Page:Ambulance 464 by Julien Bryan.djvu/112

 hadn't begun to dig before we discovered that a "gas" shell had fallen here. And it was tear gas at that. Water literally rolled from our eyes and this was soon followed by an awful choking sensation. We put on our gas masks immediately and from then on, until we found the base of the shell, buried several feet underground, we didn't remove the masks at all. We had to work very slowly, for the air is filtered through in such small quantities, that you can't breathe as you normally do when working.

Note. A month later: I carried the steel base, half full of clay, back to Dombasle, and during all the weeks we stayed here it never lost its gassy odor.

A couple of poilus and I had a grand time trying to say a few simple things to one another tonight. We sat before the fire in the damp abri where I am now writing and where the smoke hangs down from the ceiling in a cloud two feet thick. (You have to crawl on your hands and knees when you move about in the room.) While I was getting in deep over some complicated idea which I wanted to impart to them, and was gesticulating wildly to explain it, a brancardier tapped me lightly on the shoulder and said---"Encore des Blessés, Monsieur." I reluctantly put on my heavy canvas mackinaw and went out into the night. The brancardiers had already shoved the stretchers into the car and closed up the back when I arrived. I filled my radiator as usual