CHRISTMAS EVE, 1915

In one of the most beautiful countries in the world, the Alsatian Valley of the Thur runs to where the Vosges abruptly end in the great flat plain of the Rhine. In turn a small valley descends into that of the Thur. At the head of this valley lies the small village of Mollau where is billeted the Section Sanitaire AmÉricaine N^o 3. It has been through months of laborious, patient, never-ceasing trips from the valley to the mountain-tops and back, up the broadened mule-paths, rutted and worn by a thousand wheels and the hoofs of mules, horses, and oxen, by hobnailed boots and by the cars of the American Ambulance (for no other Section is equipped with cars and men for such service), up from the small Alsatian towns, leaving the main valley road to grind through a few fields of ever-increasing grade on into the forest, sometimes pushed, sometimes pulled, always blocked on the steepest slopes by huge army wagons deserted where they stuck, rasping cart-loads of trench torpedoes on one side, crumbling the edge of the ravine on the other,—day and night—night and day—in snow and rain—and, far worse, fog—months of foul and days of fair,—up with the interminable caravans of ravitaillement, supplies with which to sustain or blast the human body (we go down with the human body once blasted), up past small armies of Alsatian peasants of three generations (rather two—octogenarians and children), forever repairing, forever fighting the wear and tear of all that passes,—up at last to the little log huts and rudely made postes de secours at the mouth of the trench "bowels,"—a silent little world of tethered mules, shrouded carts and hooded figures, lightless by night, under the great pines where is a crude garage usually filled with grenades into which one may back at one's own discretion.

Day after day, night after night, wounded or no wounded, the little ambulances plied with their solitary drivers. Few men in ordinary autos or in ordinary senses travel such roads by choice, but all that is impossible is explained by a simple C'est la guerre. Why else blindly force and scrape one's way past a creaking truck of shells testing twenty horses, two abreast, steaming in their own cloud of sweaty vapor, thick as a Fundy fog? Taking perforce the outside, the ravine side, the ambulance passes. More horses and wagons ahead in the dark, another blinding moment or two, harnesses clash and rattle, side bolts and lanterns are wiped from the car. It passes again; C'est la guerre. Why else descend endless slopes with every brake afire, with three or four human bodies as they should not be, for cargo, where a broken drive-shaft leaves but one instantaneous twist of the wheel for salvation, a thrust straight into the bank, smashing the car, but saving its precious load? C'est la guerre.

The men in time grow tired as do the machines. A week before Christmas they rested quietly in their villages—a week of sun and splendid moon, spent tuning up their motors and gears and jogging about afoot after all their "rolling." A lull in the fighting, and after three weeks of solid rain, nature smiles. The Section had been ordered to leave shortly, and it was only held for a long-expected attack which would bring them all together for once on the mountains in a last great effort with the Chasseurs Alpins and the mountains they both loved.

On December 21st the mountain spoke and all the cars rolled upwards to the poste of Hartmannsweilerkopf,—taken and retaken a score of times,—a bare, brown, blunt, shell-ploughed top where before the forest stood, up elbowing, buffeting, and tacking their way through battalions of men and beasts, up by one pass and down by another unmountable (for there is no going back against the tide of what was battle-bound). From one mountain slope to another roared all the lungs of war. For five days and five nights—scraps of days, the shortest of the year, nights interminable—the air was shredded with shrieking shells—intermittent lulls for slaughter in attack after the bombardment, then again the roar of the counter-attack.

All this time, as in all the past months, Richard Nelville Hall calmly drove his car up the winding, shell-swept artery of the mountain of war,—past crazed mules, broken-down artillery carts, swearing drivers, stricken horses, wounded stragglers still able to hobble,—past long convoys of Boche prisoners, silent, descending in twos, guarded by a handful of men,—past all the personnel of war, great and small (for there is but one road, one road on which to travel, one road for the enemy to shell),—past abris, bomb-proofs, subterranean huts, to arrive at the postes de secours, where silent men moved mysteriously in the mist under the great trees, where the cars were loaded with an ever-ready supply of still more quiet figures (though some made sounds), mere bundles in blankets. Hall saw to it that those quiet bundles were carefully and rapidly installed,—right side up, for instance,—for it is dark and the brancardiers are dull folks, deadened by the dead they carry; then rolled down into the valley below, where little towns bear stolidly their daily burden of shells wantonly thrown from somewhere in Bocheland over the mountain to somewhere in France—the bleeding bodies in the car a mere corpuscle in the full crimson stream, the ever-rolling tide from the trenches to the hospital, of the blood of life and the blood of death. Once there, his wounded unloaded, Dick Hall filled his gasoline tank and calmly rolled again on his way. Two of his comrades had been wounded the day before, but Dick Hall never faltered. He slept where and when he could, in his car, at the poste, on the floor of our temporary kitchen at Moosch—dry blankets—wet blankets—blankets of mud—blankets of blood; contagion was pedantry—microbes a myth.

