Two trainloads of them arrive at Evian every day. The men and
women, mostly tubercular, do not tarry. They push on into France,
a deadly white stream.

In time the week ended that marked our first trip to the French
front. During that week we lived almost entirely in the war zone,
and under war conditions. The food was good--better than good, it
was excellent, but not plentiful, and the beds were clean and full
of sleep. The only physical discomfort we found was in the lack of
drinking water. We were warned against all local water.

My feelings on the subject of the French coffee and milk were
something like Henry's antipathy to onion soup. But we both loved
water with our meals. We had been vaccinated against typhoid, and
we were rather insistent that we could drink any kind of water, if
it was reasonably clean. But men said "this country is no place to
drink water. It has been a battle-ground and a cemetery for three
years." Still we insisted, and then, Mr. Norton, head of the American
ambulance, told us this one: "Out behind a barrage once near the
Champagne; helping the stretcher bearers; nasty weather, rain, and
cold. But there we were. We couldn't get in. We ducked from shell
hole to shell hole. Finally I found a nice deep one, with water in
the bottom--oh, maybe five feet of water in a fifteen foot hole,
and I stayed there; two days and nights. My canteen went dry, and
for a day or two I scooped water out of the shell hole and drank
it. Good enough tasting water so far as that goes, and fresh too!
But at the end of the third day, I decided it wasn't agreeing with
me and quit."

"Why?" we asked. "Did you leave the shell hole?"