HISTORY
OF THE 305th Infantry
by
Frank Tiebout
Chapter 3
FLANDERS
CHAPTER III
FLANDERS
WAXEN, pale green faces leaned over the rail as the tiny
Channel steamers found smooth water and approached the
wharves at Calais. From the landing stage, some British
Tommies rudely inquired: "I sye, are you going to
the war? Why, you're half dead now! " We were; and
not at all enlivened by a sight of the long hospital
train at the nearby station, with all its blood and
bandages. Things were going badly at the front.
Through the rain
and the confusion on shore, through a maze of
ambu-lances, all driven by women, the Regiment found its
way to Rest Camp No. 6, East, past swarm after swarm of
tenacious urchins either selling their sandy chocolate,
bitter candies and sugarless cakes, or screaming,
"Souvenir Ameri-caine; penny, penn-ee! " And
still farther on and on, through deep, shifting sand,
past gangs of German prisoners at work, to the
"rest" camp. " Oh, you Dutchmen; wait till
we get a crack at you!" With that first hike, our
troubles started.
"Look at the
dinky tents they're going to put a whole squad
into!" was the derisive cheer which greeted the rows
on rows of conical tents. Imagine the disgust when a
round dozen men were told off into each of them, which
were sunk into the ground a couple of feet, and
surrounded by a two-foot wall of sandbags, as protection
against the lateral burst of aerial bombs; for night
raids on Calais were of regular occurrence.
Released for an
hour or two in which to get rid of their sea-legs and a
portion of their last pay, men wandered uptown with
passes to explore the questionable delights of the
ancient city now darkened at night and showing evidence
of recent raids. The doughboys' curiosity is insatiable.
In Calais, the officers quickly began to discover that
the English, with their ubiquitous clubs and messes, had
at least learned to make themselves fairly comfortable,
despite the war.
And no sooner were
most of the explorers herded back within the wire gates
of the camp at the appointed hour of nine-thirty, by
those unlucky enough to be posted as sentries-only one of
whom lost his rifle that night while on post-than the
Boche aeroplanes came over. Like the drowsy hum of
swarming bees could be heard overhead the ominous whir of
the powerful Mercedes motors-a sound which everyone
rapidly learned to loathe and detest. "Cr-r-umph,
croomph," fell the bombs, while everyone, according
to, instructions, lay close to the ground near the
sheltering sandbags, although the attack occurred at some
distance from the camp.
That was apparently
too much for the Chinese Coolies, employed as laborers by
the British and quartered in droves hard by our section
of camp. Ordinarily a happy, noisy lot, they had already
serenaded us with their weird music, though had anyone
been able to "parley Chinee," they might have
been urged politely to desist. While the Boche planes
bombed Calais, the Coolies attacked the Boche prisoners.
Hospitality and brotherly love was scarcely their motto;
for next morning, having forgotten their enmity toward
the common foe, their gentle demonstrations became more
personal and intimate: they staged an honest-to-goodness
Tong War, opening up a number of skulls, perhaps to make
us think of New York's Chinatown. Such diverting little
outbreaks were not infrequent, we were told.
Oh, think of those
days back at Upton when we " stood inspection,"
when we checked and rechecked the mass of equipment
preparatory to the crossing, and were charged for
articles short! Here in Calais, much of the labor of days
and nights was undone. The blue barrack bags with all
they contained-the extra uniform, the campaign hat, dress
shoes, knitted wear, personal articles of every
description and the comfort kits so patiently turned out
and presented by the thoughtful women of our own
Auxiliary were dumped into a pile and bidden adieu.
In exchange for
them, men and officers received a steel helmet and gas
mask, after marching for hours to the
"gas-chamber," where one or two imagined that
they were actually in a heavy concentration of the deadly
fumes and swooned artistically.
