Page:Ambulance 464 by Julien Bryan.djvu/103

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
"AMBULANCE 464"
67

not supposed to carry any soldiers and this wasn't an ideal place to stop. But the poor fellow was dead tired and I knew if he felt worse than I did he'd be mighty thankful for a lift. So I pulled on my emergency and yelled to him to throw his bike over the hood and jump in himself if he wanted a ride down to Dombasle . . . . I left him saying "Merci, Monsieur, Merci," outside of the village just at sunrise and went on to Ville with my blessés. I got back to the cantonment at 6:30, having had no rest for more than thirty hours and getting something like five hours sleep in the last fifty. Two of the men had been on duty at Post Two before, and worked for more than forty hours without sleep.

A wonderful surprise came today, a box from home. Besides a lot of food which included twenty packages of chewing gum, some crackers and a two pound box of chocolates which disappeared like brancardiers when a shell whistles, there were a dozen magazines, a pair of shoes, a compass which I will probably use more in Paris than out here, and some good photographic paper which I can't get in France. The crackers lasted five minutes, the candy until supper time, and I have one package of gum left. But no matter how fast the stuff disappeared, it was certainly great fun getting it.