enough on horse-mate," exclaimed the major, "especially when I've
none of it at all!" So he unhitched one of his black horses from the
ambulance-wagon, and, taking a saddle from an orderly, tore off his
_brassard_ and other ambulance insignia, threw away his cap, so as not
to compromise us, and rode bareheaded down to the very frontest of
the front. The advance were lying crouched down in the rifle-pits,
awaiting the signal to storm the village. Motioning to the amazed
soldiery, he cried, still in his horrible French, "Now or never!
_Voilà_ Bourget! Follow me! See, there's Bourget. Sooivez moi!" All
this to the rattle of German musketry. Seeing that he got no response
in one place, he rode madly to the other rifle-pits and repeated the
invitation, the officers shouting to him as he passed that he was
riding into certain death, and conjuring him to save himself. But the
major could not or would not understand them. Finally, some officers
ran out, and, taking him forcibly from his horse, led him away.

The major often went on commissions from our camp on the Avenue de
l'Impératrice down into the city. In those days many of the young
French swells, to keep from going into the field, had donned the
ambulance uniform and passed their time loafing about the cafés in the
Boulevards. This became so great a scandal that Trochu was obliged
to issue an order forbidding the uniform to be worn except on active
duty. One day, as the major, bound on some errand in the interest of
a Frenchman lying wounded in our hospital, was majestically riding
his superb stallion Garryowen down the Champs Élysées, his long tawny
side-whiskers waving gently in the breeze, his wiry frame erect as
a ramrod, the blue regulation-coat buttoned close to his throat with
American buttons, the International _brassard_ on his arm and the
ambulance shield on his cap,--as the major, I say, sailed down in this
state, he was hailed by one of the chiefs of the French ambulance,