Page:Ambulance 464 by Julien Bryan.djvu/244

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190
"AMBULANCE 464"

me the notion that everyone ought to speak French. I became quite angry with a Tommy guarding a freight yard entrance when I politely asked him, "Ouest la Rue Cherbourg?", and he looked at me with a blank expression on his face. We had a good laugh together when I discovered my mistake.

I carted all my luggage in a taxi to the Gare du Quai d'Orsay this morning and afterwards went up to Rue Raynouard to say good-bye to the fellows. Williams, Dixon, Gilmore and Frutiger are in from our section, and a number of other men whom I met at the front, from other sections. One hundred and ten new men arrived last week and a hundred the week before. This rapid increase from the paltry fifteen who came last January on the Espagne has forced the Field Service additional quarters. Barracks are being erected all over the grounds and the annex at 5 Rue Le Kain is housing seventy or eighty more.

I spent a few hours at 21 Rue Raynouard, where I got a couple of letters and some photos to take back to America for the fellows, and bade them all farewell. Then I darted around the corner to the little convent laundry near the cinema, burst in among the startled nuns, got the shirts and handkerchiefs I had left there before I left for England and took the Metro to the Place de l'Opera. A