Page:Fred Arthur McKenzie - Americans at the Front (1917).djvu/31

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AMERICANS AT THE FRONT.

at the advanced post had been aided: When darkness came, all were got back. The four Americans engaged, Wendell and Hollinshead, McCreery and Harden, were all decorated with the Croix de Guerre, on the representations of the French authorities who witnessed what they had done.

For two weeks the work at Verdun went on night and day. There was active fighting at the front, and the wounded, carried by stretcher bearers to the dressing station, must be brought along to the bigger post at Verdun. The dressing station, the Sappe de Belfort, was an underground shelter, situated partly under the roadway itself in a very exposed part and fairly close up to the German line. It could only be approached at night time in absolute darkness. Even a cigarette light would have drawn fire.

A shell struck two of the doctors they were helping, and one was killed and the other wounded. Several of the ambulance cars were hit, and one of them pretty well pounded to pieces. The journey to the poste was highly exciting. "On my first three trips," wrote Mr. Norton to his brother, "an artillery wagon with its horses and men was knocked out immediately in front of me. Night after night this went on—past the ruined and silent railway station, over

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