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This webpage reproduces a chapter of Captured by Bessy Myers published by D. Appleton Century Company, New York and London, 1942 the text of which is in the public domain. This text has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know! next: Chapter 2

 p1  1
France in Flight

Saturday, June 8th, 1940

See Kruger at breakfast: she says Mr. Huffer will be calling for us in the ambulance some time this morning and doesn't think I'll have time to go to the bank. Hang around the convent. Run into Kruger again, who tells me she has been speaking to Mr. Huffer on the 'phone: if I jump to it I'll have time to go to the bank after all. Jump into a taxi and go to the bank in the Place Vendôme, draw £ 20, and buy a watch; get back to the convent in three-quarters of an hour.

See Mrs. Sherrington, our quartermaster (a perfect dear), and ask her if I should take all my money with us. She says yes, as no one knows how long we shall be away. Stuff it in my chastity belt.1

Huffer and Lloyd Bennet​a arrive. Huffer takes us to lunch at the Pavillon Royal in the Bois de Boulogne. We lunch under the trees — très chic and très gai. Masses of uniforms and smart women. Curious to think we're off to the front in a few minutes — and that it will take us only about an hour and a half to get there in the ambulance.

It's a very well-equipped Ford ambulance. Huffer drives, and Kruger sits in front with him and his dog Nigger. Kruger points out to me the statue of General Gallieni commemorating  p2 his defense of Paris during the last war. It's a rather lovely statue, built by the side of the road.​b

Every one except me sees bombs being dropped on the railway-lines.

Arrive at Crouy-sur‑Marne. Find Darby and the rest as busy as bees repacking the ambulances. Apparently we have to evacuate at once to Villiers-sur‑Marne. This place is not very far away.​c

At Villiers we find a huge hospital built in various sections dotted about a large wood. We have dinner in a dining-cum‑dressing-clearing-station with the wounded, who have just been brought from the front. Some of them are bad stretcher cases with appalling wounds, which have not yet had any dressings whatsoever. There is plenty of blood about, but little food.

We go to bed early, and are called at 3 A.M. We have been ordered to evacuate to Pavant. At last our convoy gets started. None of us take any wounded except Angus; her ambulance was loaded with them, and she was told to take them to Montmirail.

Sunday, June 9th

We go down to the village about six and find a café; Huffer scrounges some breakfast for us, and we're joined by les médecins — Joli, le Maire, and le Nègre — and several nurses. Ask Darby who's who, and what's what — and why.

Says she is not sure — as she's only been in the Château de Blois unit for a few days — and they seem to do nothing but evacuate. Most of the time is spent in getting to some place — and then leaving it for another. She thinks that les médecins Joli, le Maire, and le Nègre are attached to us — or we to them — and that they are experts on oxygen treatment. She can't make  p3 out much of all the various nurses; knows the five Château de Blois ambulances are attached to the field ambulance section, under the command of the Sixth French Army. Ask what all the "dix-neuvième" train (which I hear them referring to) is about. Darby says it's more or less our postal section, and what all the doctors, nurses, we, cooks, stretcher-bearers, etc. boil down to is a first surgical field ambulance unit which treats wounded behind the front lines; we are supposed to be very mobile.

We spend the morning on the roadside near the ambulances — waiting for orders.

We have a lovely view over the tiny village of Pavant; we can see for miles down the valley, where the Marne curls and twists. It's a glorious hot sunny day, and we bask in the sunshine in a field full of buttercups, daisies, and cows. If it were not for the hospital we left last night and a poilu at the bottom of the hill it would be almost impossible to realize that there is a war on, and not very far from us. The country looks peaceful; there is no one about. Except for the noise of the bees humming, silence reigns — and yet the poilu at the bottom of the hill told us he thinks the Germans are only fifteen kilometers away. C'est incroyable ! He can't be right; if they were surely we would hear gunfire.

It gets hotter and hotter; we still have no orders. Huffer says we shall remain by the roadside till four o'clock at least.

On the way back to the ambulances I have a brainwave and ask Huffer if I can go down to the river and bathe; and would it matter my not having a bathing dress? Huffer says so long as I'm back by four o'clock I can do what I like. Darby and I head through a wood, down the side of a hill to the Marne.

