Page:Fred Arthur McKenzie - Americans at the Front (1917).djvu/30

 torn to ribbons, and the cars had been hit." The Americans do not trouble about trifles.

The crowning experience of the Corps came at Verdun. It was sent to the Douamont sector, where the work was naturally very severe. The one road to the trenches and the poste de secours (the advanced dressing station) was entirely open to the Germans' fire, and could only be traversed at night time, when ammunition, guns and reliefs had to go up, and the wounded brought down.

Owing to the blunder of a doctor at the front, the corps was ordered to send five large ambulances in daylight to the advanced post, close to the front trenches. The Americans, knowing what was before them, started out. Immediately the cars were sighted, the Germans opened up a very heavy fire. Fortunately their range was defective, so that most got through safely. Two, however, Wendell and Hollinshead, were wounded. It was now impossible to send another car to bring them back, so two others, who had just gone through the raging fire, begged permission to return on foot, and to bring their comrades back in their own cars. The journey up to the front, exposed as they were to the shells of an alarmed and anxious enemy, may be imagined. The two wounded men refused to be helped until other wounded