What Gilles Brought in
Driving His Automobile Over a Shell-Swept Road a French Lad Braved Death to Deliver the Dead
It was during the dreadful few days when the Germans came closest to Paris, a French writer tells us. Gilles Thurmand—sixteen years old, whose mother kept the Côte d’Or—had got hold of an old motor-car which had been smashed up in the first days of the rush to the front, had tinkered with it until it ran again, and then had driven it out to see what he could pick up. He went in the direction of Givres, for he heard that there were a good many wounded along the roads, and the French were yielding. He had come as far as a little coppice, where he slowed down at the sight of a couple of French uniforms. The Germans began suddenly to shell the part of the road over which he had just driven. He did not pay much attention to this at the time, for he was so engrossed with the French officers, of whom there were three standing, and a fourth badly wounded. They had been cut off from their regiment, and were left in this little patch of wood either to be killed by one of the enemy’s shells, or to be taken prisoner. “Get in,” Gilles told them, “and we’ll make a run for it. I’m game if you are.” He was extremely proud of having to do with so many officers at once, and besides, he thought, it might be the means of getting him admitted into the Army. Just as they were lifting the wounded man onto the floor of the vehicle, which was about the size of a Ford limousine, Gilles’ sharp eyes spied another blue coat through the trees at a little distance away, and he ran over to the man, who wore the uniform of a captain. He was squatting over something in the denser underbrush, and raised up hastily as Gilles came toward him.
“Let me get you out of this,” said Gilles, “along with these others.”
“Yes, come with us,” said Major Hervé, the senior officer of the party, limping toward them to find out the cause of the delay. The strange officer responded rather thickly that he couldn’t—that he had his duty to perform, and would prefer to remain at his post. The major, finding that arguing with him was of no avail, commanded him rather shortly to follow the rest, and when he still demurred, ordered the other three to bring him. They did so, gently enough, believing him to be a little unbalanced by shell-fire. Then they all climbed into the crazy vehicle, shut the door, and Gilles, mounting to the front seat, set out to drive them through a quarter of a mile of fire and brimstone, which was as near to hell as anything he had ever imagined.
Shells whizzed past, and bullets hailed upon the roof. Once or twice Gilles heard a faint cry in the back of the motor, and he knew some one was hit, but he bent doggedly to his wheel, and didn’t once look round, for fear, as he phrased it, that he would “lack courage to go on again.” Though a bomb ripped off the fender and nearly capsized the car, Gilles himself was not touched, and presently he drove into a silence as deafening as the noise had been. It was the outskirts of a camp, and there were a few simple little everyday noises like the rattling of dishes and the chopping of wood. But it was like the cemetery of Père La Chaise to Gilles. He could not hear a sound. Two or three Frenchmen in khaki came running toward him as he slid off the box and opened the rear door. Three dead bodies tumbled out. The two left inside were those of the last-found officer and the badly wounded man. They, too, were dead. How had they been killed? Not by shell fire, certainly. Examination proved that they had died by pistol shots. Gilles, taken into custody, his teeth chattering with fear, pointed out the officer who had forcibly been made a member of their party. The man was searched. There were found upon him a spare telephone receiver and a map of the district, together with other evidence proving him a German spy. He had probably been directing the German fire at the moment when Gilles had so inopportunely come upon him. His great reluctance to join the party was explained. During their wild ride he had apparently found time to put a bullet through the head of each of his unsuspecting captors. Whether one of them or he himself had caused his own death, could not be discovered.