered by report after report. The earth shakes and quivers. Aero planes above, 75s below, German ar tillery over the hill, the shriek of shells passing above.
 R Somehow Flames and I start the ' wounded. We are off, at first through narrow, cluttered streets of a placa ] where a town once was. Then we dip into a stretch of road marked in l our maps 'unavoidably dangerous It is about three-quarters of a mile long. Up the valley we can see the German positions.
 Bang! Bang! Crashn everywhere. In spite of the souls in agony behind us, we tear madly down this stretch with every ounce of power the car has. Once safe around the corner, we go slowly until we deliver our load at the hospital.
 ! Three of our cars have been hit by shells, two put temporarily out of commission. One car hit new shell hole two nights ago and tipped over | The driver left the car to find tele- ! phone, and when he returned he 1 found a shell had passed through the | drivers seat.
 No Hate For Germans.
 " have no hatred of the Germans. l Somehow I am beyond that. Even l when they came down in aeroplanes l on our hospital the other night and l with bombs killed and wounded four teen, including nurses, I could not summon hatred-only horror and wonder.
 "On one trip I carried g. half dozen French doctors and one wounded man, a 'couche' of considerable inter. est. He was a Prussian first lieuten- ant, the highest officer taken in tha l recent attack. After lying in tha' trenches for day he was brought in with the remaining French wounded. When we unloaded him I addressed him in German: 'Guten Morgen, Herr Lieutenant; vie beflnden Sic sich? He answered in German, but I soon l discovered he spoke excellent Eng- fish. I had only admiration for him,
 He had such magnificent control oveI himself.
 He lay on his stretcher in the cen- 1 ter of a ring of questioning French men, One leg was badly torn. His face, with thin, straight nose, color- less lips and wide, intellectual eyes. betrayed no pain or any emotion. AS he answered the questioners in his | fawless French he took off his round shell-rimmed glasses and with a p1eceS of rag cleaned them with care, set< ting them back on his ears.
 ''I am 'en repos' now for two days< Then I shall have two days of the safe and easy work of evacuation, then two more of repose. This is good after forty-eight hours duty at the Poste de Secours."
 OPPOSES IRISH REPUBLIC.