Charles Nordhoff's Memories of Ambulance Driving

Charles Nordhoff (Right) with Fellow Author and
Aviator James Norman Hall

The first published work by ambulance driver/ aviator/ author Charles Nordhoff was a war memoir titled The Fledgling that focused on his days flying with Escadrille SPA 99 of the Lafayette Flying Corps. Some reflections on his earlier service as an ambulance driver with the American Field Service worked its way into the narrative:

I was on the road all day yesterday, afternoon and evening, getting back to the post at 10 P.M. One of the darkest nights I remember – absolutely impossible to move without an occasional clandestine flash of my torch. Far off to the right (twenty or thirty miles) a heavy bombardment was in progress, the guns making a steady rumble and mutter. I could see a continuous flicker on the horizon. The French batteries are so craftily hidden that I pass within a few yards of them without a suspicion. The other day I was rounding a familiar turn when suddenly, with a tremendous roar and concussion, a "380" went off close by. The little ambulance shied across the road and I nearly fell off the seat. Talk about "death pops"-these big guns give forth a sound that must be heard to be appreciated. . .

The siege warfare to which, owing to strategic reasons, we are reduced in our part of the lines, with both sides playing the part of besieged and besiegers, gives rise to a curious unwritten understanding between ourselves and the enemy. Take the hospital corps, their first-aid posts, and ambulances. The Germans must know perfectly well where the posts are, but they scarcely ever shell them-not from any humanitarian reason, but because if they did, the French would promptly blow theirs to pieces. 

It is a curious sensation to live in such a place, with the knowledge that this is the only reason you enjoy your comparative safety. Likewise our ambulances. I often go over a road in perfectly plain view of the Boche, only a few hundred yards distant, and though shells and shrapnel often come my way, I am confident none of them are aimed at me. The proof of it is that no one has ever taken a pot-shot at me with rifle or machine-gun, either one of which would be a sure thing at the range.