And oh, for the
days at Camp Upton, where the efforts of the Mess
Sergeant and the "greaseballs" were all too
scantily appreciated. The bread-cheese-marmalade threat,
heard at Dover, was proving a fact. We had just suffered
the gas-mask-helmet-hike episode, returning to the
"rest" camp late for tea-the Tommie calls his
supper "tea." All we rested at that camp were
our stomachs. Cooks had not been notified that the
Headquarters Company would be late; so, it was necessary
to make another " G. I. can of tea, while the men
waited outside the mess-shack. Though supposed to be
efficient at flag waving, they certainly were not gifted
with the quality of patience. No hungry soldier is.
Beating on the door, they yelled a number of
uncomplimentary things at the management, least
aggravating of which was, "Open up, you loafers, and
let us in! " The Lance-Corporal inside, lowest
ranking non-com in the British Army, shouted through a
crack in the door, "You bloody, bloomin' Yanks, we
waited three years for you; now you'll wait three minutes
for us." That was altogether too good a gibe,
thought the Headquarters Company who, beaten in argument,
could still beat down the door, which they promptly did,
utterly smothering Lance-Corporal in the ensuing rush.
Another exchange
was effected, the American Winchester rifles being turned
in while the British Enfields and bayonets were issued.
Just what did that mean? It certainly sug-gested that we
were to be linked with the British, somehow. Though not
generally realized at the time, the 77th Division was to
be stationed for its seasoning period in a position to
back up the British behind the Arras front, virtually in
reserve, to block the German advance, should the break
occur. The military situation was grave. Our seasoning
was likely to be a spicy one. Germany was striking at the
channel ports, England rather expecting her to reach
them. To our inexperienced eyes, Calais seemed defended
by a mere handful of Archies or anti-aircraft cannon.
Accordingly the
Regiment moved to the region centering about Licques in
the Pas de Calais, on May 2d, there to be trained by what
was left of the 39th British Division-one of those which
had borne the brunt of the March offensive and which had
been very badly shot up, a mere skeleton,
"There's a hot
meal waiting for you at the end of the march," was
the lure, the bait dangled under the noses of the Third
Battalion as they struggled under a boiling sun; at two
A. M. in a sudden rainstorm they made Alembon and
Sanghem. It rained every other minute, in those days. No
such rash promises having been made to the other
battalions, in their case no memory of a broken promise
remained to embitter the delights of billeting.
The whole Regiment
had set out from Calais bright and early, ridden a few
minutes on a freight train from Fontinettes station to
Audrique, there to take up their burden-winter overcoat
an' ever'thing, for a long afternoon afoot. Cheerful
enough at the start of its first real march, the long
column wound through a pleasant rolling country, over
government roads such as abound in France, bordered by
stately trees, the Regimental Band essaying at first
"to put in every step all their punch and pep"
but rapidly growing weak-growing weak, as evidenced by
the bass drum's utter loss of rhythm.
In the midst of the
afternoon a new contrivance, the rolling kitchen,
overtook us, greeted by a roar of approval which quickly
changed to a groan of disgust after the
"coffee" was sampled. Some got none, and
remained considerably more vigorous than those who
partook.
Toward evening, as
H and G Companies stumbled into Le Poirier for their
initiation to the matter of billeting, the old
school-teacher was in the act of prying a cow from one of
his outbuildings requisitioned for lodgings, apparently
making excuses to the poor thing. "My Cod,"
exclaimed Lieut. Henderson, "if that cow can learn
French, I can."
Those who did not
strip at once, to plunge into the frigid stream which ran
through the village street, sought to exercise their
meagre knowledge of French in bartering with the
townfolk. The price of eggs went soaring. Sergeant
Felder, of the Signal Platoon, knew that "egg"
in French sounded something like "oof." He
asked the rnadarre for two. " Woof, woof," be
said-, but the old lady certainly did not
"compree." Undaunted, Frank picked up a handful
of hay, shaping a little nest of it, in which he tenderly
placed two round stones. Then he hopped around the yard,
flapping his arms and shouting, " Cluck, cluck,
cutaw-w-cut," whereupon the good woman's
counte-nance brightened perceptibly. He got the eggs and
his platoon's nomination to the post of interpreter.