We come out on to a road which is guarded by a poilu. He  p4 says we can go no farther, as he may have orders at any minute to blow up the bridge opposite us. If we cross the fields we can bathe farther down the Marne.

Map of France showing the principal places mentioned by the author​d

We are just off when the village préfet asks where we are going to. The poilu explains; the préfet goes off the deep end, threatens to report the poilu to his captain, etc., etc., and etc. The poilu and the préfet give their opinions of each other very pithily, and when I can get a word in edgewise I tell the  p5 préfet that it's of no importance whether we swim or not. Far be it from us to cause all this bother. The préfet calms down, tells us several people have been drowned in the river recently — and ends up by asking Darby and me to have a glass of cider in his cottage.

Really he is a dear old man, and has some very good cider; we sit yarning away. I remark that on such a heavenly day it is a pity one can not swim in the river. The préfet says, "Mais alors," and tells us to keep away from the bridge, and ends up by lending us each a towel.

We walk along the river and swim and bask in the sun, and I am as pleased as pleased, as I now can say I've swum the Marne. A German plane flies low overhead and Darby goes all modest, wondering if the crew can see us. Don't think it matters much if they do.

Go back to the préfet's cottage to return the towels and find the poor old man in tears. Three-quarters of an hour ago he received orders to have Pavant evacuated immediately. Darby and I realize there will be a pretty good crowd on the road, and say we must get back to our ambulances at once. We ask the préfet why he is not packing up to go. They say he is remaining to the last, as he doesn't think the Germans will do anything to an old man. He gives us some more cider, kisses us both on each cheek, and wishes us bon voyage.

The village streets look unreal. People have left doors and windows open, the streets are littered with objects discarded at the last moment, and there is a general appearance of desolation. The préfet says, "Mais voilà ! C'est la guerre."

Darby and I scramble up the hill and through the wood at top speed. We come out on to the road on which we think we left our ambulances — and have a shock. To begin with we do  p6 not recognize the road at all, and it is packed, jammed, jammed, packed, with soldiers, sheep, carts, refugees, cows, military cars, and soldiers on motor-cycles — soldiers, soldiers, soldiers, a never-ending stream of them, some in lorries, trying to force a way through this jammed congestion of humanity and animals. Tell Darby if we ever find our ambulances in this mélange it will be a miracle. She agrees.

Ask soldier after soldier if they have seen any ambulance américaine. They all say no. At last one officer says he saw some ambulances américaines down in the village of Pavant about an hour ago waiting to cross the bridge; if we want to catch them "venez vite," as the bridge will be blown up. We scramble into his car, and he takes us down to the village — which is a seething mass of lorries rushing this way and that. Every one seems to be in desperate haste.

Our officer takes us along a road which leads to the bridge, where the ambulances américaines were last seen. A soldier stops us; this road can no longer be used. The bridge has not yet been blown up; he has just passed there, but there was no sign of any ambulance américaine. Our officer says he must go on his way. Darby and I thank him for his help, get out of his car, and survey the situation.

It looks very much as though our ambulances have crossed the bridge — well, that's that. Thank goodness I drew £20 yesterday and have it on me. We shall have to get back to Paris, and we do not consider we shall be at all popular with the Château de Blois crowd — or, for that matter, with the H. Q. in Paris — when we arrive there. The only thing to do now is to have one more look along the road where we left the cars. It is now five minutes past four.

 p7  We walk back to Pavant, where a lorry with innumerable soldiers jammed into it gives us a lift. It takes twenty minutes to thread our way in and out of the general mélange to the top of the hill; we turn a corner, and there, parked on the verge, are our ambulances.

Huffer slides away on our approach. We apologize to Kruger for being nearly half an hour late. She, in a few well-chosen words, tells us exactly what she thinks of us, and adds that they had orders to leave an hour ago for Rebais. Now with the road in this condition it will be a hopeless job to get a move on, and thanks to us, we shall have to wait till the refugees get on a bit and the road becomes less congested. Kruger can not imagine, in times like these, how two people with a grain of common sense could think of being completely out of touch for over two hours. However, she tells us she has said all she has to say on the subject, and that it need not be referred to again. Darby and I are sorry we have annoyed Kruger. She is a good sport and nice to work for.

