Page:Ambulance 464 by Julien Bryan.djvu/71



March 14th, 1917. At last the good news has come. Tomorrow morning we are to end this lazy existence and take Section One's place at Dombasle. This afternoon, the Mèdecin Chef piled ten of us into two ambulances and took us over some roads north of Dombasle which we will use in our work there. A few miles from Jubécourt we found ourselves in a thick wood which my map called "Bois d'Avocourt." Soon we veered off sharply to the left, onto a bumpy road where there was barely room for two cars to pass. All the camions and munition wagons are forced to use it because the Boches have the exact range of the main route and pepper it continually. Suddenly, as we were passing a couple of bomb-proofs or abris, a terrific explosion sounded behind us and for a minute we thought it was a Boche shell arriving; but three more bangs followed shortly and we soon learned that it was a battery of 155's at work. Here we were, literally on top of a battery of 6 inch guns which the Germans battered daily, as we could tell by the splintered trees and numerous shell holes.