At midnight Christmas Eve, he left the valley to get his load of wounded for the last time. Alone, ahead of him, two hours of lonely driving up the mountain. Perhaps he was thinking of other Christmas Eves, perhaps of his distant home, and of those who were thinking of him.

Matter, the next American to pass, found him by the roadside halfway up the mountain. His face was calm and his hands still in position to grasp the wheel. Matter, and Jennings, who came a little later, bore him tenderly back in Matter's car to Moosch, where his brother, Louis Hall, learned what had happened.

A shell had struck his car and killed him instantly, painlessly. A chance shell in a thousand had struck him at his post, in the morning of his youth.

Up on the mountain fog was hanging over Hartmann's Christmas morning, as if Heaven wished certain things obscured. The trees were sodden with dripping rain. Weather, sight, sound, and smell did their all to sicken mankind, when news was brought to us that Dick Hall had fallen on the Field of Honor. No man said, "Merry Christmas," that day. No man could have mouthed it. With the fog forever closing in, with the mountain shaken by a double bombardment as never before, we sat all day in the little log hut by the stove, thinking first of Dick Hall, then of Louis Hall, his brother, down in the valley....

Gentlemen at home, you who tremble with concern at overrun putts, who bristle at your partner's play at auction, who grow hoarse at football games, know that among you was one who played for greater goals—the lives of other men. There in the small hours of Christmas morning, where mountain fought mountain, on that hard-bitten pass under the pines of the Vosgian steeps, there fell a very modest and valiant gentleman.

Dick Hall, we who knew you, worked with you, played with you, ate with you, slept with you, we who took pleasure in your company, in your modesty, in your gentle manners, in your devotion and in your youth—we still pass that spot, and we salute. Our breath comes quicker, our eyes grow dimmer, we grip the wheel a little tighter—we pass—better and stronger men.

Richard Hall was buried with honors of war in the Valley of Saint-Amarin, in the part of Alsace which once more belongs to France. His grave, in a crowded military cemetery, is next that of a French officer who fell the same morning. It bears the brief inscription, "Richard Hall, an American who died for France." Simple mountain people in the only part of Germany where foreign soldiers are to-day brought to the grave many wreaths of native flowers and Christmas greens. The funeral service was held in a little Protestant chapel, five miles down the valley. At the conclusion of the service Hall's citation was read and the Cross of War pinned on the coffin. On the way to the cemetery sixteen soldiers, belonging to a battalion on leave from the trenches, marched in file on each side with arms reversed. The mÉdecin chef spoke as follows:—

Messieurs—Camarades—

C'est un suprÊme hommage de reconnaissance et d'affection que nous rendons, devant cette fosse fraÎchement creusÉe, À ce jeune homme—je dirais volontiers—cet enfant—tombÉ hier pour la France sur les pentes de l'Hartmannsweilerkopf.... Ai-je besoin de vous rappeler la douloureuse Émotion que nous avons tous ressentis en apprenant hier matin que le conducteur Richard Hall, de la Section Sanitaire AmÉricaine N^o 3, venait d'Être mortellement frappÉ par un Éclat d'obus, prÈs du poste de secours de Thomannsplats oÙ il montait chercher des blessÉs?

A l'Ambulance 3/58, oÙ nous Éprouvons pour nos camarades amÉricains une sincÈre amitiÉ basÉe sur des mois de vie commune pendant laquelle il nous fut permis d'apprÉcier leur endurance, leur courage, et leur dÉvouement, le conducteur Richard Hall Était estimÉ entre tous pour sa modestie, sa douceur, sa complaisance.

A peine sorti de l'universitÉ de Dartmouth, dans la gÉnÉrositÉ de son coeur d'adolescent, il apporta À la France le prÉcieux concours de sa charitÉ en venant relever, sur les champs de bataille d'Alsace, ceux de nos vaillants soldats blessÉs en combattant pour la patrie bien-aimÉe.

Il est mort en "Chevalier de la Bienfaisance"—en "AmÉricain"—pour l'accomplissement d'une oeuvre de bontÉ et de charitÉ chrÉtienne!

Aux Êtres chers qu'il a laissÉs dans sa patrie, au Michigan, À ses parents dÉsolÉs, À son frÈre ainÉ, qui, au milieu de nous, montre une si stoique douleur, nos hommages et l'expression de notre tristesse sont bien sincÈres et bien vifs!

Conducteur Richard Hall, vous allez reposer ici À l'ombre du drapeau tricolore, auprÈs de tous ces vaillants dont vous Êtes l'Émule.... Vous faites À juste titre partie de leur bataillon sacrÉ!... Seul, votre corps, glorieusement mutilÉ, disparait—votre Âme est remontÉ trouver Dieu—votre souvenir, lui, reste dans nos coeurs, impÉrissable!... Les FranÇais n'oublient pas!

Conducteur Richard Hall—Adieu! [10]