Huffer, who has now slid back, announces that he and le Maire are going to try make Villiers-sur‑Marne before the bridges are blown up, and fetch some oxygen cylinders which have been left there. He thinks they will be back in an hour.

Darby and I sit on the roadside. I'm now definitely the Bad Lass of the party, and it wouldn't surprise me if Darby were not a good runner‑up. So much for our "Battle of the Marne." We watch the retreat passing us, and it is a sorry sight. Soldiers, soldiers, soldiers, mixed up with captains and colonels — and all dead beat. Some of them tell us they have been on the road three or four days. There is no attempt at organization — all ranks and regiments are mixed up together. They are not marching in any sort of order, hundreds upon hundreds of  p8 them struggling along the road, wending their way through animals, carts, and refugees. And never do I see a soldier carrying a rifle. Can't imagine what they have done with them; think that the rifles must have been put into lorries, which are bringing them up in the rear.

Tell Darby I've never seen a rout — but if this isn't one I should like to know what is. I can not think why they don't make a stand here. Surely this high, wooded hill could command the entire valley for miles — and I don't see how the Germans could cross the Marne here at all, if only the soldiers would put just a few guns into the wood and fire them. And where are the guns? Like the rifles, they are conspicuous by their absence.

A poor little dog has been running up and down this part of the road for the last half-hour, looking for his owners. I catch him as he dashes by again, and give him to some soldiers passing in a lorry — they say they'll look after him.

Four wagonloads of soldiers stop and drive into a clearing in the woods, just off the road. Am thrilled — perhaps a stand will be made here after all. Ask the soldiers what is happening; they reply they don't know, but they and their horses are tired so they are sleeping here for to‑night. I suppose there is some one in command somewhere.

Huffer and le Maire return. The road is slightly less congested now and we start off for Rebais. We stop by a wayside farm, have coffee and delicious omelettes served in the farmyard — all very rural and pleasant.

In an orchard opposite, hundreds of refugees from Pavant and roundabout have parked for the night. I have seen refugees on various stages of their journeys, but never before at their first stage, when they pack up and leave their homes, and have  p9 their first rest for the night. The whole thing is tragic; very much doubt if many of them will find even a cowshed to sleep in when they get south of Paris.

We arrive in Rebais in the pitch dark. The préfet find us all billets. Darby and I are thankful to share a bed; it's a grim little room, in rather a dirty cottage. We are told to meet at the local hotel for breakfast at eight o'clock.

Monday, June 10th

Sit around all morning waiting for orders — and do nothing.

Huffer has asked for better billets for us all. He gives Darby and me a billeting chit — we find the house. It is scrupulously clean, and the charming old woman who owns it can't do enough for us.

More and more soldiers stream past the house — still without rifles. They are tired, hot, and thirsty. We chat to them while the old lady gives them water to drink. They say they have to go ten kilometers farther on. We ask them if they know where the stand will be made. They shrug their shoulders and say they know nothing.

We have dinner with our nurses in the hospital, and go to bed early. Darby and I each have a delightful room with very comfortable beds. Wonder when we shall see the like of these again — or such a dear old lady.

Tuesday, June 11th

Breakfast at eight o'clock with our nurses in the hotel, as the hospital was evacuated during the night. We receive orders to go to the Château Minimes at Beton-Bazoches — which is a few kilometers from Provins. We are told that the château is a dressing station for the wounded from the front.

 p10  Arrive at the Château Minimes — a huge, rambling, very old‑fashioned place, surrounded by woods. The place is seething with soldiers, doctors, nurses, and ambulance drivers of all nationalities: Dutch, Swedes, Norwegians, Frenchmen, Cubans, and two Englishmen. The soldiers cook lunch in a field kitchen, and we have ours with the nurses, standing in a garage. Read all the afternoon in our ambulances. Dinner. Sleep on stretchers with the nurses in the officers' dining-room. No water or (usable) lavatories in the château at all.

