, Lt.
Siberts started for Charpentry with his detachment. By the morning of
the second day, the entire company had reached Cheppy and we had a warm
meal, the first one in thirty-six hours. Lt. Siberts and his detachment
deserve a great deal of credit for the tremendous amount of work they
accomplished at Cheppy in an old abandoned dugout, where hundreds of
wounded were cared for under distressing and dangerous conditions.
Mr. Wesley R. Childs of the Y. M. C. A. came up to the station here with
chocolates and was of material assistance in directing a party of
walking wounded back to Neuvilly by the road through Verennes, which we
had been unable to explore before. During this time the action was in
view of the dressing station at times and the sound of the machine guns
made it plain that there would be much more work for us. The dressing
station at Cheppy was subjected to machine gun fire from hostile
airplanes several times but no casualties resulted. Mule drawn
ambulances from Ambulance Co. 140 arrived at the Cheppy station in the
morning of the 27th. Later, motor ambulances came up and the work of
evacuating went steadily on. There was very little rest for anyone.
On the 27th, Lt. Monteith with a detachment went forward to Very, and
established another collection point in some German dugouts there. The
next morning, evacuation of these wounded was begun by ambulances as the
congestion at Cheppy was somewhat relieved. Litter bearer squads worked
forward from Very in the direction of Charpentry and many wounded were
collected together and cared for pending the arrival of mule drawn
ambulances. In the meantime Ambulance Co. 137, and the dressing station
section of Ambulance Co. 140, had arrived by trucks at Charpentry. They
brought a large supply of dressings and other medical equipment and we
were able to replace the contents of our belts. The field from Very to
Charpentry was thus cleared, and by noon some of the advance squads had
reached Charpentry.
All three companies worked together at Charpentry under the direction of
Maj. Gist, and shared rations and supplies in common. The dressing
stations at Charpentry were located in old French barns and buildings
set around a sort of courtyard. They had served until a couple of days
before as the headquarters of the German division holding the sector.
After the place had been examined to make sure that no German souvenirs
in the way of hand grenades and shells had been
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