Page:Ambulance 464 by Julien Bryan.djvu/99

 about America and what had happened there lately, and I was trying to find out more about him. Then in order to cement our friendship he offered me a cup of coffee flavored with a spoonful of their terrible cognac. It took a long time to get it down for it choked me if I swallowed much at once. But excepting his love for cognac, and eau de vie, he was a fine chap. I promised to look him up the next time I came to Montzèville.

At four o'clock I rode up to Esnes with only an occasional shell dropping near; but the French were peppering Mort Homme and I hurried along in order to get to the Château before the Boche began to reply. Fifteen or twenty shells dropped around the post a few minutes after I arrived but I was in the abri by that time.

Chauvenet has just come in from Post Two. On his way out a "210" landed in the middle of the road just in front of his car and a great piece of steel tore through the top of his car not ten inches from his head, and dropped into the back of the ambulance. He did not know that the car had been touched until half an hour later, for he was so stunned by the force of the explosion and so overcome by the gases of the shell through which he was forced to ride that he barely got out alive. Everyone is envious and wishes that it had happened to him—at least they say so.