Wednesday, June 12th

Wash in a stream in the woods; it's pouring with rain and it's cold. Hang about all morning, playing patience with Darby some of the time. We've still received no orders. After lunch play bridge with some of the ambulance drivers in the garage. They're nice lads. Practically no supper; something went wrong.

At last some wounded have arrived from the front for their first treatment and dressings; I am told to do night duty with Huffer, and to take the wounded on to the hospital at Provins, which is near‑by.

Sit expectantly in Huffer's ambulance for ages, but nothing happens. He suggests I sleep on a stretcher inside, and he'll sleep in front; when the wounded are ready we shall be called. Just off to sleep when Huffer bangs on the door — we are wanted at once. The wounded are put in, and I'm given their clothes, papers, and medical reports. Huffer drives, and off we go into the pitch black night, without lights of any kind (they are entirely forbidden). Although Provins is only a few kilometers away, it takes us over an hour of strained, painful crawling along the road to get there. Twice we avoid by a  p11 hair's-breadth running into refugees traveling in their carts.

Deposit the wounded in the hospital, and crawl back to the château. Just get off to sleep again when Huffer wakes me for our next load of wounded.

There is a man with a very bad head wound; the bandages are dipping blood, as he has just had a hemorrhage. The doctor doubts if he will live. We have another awful journey to the hospital at Provins. I drive back. The dawn is breaking, and it is much more pleasant. Huffer again arranges a stretcher for me in the back of the ambulance. He goes in front, and this time we snatch a couple of hours' sleep.

Thursday, June 13th

Huffer and I wake just before eight and find it's too late to have any breakfast. Kruger tells me that last night rooms were fixed up for us in the château — to find a stretcher and get some sleep. Find a room and am just about to lie down when Darby rushes in and says, "Pack your knapsack rapidement. The château is to be evacuated immediately." We are to go to Provins, to evacuate the wounded to the hospital at Sens.

It is decided that Huffer, Angus, and Heard will take the oxygen cylinders and all our suitcases to Saint-Valérien, which is to be our new H. Q., and may Saint-Valérien remain our H. Q. for some time. Getting tired of this perpetual going and evacuating, evacuating and going; it's depressing. Wonder when a stand will be made, and if Paris will fall. I never saw any lines or trenches from Paris to here, and although they managed to save Paris in the last war, wonder whether they can repeat the miracle again. What I should like to know is where they will make a stand. I've driven down to Angoulême twice recently, and even on that side of France I've seen no  p12 signs of any preparation for a line of defense — they certainly can not attack.

Kruger and Lloyd Bennet, Otto​e alone, Darby and I, go off in the ambulances, and on arrival at Provins join a queue of about sixty others waiting outside the hospital. While waiting we see a pilot make a parachute landing near the hospital — great excitement among the villagers, who dash off to find him. At last our turn comes to collect our load of wounded. A doctor calls me, says the pilot who has just made a parachute landing is an R. A. F. chap, and asks me to interpret for him. Dash into hospital, find the pilot, who wants to know if he can have his leg dressed — it's not a bad wound — and if he can get in touch with an R. A. F. base at once. He tells us he was shot down over Montmirail after fighting two Messerchmitts, one of which he thinks he got down. Doctors take him off to have his leg seen to.

The road from Provins to Sens via Bray is absolutely packed with usual crowd — soldiers, refugees, cattle, sheep, carts — complete battle to get through to Sens. It is a large military hospital; our wounded are unloaded.

An awfully nice poilu starts chatting to me, and fetches me a bottle of champagne. Have slight supper in the nurses' mess, and we stand by our ambulances. Open the bottle of champagne and am in the act of pouring out glasses when Kruger tells us we have to return to Provins at once — to bring the remaining wounded down here. Swallow my glass of champagne — accidentally upset Darby's over her. She's furious. I'm annoyed, for while scrambling into the ambulance lose the cork of the bottle, which Darby tries to keep upright. Have a weary drive back in the semi-dark; it's pitch dark by the time we arrive in Provins.

 p13  Drs. le Nègre and le Maire very pleased to see us, and say we are the only ambulances to return. While getting out of the ambulance Darby knocks the bottle of champagne into the gutter. Obviously the bottle was pre‑fated not to be drunk. Le Maire and le Nègre take us to a bistro. The busy little town of Provins was entirely evacuated during the afternoon. We drink some cognac and eat some biscuits in the bistro.

