Page:Ambulance 464 by Julien Bryan.djvu/58

 February 28th. Farewells were said to Longeville and the old Café this morning. We headed directly north on the Verdun Road and pretty soon we began to see things we had read about at home. Here were the remains of a village, shot to pieces in 1914. The streets were quiet. Not a soul was left in the place. Again we would pass a group of young German prisoners with P. G. (prisonnier de guerre) written in huge letters on their backs; or perhaps some imported "Indo-China" laborers at work repairing the road. Once in a while a big gun would boom northeast of us. Now and then we would see a group of aeroplane hangars with their audiphones and anti-aircraft "seventy-fives." But the most interesting thing of all was when we stopped at a cross-road to watch one of our regiments go by. They were marching slowly when they drew near, for their packs were heavy and they had been walking steadily since sunrise. But the fine young manhood which fills the ranks of our own army was no longer there. Here was a lad of seventeen, barely able to walk twenty miles a day, let alone to carry his sixty pounds of