That there was very serious work ahead, indeed, had been brought home to us while having seen for days and nights the continual stream of troops, heavy guns, supplies and munitions moving toward the front. We had been told that preparations for this offensive had been going on for months.
Had I been so inclined, which I was not, there was little time to complain of our surroundings――barely time to note them before I was sent out to post duty. Now we were to be on post duty for twenty-four hours and then off duty for twenty-four hours, in which to work on our cars and rest. This schedule was based on all of the cars in the Section being able to run, but there were times when some of the cars were not available.
I was sent out to a post at Cassairne Marceau, at the top of a hill about three miles in front of Verdun, near the spot which marks the extreme advance of the Crown Prince in his attack of 1916. Near here the French had stood and said: “They shall not pass.” They never did, and I am sure they never will.
Looking back from Cassairne Marceau I could see the ancient fortified city of Verdun, crowned by its cathedral on a hill. Close at hand were the remains of barracks built shortly before the war. All about was desolation, shell holes, pieces of exploded shells. In front of the post was a graveyard and during my many times at that post there was not a day that I did not see the dead being laid to rest. Here the war was seen in its most hideous aspect. Sometimes a wagon would come rumbling up to the post with dead piled up like so much cordwood.
My first call to go from here to a front line post came before sunset. The post was near Fort Vaux. An officer rode with me to observe whether the road could be covered by a car. It was a road that no sane person would undertake in peace times under any consideration. Down a ravine between two hills, in a country laid absolutely barren by continual shell fire, the sides of the hills were pock-marked with shell holes; and where at one time, three years before, there had been a beautiful forest, there was not now a tree stump, a bush or a patch of grass. We drove along the road very slowly indeed, for there was danger of breaking springs and axles in passing, as we drove close to the artillery as they were firing. I was later glad for the opportunity of seeing that road before sunset, for I sometimes covered it afterward in the darkness without lights.