Sir Philip Sidney, for whom I believe I was more or less hopefully named, gained immortal fame by giving his last drop of water to a dying comrade on the field of battle. I desire to mention that I gave my last cigarette to a perfectly live stretcher bearer while under shell fire. For twenty-four hours I had been stationed at the dug-out in the canal bank in front of the Esperance farm; the place where I had been the first time I went to post. Several time since I had gone there and now felt quite at home in those surroundings.
During the last twenty-four hours shells had been coming in with a fair regularity. The Germans were endeavoring to drive out a battery which evidently had given them some annoyance. In a comparatively short period I counted more than a hundred shells, shrieking over my head, striking and bursting a hundred yards in front of me, throwing the earth in every direction, the rocks and pieces of shell spattering around close to where I stood. Several trees were cut down by the bombardment and they fell like so many twigs.
I had been alone during those twenty-four hours and had begun to realize that waiting for a run was quite as trying as the run itself, particularly as I could observe that when I did start I would be obliged to pass uncomfortably close to the corner where the shells were hitting. Toward the end of the afternoon some wounded came straggling in. After twenty-four hours under whistling shells I was glad to start back to Ludes and to a cigarette.
I spent the early evening at the little Swiss chalet. About nine o’clock I received a call to carry two wounded officers back to the town of Epernay. It was a beautiful, cool, moonlight evening and I enjoyed the prospect of the peaceful drive away from the sound of the war, not realizing that there was a rather interesting evening in store for me. I drove across the Marne into the town of Epernay at about eleven o’clock and took one of the wounded officers to the principal hospital there. The other officer I was instructed to take on to another hospital, located at the top of a hill on the outskirts of the town. Epernay is an old town and the streets are narrow, winding, and quite as confusing as Boston, particularly when driving at night without lights.