Page:Ambulance 464 by Julien Bryan.djvu/194

 June 19. I am on duty here for the second time. We are supposed to spend our twenty-four hours carrying malades suffering from indigestion and earache to the H. O. E. at St. Hilare. But luckily for us there are not many such cases and we spend most of our time in the village. We are the first Americans that have ever been in the place, at least since the war began. The woman at the Epicerie almost embraced me this morning when I called to buy a pound of figs; and then she wanted to know if I didn't think the war would end right away, with us in it. She was actually so glad to see me that she put an orange in with the figs as a present.

There is a saucisse just behind the town and we watch it by the hour. It is attached to the ground by a thin wire cable which is reeled in and out at will upon a big steel drum. This is operated from an auto truck, designed especially for this purpose. And whenever the pilot thinks an enemy aviator is coming after him, he signals to those below; and they bring him in at a terrific rate. Sometimes he comes down so fast he appears to be falling. The pilot whom we saw killed near Dombasle last March