See the doctor who gave Huffer and me the stretcher case with head hemorrhage last night. Ask him how the man is. The doctor shrugs his shoulders, says the man is still alive and has been evacuated from here to Sens. Personally don't think the man has a chance if he doesn't get a few days' quiet. Can't think why they don't send these bad cases miles south of Paris. What is the point of keeping them around here — where nothing seems to happen except evacuation?

Three more R. A. F. men have been brought into Provins hospital this afternoon — one wounded. They say the Germans are in the woods of the Château Minimes.

Kruger tells Darby and me that there are enough ambulances to take the wounded to Sens, and we had better go straight to H. Q. at Saint-Valérien. Le Maire asks us to stay put; he wants us to take one grand blessé and two semi. Our wounded are put in; one of the nurses, whose name I never learn, but who is always called Mademoiselle, comes in front with us. See various ambulances and people in the dark — there is a lot of shouting to find out who's who — we are off. Darby drives, and we follow Kruger. After twenty-four hours of more or less continuous driving feel very sleepy and doze off — to be waked up by the word "Halt!" I open my eyes to find I am gazing at a German soldier.

He waves us on, and a few yards farther we come out of  p14 the wood and are parked by German soldiers beside the ambulances which were in front of us, alongside a petrol pump by the side of the road. So much for evacuating the wounded to Sens — we are now prisoners of war. Darby and Mademoiselle make no comments whatsoever. I light a cigarette. A German soldier by signs makes me understand I must throw my cigarette away. The three of us continue to sit in silence (a change for Mademoiselle, who generally can't cease talking). The German voices are low and guttural; it is still dark, and about 1 A.M. Our grand blessé asks through the glass window why we have stopped and what language is being spoken. Mademoiselle says promptly that we have stopped off to collect the ambulances together, and she doesn't know what language is being spoken. We sit for a while, and I doze off.

Am waked this time by a most tremendous noise. Kruger appears with her tin helmet on, and says we must all put ours on and lie on our stomachs on the grass. The sky is lit up — three more tremendous noises break the stillness of the night — silence once more; we get back into our ambulances, and Kruger appears with a bottle of cognac, which is just my cup of tea. She tells us it wasn't the French guns going off, but the Germans blowing up a bridge not a hundred yards away. Feel utterly fed up.

Friday, June 14th

At dawn see a German major wandering about; several more ambulances have joined us. We are sent off in convoy with an armed motor-cyclist fore and aft. As we start, notice that Otto is with Lloyd Bennet and le Maire, Kruger with le Nègre, and Joli is with one of the nurses who has her own little car.  p15 Huffer has nicknamed that nurse "Madame la P–––––." Mademoiselle remains with Darby and me.

We go off in the direction of Saint-Quentin along the Villenauxe-Sézanne road. The road is packed with the German mechanized Army — find out afterwards it's a famous Panzer division. Endless tanks, armored cars, etc. German despatch-riders on motor-cycles racing all over the place giving the positions of the advanced troops, which German officers check up on their maps. The ambulance convoy is told to park on the side of the road to give freer passage for the guns.

For a while I watch the Panzer divisions as they pass; a seemingly endless column, small whippet tanks, cruiser tanks, and the massive land ironclads for all the world like great battle­ships with their attendant flotillas.

Heads covered with the German steel helmet stick out of the turrets, and the skies are scanned for the approach of enemy aircraft. From all the tanks machine-guns protrude but from the heavier ones I see the bigger barrels of shell-firing guns as well.

Inexorable, this brutal-looking force trundles its way along the road. I hear nothing but the clank and grind of the caterpillars and the roar of motor-cycle exhausts as German N. C. O.'s pass up and down the column.

In my mind for a moment I people the road with those great crowds of refugees who elsewhere in France and Belgium have stood in the path of just such tanks as these. I see the wild desperate rush for the ditches, leaving what it will in its tracks.

