was a strange crew that inhabited these quarters; there were idealists,
dreamers, men out of work, simple rascals and adventurers of all kinds.
To my right slept a big, young Westerner, from some totally unknown
college in Idaho, who was a humanitarian enthusiast to the point of
imbecility, and to the left a middle-aged rogue who indulged in secret
debauches of alcohol and water he cajoled from the hospital orderlies.
Yet this obscure and motley community was America's contribution to
France. I fell asleep.

"Up, birds!"

The lieutenant of the Paris Section, a mining engineer with a
picturesque vocabulary of Nevadan profanity, was standing in his pajama
trousers at the head of the room, holding a lantern in his hand. "Up,
birds!" he called again. "Call's come in for Lah Chapelle." There were
uneasy movements under the blankets, inmates of adjoining beds began to
talk to each other, and some lit their bedside candles. The chief went
down both sides of the dormitory, flashing his lantern before each bed,
ragging the sleepy. "Get up, So-and-So. Well, I must say, Pete, you have
a hell of a nerve." There were glimpses of candle flames, bare bodies
shivering in the damp cold, and men sitting on beds, winding on their
puttees. "Gee! listen to it rain," said somebody. "What time is it?"
"Twenty minutes past two." Soon the humming and drumming of the motors
in the yard sounded through the roaring of the downpour.

Down in the yard I found Oiler, my orderly, and our little Ford
ambulance, number fifty-three. One electric light, of that sickly yellow
color universal in France, was burning over the principal entrance to
the hospital, just giving us light enough to see our way out of the
gates. Down the narrow, dark Boulevard Inkerman we turned, and then out