Page:Ambulance 464 by Julien Bryan.djvu/208

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"AMBULANCE 464"

have many opportunities to do this. Very often throughout the meal, we touched our glasses and drank the health of the "Capitaine" or some other member of the party; and, as usually happens over here, the last toast was to "the speedy ending of the war." After lunch they told me they wanted some bright American girls for their marraines. So It wrote down the names and addresses of four of my friends at home whom I thought would be willing to correspond with them. Then I described each one in turn and let each officer pick the one he wanted. It was very funny the way they debated about the girls. They decided that Lucot should take the youngest, who was very intelligent and quite small, because he also was young and small, although he didn't come up to the intelligence standard; the captain preferred the tall and sedate brunette because his grandmother was tall and sedate. The lieutenants had a terrible dispute over the remaining two, one of whom was a marvelous dancer and the other very beautiful. They ended the argument at last by throwing up a two-franc piece and calling the pretty girl heads and the dancer tails.

After dinner, Lucot showed me the road which the ravitaillementwagons use at night when they go up to the second and third line trenches. I don't believe the road to Esnes itself was ever in such terrible condition. As far as you could see it wound on