An unsigned
contribution from A Company reads: "I'll never
forget the long, thirteen-hour hike from Audrique to
Licques. We were marched through a muddy barnyard to a
stable door and told to go in and make our selves
comfortable, and we were so tired that we simply dropped
on the floor of the dirty place. It was not until morning
that I thought again of my blistered feet; my partner
woke me up by rolling over on them in his sleep, and
wouldn't get off 'em. 'For the love o' Mike,' I said,
'get over on your own side and let me sleep.' I struck a
match and found, to my great surprise, that my partner
was a two hundred pound porker. Sleeping with hogs was no
game for me, so I grabbed my blankets and straggled into
another part of the barn. Here I had to put up with the
cows ' but nevertheless, I went to sleep. At Reveille I
was out of luck; for when I awoke at 'first call' I found
a mademoiselle milking the cows. I couldn't very well
dress with her there and consequently got the Dickens for
being late to Reveille. Which proves that one can't be a
soldier and a perfect gentleman at the same time. "
Perhaps it is the
writer of the above, who was severely reviled by his
bunkies one night for making a dreadful racket and who
replied with some heat "that he would get this damn
pig out of the bed or know the reason why."
The billets
furnished other amusements, too. The Headquarters Company
tell how Jimmy Wild, who now doesn't like rats, was much
amused to see one try walking a slack wire directly over
his recumbent form; how the rat balled up his act and
fell directly on Jimmie's face; how, with a yelp, James
seized the rat by the tail, hurling it convulsively
across the barn-at the blanketed form of the somnolescent
Corporal White; how he in turn flapped his blankets in
the general direction of Fitzgibbon, who hastily made a
pass at Mr. Rat with a bayonet-with the result, of
course, that the rodent escaped.
It was after a few
days of billet life that the doughboy first confessed,
bashfully, that he thought he had a cootie. Horrors! To
think of OUR boys having-er, er, why, we could not bring
ourselves to use the dictionary word for these new
acquaintances. Acquaintances? Ay, bedfellows!
Presently another,
and still another victim. The thing lost its novelty as
well as the stigma of being "visited." A
certain preoccupation claimed the spare minutes. Along
with a gesture characteristic of the monkey, bathing
became more popular. Boiling the clothes was thought to
be efficacious, though it was soon apparent that only a
boiling of both the clothes and the soldier at the same
time could bring about any marked degree of success. The
Sanitary Detachment issued a sort of talisman to wear
suspended from the neck-quite decorative and all right in
its way, excepting that the little gray fellows seemed to
grow fat on it.
There may still be some who claim never to have
"entertained visitors." But others will tell
you how their pets wore service stripes and wound
chevrons, and would not only answer to name, but also
fall in, count off, and do a perfect squads right."
"… On my shirt they do 'right dress,'
Number off and march to mess,-
They run wild, simply wild over me."
One evening, a group of lieutenants sat within the only
light-proof barn left standing in Thenorgues, patiently
"reading their shirts" by the light of the
flickering candle. None of them could possibly have had a
bath for at least two weeks. Presently a very superior
voice issued from out the depths of a comfortable corner:
"Say, if you fellows would only be clean, bathe once
in a while, you wouldn't be bothered by these
seam-squirrels."
Wow! Such
impudence! They dragged him from his bed, promising that
if so much as one cootie were found on his bragging
person he would be sentenced to expulsion from the
billet-without clothes. Would you believe it-for some
unaccountable reason, they couldn't find a single
shirt-rabbit! But just to punish him for his insufferable
superiority he was thrown out, anyhow.
