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He waited for her eyes to open, then hailed her genially as he waved at a tangle of camions and ambulances now blocking the bridge. "Worse'n fair week back home on Main Street, hey, sister?" But she did not hear him, for a battered young second lieutenant with one arm in a sling had joined her from the dusk of the church. "Done up, nurse?" he demanded. "Only for a second.
It should have some great poem all to itself, I thought; a poem called "The Road to Verdun." And the poem should be set to music. I could almost hear the lilt of the verses as our car slipped through the tangle of motor camions and gun-carriages on the way thither.
There were Y. M. C. A. people on their way to the various camps, reconstruction workers intending to build temporary homes for the homeless French, and youngsters in the uniform of the American Field Service, going over to drive camions and ambulances; many of whom, without undue regret, had left college after a freshman year.
I told General Nivelle that the hospital staff intended to keep the child for the soldier until the end of the war, and we all hoped that he might grow up to the glory of France and to the eternal honour of the tender-hearted fighter who had rescued him. After lunch we stood for some time watching the unending stream of camions proceeding into Verdun.
I thought how simple it would be, to spring up and throw myself under one of the huge, rushing camions: how easily the thing might be taken for an accident if I stage-managed it well. The Becketts would be angels to Brian when I was gone! But the dreamer of the dream would not let me stir hand or foot.
There will be plenty to see on the way, and enough to talk about." At one point Captain Ribaut directed the soldier-driver to turn the machine into a field. Here the Americans alighted to see seemingly endless streams of French "camions" go by. These are heavy motor trucks that carry supplies to the front.
I told General Nivelle that the hospital staff intended to keep the child for the soldier until the end of the war, and we all hoped that he might grow up to the glory of France and to the eternal honour of the tender-hearted fighter who had rescued him. After lunch we stood for some time watching the unending stream of camions proceeding into Verdun.
Almost immediately we turned into the Verdun route we met again the caravan of automobiles, of camions, as the French say. It still flowed on without break. Now, too, we entered the main road, the one road to Verdun, the road that had been built by the French army against just such an attack as was now in progress.
His chief weakness was his proclivity for road-burning, in which he was enthusiastically abetted by our Sicilian chauffeur, who, before attaining to the dignity of driving a staff-car, had spent an apprenticeship of two years in piloting ammunition-laden camions over the narrow and perilous roads which led to the positions held by the Alpini amid the higher peaks, during which he learned to save his tires and his brake-linings by taking on two wheels instead of four the hairpin mountain turns.
It was curious to turn out of the broad, busy, populous avenue, crowded with trams, omnibuses, and camions, into the narrow, quiet street, which seemed all stone walls and big doors. There was another hospital and a prison in the street, which naturally gave it rather a gloomy aspect, but once inside the courtyard of the Convent there was a complete transformation.
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