For four fearful nights Captain Kellogg worked there in the Neuilly hospital, carrying stretchers, undressing the wounded, taking their histories, and at times even aiding in dressing their wounds. It was a job without much poetry to it. In fact it held many intensely disagreeable phases. But it was, at that, a fairly typical Red Cross job, filled with perplexities and anxieties and long, long hours of hard and peculiarly distasteful labor. Yet of such tasks is the real spirit of Red Cross service born.
Four to the ambulance came the wounded into that haven of Neuilly. Many of them were terribly wounded indeed; and practically none of them had had more attention than hurriedly applied first-aid dressing. But the appalling factor was not alone the seriousness of the wounds, but the mere numbers of the wounded. They came in such numbers that at times during those four eventful July evenings the floors of all the rooms of the hospital--even the hallways and the garage--literally were covered with stretchers. No wonder that the regular personnel of the place, even though steadily increased for some months past, was unable to cope with the crisis. Without the help of Kellogg and eight or nine other emergency helpers from other ranks of the American Red Cross it is quite possible that it would have collapsed entirely.
Captain Kellogg's emergency task at Neuilly ended early in the morning of the twenty-second; but there was no rest or respite in sight for him. That very day a Red Cross captain stopped him at headquarters and asked him if he was free.
"Then come out to Crépy and help us out," said the other American Red Cross man. "We're in a good deal of a mess there."
"All right," was the reply. "I'm ready whenever you are."
He grinned again. He realized his own predicament. He had not yet been assigned to any definite department; in fact, although he had given up his precious American passport, he had not yet received the equally precious "Red Cross Worker's Card," which was issued to all the war workers in France and which was of infinite value to them in getting about that sentry-infested land. He had no more identification papers than a rabbit and realized that he might easily find himself in a deal of trouble. Yet within the half hour he had packed his small _musette_ and grabbing up two blankets was on his way in an automobile toward the front. He reached Crépy at about six o'clock that evening and reported to Major Brown, of the Red Cross.