But to the drill
which, under the guidance of British officers and
non-coms dragged us out of bed at an early hour, rain or
shine, and let us off just in time for supper! Perhaps
you were unlucky enough to be quartered in Audrehem,
where the Second Battalion had their headquarters, or in
Le Poirier, and led to the summit of that unspeakable
hill every morning, there to grub away in the earth,
learning how to ply the festive pick and shovel on a
trench system; how to throw live grenades, how to shoot,
how to play games for which the British are very strong,
and how to wield the bayonet. An English sergeant-major
was endeavoring to arouse the will to use the bayonet, in
a small group of very earnest though very awkward
American soldiers. One of them made a terrific lunge at
his imagined adversary as if he were going to finish the
war right then and there, lost his balance and fell over
a thoroughly wounded dummy. "Fine spirit,"
cried the sergeant-major, "but go slaow, there; go
slaow. Ye'll win the Victoria Cross that wy, hal-right;
but yer mother'll wear it."
And the gas-mask!
It had to be carried constantly, in the hope that the
soldier would come to look upon it as his best friend,
his inseparable companion. Our preliminary training in
gas defense had in Camp Upton advanced to such a point
under the able tutelage of Lieutenant Kenderdine that
scarcely a man in the Regiment was unable to don the mask
in less than the required six seconds. Of course, there
were the peculiar cases such as that of Private Wigder
whose false teeth, gripping the mouth-piece, would insist
upon leaving their proper hiding place, sallying forth
and biting him in the cheek-or something like that; we
forget just what the excuse was which sent him into the
kitchen at Regimental Headquarters.
A British general, in whose area and under whose
jurisdiction we happened to be training, said to the
American officer who accompanied him on tour of
inspection one morning: " And are your men well
trained in the matter of gas-defense? "
Oh yes
indeed," replied General Johnson.
Gas! "
screamed the general at a passing doughboy, for the
purpose of making a practical test. Nothing but blank
amazement masked the Latin -American countenance on the
roadside.
" Gas! "
howled the general, thinking that the boy hadn't heard
him. No response - not a quiver of intelligence.
"Don't you
know enough to put on your mask when you hear that
warning?" cried the excited dignitary.
"Me no speak-a
da Eenglis," answered the American.
After all the
strain and stress which characterized the gas training,
one can easily imagine the diabolic grin which greeted
the news that Lieut.-Colonel Winnia, while visiting the
English front, had momentarily mislaid his mask and had
got a lungful.
It was perfectly
topping, the English said, for the Americans to brigade
their fresh units with the British, as was once the
plan-the Americans fur-nishing new vigor and
"pep," the British furnishing the experience.
But the idea didn't appeal to the American youth at all;
temperament, perhaps. It was with great consternation
that one of the British officers breathlessly reported to
Colonel Smedberg one day that a disquieting rumor was
abroad: the American soldiers had said they wouldn't
fight. Just another instance of the American doughboy's
extravagant conversation being taken seriously. In all
probability, some bragging British sergeant had
undertaken to tell a crowd of willing listeners all the
horrors of the trenches, real and imagined, spreading the
butter too thickly; the American, envious of the older
man's experience, had maliciously given the impression
that he was a near-Bolshevik. Nothing to it.
British
Corporal instructing some of our signalmen in use of
Lucas 14cm. daylight signal lamp.
While the Powers
that Be, Those Higher Up, and "They" were
sending each other congratulatory telegrams about the
glorious reunion of the two sister nations, how the
Minute Man of '76 and the Red Coat had finally clasped
hands, how blood would tell-Doughboy and Tommie were
discovering that blood still had a lot to tell. For one
thing, it stood to reason that the poor, downtrodden
British Tommie was all to blame for the ration of cheese,
tea, marmalade and dog-biscuit. Besides, it hurts the
pride terribly to hear a better story put over than one's
own about war and outrage and blood.
A Tommie sits in a
corner of the cafe beside a bottle of beer. "Come on
over, Yank, and 'ave a bottle, he says. "You're
on," replies the Yank, offering a Goldflake, or a
Red Huzzar, or a Three Castles, or something equally
awful; whereupon, for want of something more cordial and
brotherly to say, the Tommie remarks, "Well, we've
been waiting more than three years for yer ... ..
Yes," answers the doughboy, having thought up a good
retort to this, since the first insult at Calais, we had
to come over and finish the job for you." They
embrace with a crash of glass, and when reinforcements
rush up from either side, the Allies break friendly
bottles over each other's heads. With difficulty the
blood brothers are separated, moving off to see what all
the similar racket is about in the estaminet further down
the street and fondly hoping for some real excitement.
