Page:Ambulance 464 by Julien Bryan.djvu/15

 I regret that I had to return before the war was over. I feel that I have gotten out of my work in France far more than I put into it. The experience and the life did me untold good and when my period of enlistment was up I would have stayed on and entered the Aviation Service had the decision been entirely my own. Family reasons necessitated my return home but I hope it will not be long before I am again in the field of action.

In taking the photographs I used a post-card size camera, with a good anastigmat lens, and I would advise anyone going over with the intention of taking pictures not to get a smaller camera, for although the larger size is occasionally troublesome, little pictures are always unsatisfactory. But this advice may be unnecessary, because our authorities, like the British, are very strict concerning the use of cameras within the war zone. Almost all our films were developed at the front, Gilmore and I using the loft of a barn for a laboratory, with buckets and basins for apparatus. Many were the negatives we spoiled when the weather was so cold that the developer would not act on the films. Sometimes we printed by sunlight and sometimes by means of the carbide headlights on one of the cars. I took about four hundred photographs altogether, and the best which survive are in this book. I have also used a number of pictures taken by my friends, and wish to thank