CHAPTER I

AT THE FRONT

In the midst of our work at a base camp, there came a sudden call to go
"up the line" to the great battle front. Leaving the railway, we took
a motor and pressed on over the solidly paved roads of France, which
are now pulsing arteries of traffic, crowded with trains of motor
transports pouring in their steady stream of supplies for the men and
munitions for the guns. Now we turn out for the rumbling tank-like
caterpillars, which slowly creep forward, drawing the big guns up to
the front; then we pass a light field-battery. Next comes a battalion
of Tommies swinging down the road, loaded like Christmas trees with
their cumbrous kits, sweating, singing, whistling, as they march by
with dogged cheer toward the trenches.

We have crossed the Somme with its memories of blood, on across
northern France, and now we have passed the Belgian frontier and are in
the historic fields of Flanders, where the creaking windmills are still
grinding the peasants' corn, and the little church spires stand guard
over the sleeping villages. A turn of the road brings us close within
sound of the guns, which by night are heard far across France and along
the coasts of England. Soon we enter villages, which lie within range
of the enemy's "heavies," with their shattered window glass, torn
roofs, ruined houses, tottering churches, and deep shell holes in the
streets. Now we are in the danger zone and have to put on our
shrapnel-proof steel helmets, and box respirators, to be ready for a
possible attack of poison gas.