Many of us who
hadn't acquired even a cootie or two in the course of the
hardening process-no doubt 'twas thought to stiffen our
resistance to as many hardships as possible-either picked
up a couple of "friends" while visiting the
British in the front lines of the Arras sector, or got
them from those who returned. F Company boasts that
Sergeant Farmer came back with cooties clear to his
shoe-strings, inoculating the entire First Platoon and
the officers, and planning to take home to Mabel eighteen
trained coots in a pill box, which he "read"
off McGee's shirt.
Mothers' Day, May
4th, saw more letter writing than ever before in the
history of man; about that time, the first mail came
through from the United States. Will you ever forget the
thrill of those first letters-or the frightful lies you
wrote in reply? Already, the Company officers, required
to censor all outgoing mail, were busily carving out of
existence the vivid accounts of fictitious raids,
attacks, and heroic adventures, and a scribe of Semitic
origin was doing a big business in M Company writing
letters to the home folks for the boys-two stereotyped
pages furnishing the necessary news, a third proving that
Sonny was just as sentimental as ever.
Those who were
fortunate enough to visit the British front line really
had something to write about, and were the center of
interest upon their return from the region of Gommescourt
Wood and Fonquesvillers, ground which had recently been
retaken from the Germans in their strategic retreat to
the Hindenburg line. It was their first taste of shell
fire, their first sight of an area pitted with shell
holes, scarred by rotting tangles of wire, broken gun
carriages.. cannon, broken down tanks, bewildering mazes
of disused and new trenches, battered chateaux, wrecked
roads and villages, forests then nothing more than a
flock of stark, withered skeletons. Some even experienced
the thrill of night patrolling. The officers were
particularly astonished at the nonchalance with which the
English officers regarded the perils of the situation, at
the impor-tance of their liquor, and at their formal
dinners, surprisingly well served under the very noses of
the Boches-a dangerous aggravation, one might think. But
all came away more or less imbued with the feeling that
the whole affair "up there" was too vast, too
panoramic for rapid comprehension, and impressed by the
tremendous amount of noise and metal required to kill a
man.
Of all the battles,
skirmishes and engagements which this history will
describe, there is no doubt that the Battle of Watten, of
awful memory, has been most frequently alluded to. "
Ah, the Rout of Watten," you will fondly say;
"If someone fails to make Watten as famous as Bull
Run, future gen-erations will never fully appreciate the
real horrors of war." When it was all over, though
we had yet to hear the roar of artillery and the chatter
of machine guns, there was not a man of the Regiment who
did not agree abso-lutely with General Sherman's
contention regarding war.
For it was a war, a
mimic war, the first of those terrible things called
maneuvers; but very few of the officers and men realized
until the battle was half over that the Americans were
attacking the English, or the English attacking the
Americans-something like that. Whether or not the whole
Division, or the Brigade, or merely the Regiment was
concerned, nobody seems to know, to this day. Nobody
knows anything about that famous affair; yet everybody
talks about it. It will doubtless remain a mystery until
the end of time.
This Battalion will
march . . . " began the mere scrap of paper-a
"chit "-which kept officers and men of
your" particular company awake the greater part of
the night, packing up the full equipment, office records,
trunks and bedrolls, (for the orderlies had not yet
become skilled in the art of relieving the management of
worry), and which sent you forth to perspire bright and
early the morning of May sixteenth. "Kitchens will
follow without distance." ("Yeah, an' without
food," you grumbled.) A four-hour march under as hot
a sun as ever a midsummer had to offer brought the First
Battalion to Zouafques, the Second to Louches and the
Third to Tournehem. All afternoon the weary came
straggling in, dropping exhausted into billets where they
fondly hoped to rest for the next two weeks at least. But
such was not to be. Many of the boys, too weary to clean
out the stables allotted to them, preferred to flop in
the adjoining pastures under their dog-tents.
