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Show GIRL DRIVERS VISIT ARTILLERY IN ACTION Ambulance Pilots Assist at Creeping Barrage While Awaiting Wounded to Be Brought In From the Infantry Firing Line. This "Letter from tfce Battlefront" is the third of the series written by Miss Maud Pitch of Eureka, a prominent Salt Lake society girl, now serving serv-ing as a motor ambulance driver with the Hackett-Lowther unit, attached to a French division engaged at the front. Tomorrow's letter will contain a vivid description of. "Advancing on the Heels of the Retreating Boche." FROM MAUD FITCH. THE thrill of it! Here I am silting sil-ting near a soixante quinze and ten miles ahead of our last poste. "We have three poste au secours now. It's impossible to keep going with two on a car, so I was sent up to this advanced one this noon. It was too glorious driving through the little villages of Milicog-a Milicog-a nd C he vin court, where have been watching the boche from observatoire for weeks ; the towns are of course p.bsolutely demolished, not one house with all of its walls. My car is on the hill they fought so hard for two days ago. north of f'hevincourt and I am sitting with two bronchardiers on the bank at tho side overlooking a. stretch of exquisite country, just barely showing its scars as though its joy had already healerii 'them; being a - mil from the sal boche. Steering Wheel in Way of Gas Mask. We sit very cose to our abri with our gas masks over our aholdcrs. The other night I had to drive with mine on and it wasn't bad at all, except its snout kept hitting the steering wheel! It has the vilest smell, this gas, like mustard with garlic in it, and makes one frightfully nauseated, but does not affect the lungs. I felt no effects from it at all, though I drove 1 through very faint remains of it all day. Bailly was awfully ill from it. We only wore our masks once when an American warned lis of a fresh lot ahead. At night we have to park three of our cars and go double, so ycu see it's not bad. The roads are already being repaired, fortunately for the. blesses, as there are a. mass of shell holes through the old "No Man's Land." I find myself mentally taking off my hat to Miss Lowther all the time; how she got us this advanced poste T can not see, as we are ahead of the American section of men, in fact we carry our wounded to them! We shall have to placate them as they are boiling, boil-ing, especially as we have to go back to their abri to sleep tonight. Pulls Lanyard to Keep Boche Going. August 15. T had a most eventful twelve hours since writing the former killed some boche I don't know-how know-how many; but hope at least a hundred. hun-dred. The, battery on the hill, just a few yards behind us of which I had been talking in the afternoon, came down to get me about 7 o'clock j to shoot off a soixante quinze, which 1 did with great gusto: after which a cavalry man lent me his horse and I had p wonderful ride in the woods. I dined with bronchardieres in the field, and a. colonel I used to know, returning from the front, recognized my car on the hill and tooted my horn until 1 emerged fr.om the woods.. He came back with me until T had finished dinner. The broncha rdieres were most excited at having so distinguished dis-tinguished a guest. At dusk f got orders to return to the village at the foot of the hill, as they expected gas. I slept in an abri. I got back to our post at 4:30 in the morning, walked through the woods, where I found a German helmet hel-met for Pippa, as I promised her. Thousand Shells Sent in Barrage. At, S o'clock I curled up on the side of the road and slept soundly until 10, Just barely conscious of passing pass-ing artillery and men's voices as they trudged by to the trenches. At 11 the captain of the artillery came down and invited, me up for a "barrage," and at 11:30, with col-ton col-ton in our ears, we stood close up while our three soixante quinze and t wo -cent cinquante cinqs behind us spit out 1000 shells. I pulling a seventy-five occasionally! It was thrilling beyond anything else, as none of us had ever assisted at a barrage before and very likely never will again, as tomorrow they will be away ahead of us. A man on the ground at my feet received the directions through a telephone. The directions, were yelled immediately from one gunner to another, always as the troops advanced "plus loin" ! Til not ever forget that scene on the little hill in the woods behind Chevin-court. Chevin-court. Old Shell Cases as Dining Chairs. After it was over, there being no work for me, the captain and his lieutenants had me eat lunch with them. The table was a dispatch box and our chairs old shell cases. They began to fear a shortage of shells before the finish; I told the captain of an abandoned pi'e of them I knew of back in the woods at Aunel. which he could get in a half hour. Though it amused him. he said he might have to send me for them unless they telephoned tele-phoned him within five minutes, which, unfortunately, tljey did. saying say-ing his supplv was even then climbing climb-ing the hill. He laughed at my disappointment disap-pointment and told me that T was trcs amiable, which did not console me. Hodges is going to Paris, so T shall give her this to mail, It saves so manv days. MAUD FITCH. |