I look at the faces of the men in the turrets, young, healthy-looking, and sometimes smiling, and I wonder at a system that can make such men, or any men, perpetrators of such acts.

 p16  Notice some precious French Army tanks packed up and ditched on the side of the road. Oh! la Belle France, is this the end? What a sad thought. Realize I'm in the midst of a catastrophe. . . . France, what can your allies do?

Kruger has some news — she thinks it highly probable we shall be sent to Geneva and home via the International Red Cross. Am not really very thrilled, as I can not believe the International Red Cross will be able to help us very much in a situation like this, and I should think, in any case, it will be a long, long time before we ever reach Switzerland. However, it's a much better thought than thinking of all the concentration and internment camps which will soon be springing up around here.

A Dutchman — one of the ambulance drivers whom I remember seeing at the Château Minimes — suddenly appears. He is very hopeful that we shall all be sent to Switzerland. Good.

The Panzer division has passed, the ambulance convoy starts again with its escort of motor-cyclists. We wend our way onward and get mixed up with hundreds of sheep which are loose on the road and entirely blocking it. If it weren't so pathetic it would be funny. Whether with the French or the Germans we seem fated to drive our ambulance through cattle. The German cyclists try to get the sheep off the road into the fields.

We ask Mademoiselle whether there is anything we can do for our wounded. Poor devils, they have been with us and without attention for a good many hours now. Mademoiselle says she has no first‑aid equipment with her; there is nothing to be done. The bleating of the sheep makes me doze off again. I wake up when Darby stops at some crossroads. She says that a motor-cyclist has gone ahead after having told her to halt  p17 here, but that an ambulance, she thinks one of ours, has just dashed past and turned to the right. Look to the right and see a signpost marked Provins. The next second Kruger dashes past us with le Nègre — they also turn to the right. Darby says, "What on earth are they doing?" I yell, "Follow! They are fout'‑ing le camp."2

Darby switches on, starts up, and swings to the right — it's a dead straight road for some way. See Kruger's ambulance not far ahead of us, but the distance soon widens. It would be our luck to be driving the one ambulance which for the last two days has been working on only four of its six cylinders. Remember telling Huffer, and he told his maréchal des logis to attend to it, but he obviously hasn't. She was running pretty badly last night, and now we can only chug along. Darby says she can't get an ounce more speed out of the engine. Kruger is doing •between fifty and sixty miles per hour and disappears out of sight. We can only do •just under thirty.

See German soldiers in the fields on either side of the road just in front of us. They have rows and rows of small guns — stretched away out, on either side of the fields; the line doesn't look very deep, about a hundred yards. Tell Darby if we could only get some speed up we could make it. The others must have done it; they are not in sight. Darby driving like a fury, but there's nothing to be done. We chug along the road between the lines of German soldiers. Just as we have passed them we hear, "Halt!"

The Author's Notes:

1 A purse worn under the skirt.

2 Fout' le camp: do a bunk.

Thayer's Notes:

a Ursula Lloyd Bennet; a fellow ambulance driver in the Mechanised Transport Corps, she is recorded among "The forgotten women of WWII".

b This is not the statue of Maréchal Gallieni in Paris in the place Vauban in front of the Invalides, although traveling from the Bois de Boulogne to the front, the ambulance had to cross the city, and a natural route could have taken it by there. But it would have been odd to write that that statue was "by the side of the road". A much better candidate is the bronze and granite statue which stood in the countryside at Trilbardou, just west of Meaux, until 2015 when it was moved to the Musée de la Grande Guerre in Meaux itself.

c The places are not clear.

There is — today — no place called by the name of Crouy-sur‑Marne, and the book's map puts Crouy NE of Soissons and close to it: there is a Crouy there, but it's not on the Marne, which does not flow in the area. There's another Crouy — Crouy-sur‑Ourcq — much closer both to Paris and to the Marne; its river is a tributary of the Marne.

Villiers-sur‑Marne does exist, but it's a scant 6 km from Paris, quite some distance from this Crouy; neither is it in the place shown on the map, which is pretty much at the location of Villiers-Saint-Denis: not on the Marne although only about 3 km away from it.

d The book never mentions Albert, Amiens, Arras, Cambrai, Limoges, or Péronne; I've left them in the map's original grey.

e Penelope Otto, a fellow ambulance driver in the Mechanised Transport Corps.

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