Four o'clock next morning, the seventeenth, was the hour
at which you contemplated murdering the bugler; at
five-thirty you were on the road, that is, if you were in
the Second Battalion. The orders read that at some-thing
like eight-forty-three, thirty seconds and two ticks,
roughly speaking, the Regiment would assemble at cross
roads So-and-So, in such-and-such order. Disorder! Can't
you see "them," studying the Field Service
Regulations, figuring the length of each column, the
distance to be covered, the number of miles accomplished
by a thirty-inch step, a hundred and twenty-eight to the
minute, the fifty-minute jaunt, the ten-minute halt-then
rising triumphantly to announce that the Regiment would
assemble from the four corners of France at the very
stroke of, of- Oh, well, the battalions assembled. Then
for the real work of the day!
The remarks that
were passed on the march would never pass the censor.
"We cursed and sweat, for the sun was ferocious; and
that made the cooties happy." It was the officers'
simple duty, besides carrying their own equipment, to see
that the men kept up and made ten kilos look like two, a
heart-breaking task. During the most trying part of the
hike, an officer noticed that one of his men, an
illiterate Russian Jew, was just about "all in"
and that his poorly made up pack was gradually falling
apart, then almost dragging on the ground. "At the
next halt," he said in no uncertain tones, "you
tear that pack apart quickly and make it up right! Get
your corporal to help you." At fifty minutes of the
hour, when the men fell out on the right, the lieutenant
sauntered down the column to see that the readjustment
was proceeding swiftly just as the poor, exhausted
Russian took from his roll a heavy Webster's Dictionary!
Even the English
Tommies at the head of the column for the purpose of
setting the proper experienced pace, and who carried no
packs, were well-nigh overcome by the heat. Many were the
schemes to rid one's self of some, if not all of his
load. The brightest idea emanated from the brain of one
Mr. Gash, who cut off and threw away the canister of his
gas mask, averring that inasmuch as he still retained the
face-piece he was fully protected.
During one of the
halts, a doughboy collapsed on the stone railing of a
bridge bewailing his fate, mopped his brow and whimpered,
"I've never bad a bit o' luck since I ate that fish
on board the Cedric!"
All were game at
the start; everybody wanted to stick it out. But the men
simply were not in condition to carry their absurdly
large packs in that sudden spell of warm weather. During
the early stages of the march there were exasperating
halts for no apparent reason, the men, of course, being
required to stand in formation expecting momentarily to
push onward again. That is what takes it out of a
man-needless starting and stopping-the accordion
formation."
At the fifteen-kilo
mark, the boys started to weaken. Forgotten were the
principles of route-marching as demonstrated so
beautifully by the English platoon (which had nothing
else to do). The big, the small and tall started to keel
over. Whole squads collapsed; companies evaporated,
"all along the rotten road to Wa-a-atten."
"Then our
captain told us," writes a doughboy, "that we
had a mile and a half to go. He fooled us. Our water was
low; many were without it. The sun had us melted. Throats
were parched; feet were blistered; our bones ached all
over. I saw black in front of my eyes. Fifty minutes on
the hike, ten minutes rest: the fifty dragged like years,
but the ten went like seconds. Sometimes the major's
watch would stop and we would walk eighty minutes. He
never seemed to worry, for he was on his poor horse which
was also all in. I saw this horse many times look
pitifully at the men on the roadside and from the
expression on the poor beast's face I judged that he too
would like to sit down by the roadside.
"We landed in
a field about two-thirty and thought it was the end of
the hike, for there was old 'Dutch' Richert with his
chow-wagon; and the stew he made up for us tasted like
creamed turkey. But that was only the first part of the
battle. With the stragglers still coming in, the major
gave orders to sling packs, saying we had about three
miles more to go. By that time, three miles was no more
than a cootie bite to us. But we had to go ten more
dreary miles before landing in the woods. 'Those packs
are too heavy for even a mule,' we overheard an officer
say. This made us very cheerful-made us feel like wagging
our cars.
