Page:Ambulance 464 by Julien Bryan.djvu/22

 some excitement, as well as being of some service. But we do not care to be talked of as young heroes trying to save France, because that was not our idea in going, at any rate, not at first. But having arrived in France and learned of some of the terrible things which had been done by the enemy and what the French people had gone through, and having become imbued with some of the wonderful spirit of the French, we altered our point of view, and were almost ashamed of our primary object in offering our services. Moreover, we realized on getting to the front that our own little section was but a single unit among the five million troops constituting the French army, and that individually we were not very important."

The first of these lessons the American people have already learned; the second we are just beginning to learn.

Such a book as this has two distinct values.

It gives the reader at home a vivid picture of the scenes upon the field of battle. Such a book is all the better for not being literary. We get the first impressions of the actor not modified by the ambitions of a literary artist, and the effect of his artless narrative is all the greater because he has not in his mind the effect which he is trying to produce upon the reader. Simplicity, accuracy, and