It was a short run but a bad one, shells were arriving and shells were departing. I found an Abri had been squarely hit and badly torn up. I got four wounded, who were in very bad condition. I drove back and got through. My premonitions were not realized. It was sunrise when I drove away from the hospital and my work for the night was over. Coming down the road I met Holt. He told me he was having trouble with his car and he asked me to wait while he made some repair. I drew up alongside the road, put my head down on the steering wheel and went to sleep. A few minutes later Holt woke me up and we drove on together. A short while later, over hot coffee, I confessed to Holt the premonitions I had the night before. And then he confessed that he had had them, too. Then I read to him what I had written:
“I gained my first impression of France while sailing up the broad Gironde River, flanked by its stately trees, its green and rolling fields, its Catholic spires, its old châteaux and ancient monasteries. I came on to Paris. I saw and admired that magnificent city which stoically smiles through sorrow. I stood at the tomb of Napoleon but I did not shed a tear; I sat in Nôtre Dame Cathedral on a Sabbath afternoon, and there I saw women with faces sad but brave, kneeling in prayer; I heard the organ’s sacred notes; perhaps I shed a tear, why should I say? I sat at one of the many crowded tables in front of the famous Café de la Paix and there I watched the Congress of the Armies of the Allied Nations, sipping drinks, smoking cigarettes, passing the time of day. I drove up the sloping, tree lined Champs Elysées at sunset and through the Arch of Triumph. At its crest I saw the tinted sky and clouds and tops of trees and as I drove on through the peaceful groves of the Bois du Boulogne by moonlight I thought that though I loved my native land I would love to live in France.
“Then I came on out to the battle front. I passed through desolate villages, past desecrated cathedrals; I saw deserted homes and shell wrecked towns. I heard the thunder and roar of many guns, I heard the crash of avion bombs, I heard the shriek, the whistle, the moan of shells. I saw the horror and havoc that these things wrought, the wounded, the dying, the countless dead. But through all the terrors of the days and nights I saw the noble Nation, fatigued, yet with Christlike resignation suffering and bleeding so that others might live to enjoy an honorable repose. And I thought that the prayer of this noble Nation must be the prayer of Christ: ‘O Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do!’ And as I saw these things I thought that though I loved my Country, the land of Chance, though I loved my own Flag, I should be willing to die for France, but it has not thus far been willed and I am glad. I am glad to go on living and loving France. She is our kin. Her blood is on our soil, our blood on hers. She is our sister country.