" That night,
we would have relished a bed of nails and barbed wire.
Having gulped down some hot water, alias coffee, and
ready to 'coushay' on the ground floor of Watten Wood, I
stepped over into a nearby field for a minute and was
tagged by a squad of Tommies as a prisoner. That was the
first intimation I had that a war was on. Just then there
were such shouts and yells through the woods that we
thought the Boches had broken through the lines at Ypres.
The yells were fierce: 'Put out that light; do you want
to get killed!' 'Douse the kitchen fires!' 'Lights out,
there!' 'There he is, overhead.' Above the roar of the
anti-aircraft Archies, we could hear the drowsy hum of
the German aeroplanes. All one could do was to crawl into
a hole and try to drag the hole in after him, while the
bombs dropped dizzily in the distance. Over to the east
was seen the lurid glare of a burning ammunition dump.
Searchlights flashed across the sky, and managed to pick
up a Taube, which dived and ducked and swerved while the
Archies barked all around him. Finally he dodged out of
the shaft of light, and despite the telltale buzz of his
motor, it couldn't pick him up again. But what was the
use? If he had landed a bomb, well-we couldn't stop his
doing it, so we just naturally shivered ourselves to
sleep."
At about eleven
o'clock, some frightened individual sounded a fake gas
alarm and the boys rushed their gas masks on in record
time. At Reveille next morning, a private of A Company,
who fell asleep during the supposed attack with his mask
on, awoke with a start and exclaimed with indignation to
the sergeant standing near, "I wonder who in Hell
put this on?"
But while G Company
slept the sleep of the dead, "Abie" Hoffman was
up and doing. In response to the major's pointed inquiry,
the company commander was able to reply, "Yes, sir.
G Company's packs are all present or accounted for."
Anybody who knows "Abie" can imagine how he
took aside the driver of a British motor lorry, found him
a drink somehow, sug-gested that they take a ride and
returned triumphant with all the baggage which the
company had shed along the route.
Next day scarcely a
man stirred out of his dog-tent until weird orders came
in about reducing the weight of the packs. Away went the
bed-sacks, 0. D. shirts, extra socks and underwear,
personal articles, the sweaters that Sweetie had
laboriously knitted, the housewives that Mother had
patiently put up so that one might be able to sew on a
necessary button in the field. "I give you fair
warning," said our lieutenants. "Your home-made
sweaters, socks and other unauthorized articles are going
to be con-fiscated if found in your packs. Open up."
When inspection took place, many a man had on three pairs
of prized socks, and a prickly sweater out of sight next
his skin; but most of these articles were ruthlessly
dumped into a pile through which the grasping Tommies
rummaged to their heart's delight. When another dizzy
order suddenly came through to give back the sweaters,
our officers could scarcely look their men in the face.
That was the second
part of the fight.
After
"Duncan's Dizzy Division" had spent most of the
following morning in improvised and muddy trenches, the
officers almost crazy because of constant and conflicting
new orders, and most of the afternoon in a second series
of aggravating inspections for unauthorized equipment, we
lit out for home. At nine o'clock we flopped into a wood,
but scarcely anybody pitched a tent, knowing that he'd
have to be up and doing at four in the morning, in order
to escape the heat of the day. At ten A. M., we were back
at the starting place, and the superhuman first platoon
of F Company, having won the hundred francs put up by
"Dan" Patchin for a relay race, repaired in a
body to the corner cafe in Louches, to drown its thirst;
the Battle of Wat-ten was over.
That affair
certainly gave the Division a black eye from which only
some real action in the trenches could help us recover. A
rigorous course of training ensued, much the same as that
which preceded the "battle," the Regiment
meanwhile being regrouped about the headquarters, at
Licques.
Inspection by Sir
Douglas Haig seemed to please him, in preparation for
which Captain Achelis might have been heard to say,
"Let's see. When he comes I can have one platoon
doing a snappy bayonet drill, another throwing bombs,
another in a gas-mask race, and the fourth doing 'squads
right' in the courtyard of the brewery." The boys
were promised a complete holiday on May thirtieth; and
anyone will wager that General Pershing, whose threatened
dash through the area never materialized, would not have
approved of our being held the entire day, with combat
equipment, in readiness for his approach and probable
inspection!
"About June
tenth," writes the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, "
there came a real tragedy. It cost the lives of fifteen
men of Company B and wounded about forty others. The
extensive list of dead and injured caused it to be
thought across the ocean that the Three Hundred and Fifth
was already in action. The accident happened while
Company B was on a British drill field near a Stokes
mortar battery." Unlike the rest of the report, and
contrary to the general belief, it was not a B Company
man who picked up a "dud". A French soldier of
a salvage unit dropped the unexploded shell, which
occasioned the tragedy among the platoon about to fall in
near by. It was a rather cheerless company, which fired
on an adjoining range the next day; and the entire
Regiment had learned by sad experience not to tamper with
unexploded shells.
American rifles
again! In the middle of the night, orders came to turn in
the English Enfields and draw the old Winchesters
deposited at Calais, and which looked as if they had been
left out in the rain ever since. The Regiment would move
at one o'clock, June sixth for parts unknown. Rumor had
it that the American Sector would receive us "
toot-sweet."
It was too bad that
Captain Achelis, familiarly known to "his boys"
as "Peaches," had announced with dramatic
effect that to glorify the departure he had bought a pig.
For, in view of the sudden order advancing the hour of
march to eleven A. M., the Captain sold the pig, while
his boys hastily rolled packs and snatched a chunk of
bread and rare beefsteak from the rolling kitchens. For
months thereafter,-on marches, in billets, in estaminets,
on the mess line or wherever C Company congregated could
be heard, sung to the tune, "The Farmer in the
Dell," the mournful verses: "The Captain bought
a pig," "The Captain sold the pig,"
"Who ate the pig," and so on.
Oh, the mockery of
it! Having washed down the beef and read with a few gulps
of chlorinated water, we stood for an hour thinking of
the untouched potatoes, coffee, jam, and the
possibilities of pig, before the order came from
Battalion Headquarters to "fall out in the immediate
vicinity." It was not until three o'clock that the
order came to fall in again, which started us on our long
journey to the southeast.
Not even those
unfortunates who had done forty-two kilos in a day, while
helping the 154th Brigade in a little maneuver of their
own, felt able to scoff at the thirty kilometers with
full packs, covered by one A. M. the next morning. As
usual, the men got away in splendid spirits on what
proved to be one of the most grueling hikes of their
entire experience, everybody " covering off "
properly, well to the right of the road, marching songs
rising lustily from every throat. The burning sun gave
way to twilight, twilight to moonlight, and still the
fifty-minute marching period, still the ten-minute rest!
"Gawd, how much further have we got to go?"
While the men wobbled all over the road, majors,
adjutants and scout officers sped up and down the ditch
on horseback, testing out the liaison.
"Liaison" was an enthralling word. "Er,
er, Lieutenant, report to Major Metcalf that the head of
this Battalion cleared cross roads Blankety-blank dash
blink-point-blank at nine-fifty-two." The adjutant
transmits this thrilling information to the Major, who
returns the compliment, thereby leaving the ultimate
defeat of Germany a mere question of time-while the
plodding doughboy wonders how much more time it will
necessitate and envies the adjutant his horse. "One
feature of the French kilometer," he observes,
"is that you not only kill a meter, but also kill
yourself, particularly when you've got this pack on your
back."
What did it matter
if the mules and wagons of the Supply Company barely
escaped running over the prostrate bodies lying
confusedly in the woods at Campagne-les-Boulonnais?
Utterly fatigued, there was no thought but to lie and
rest and no welcoming cheer to greet the concerted action
of the buglers next morning. But just stop a moment to
think of the poor old cooks. No easy life was theirs
while on the move. To be sure, it was the easiest thing
in the world for them to slip their packs on the kitchens
and ration carts despite all orders to the contrary; but
they covered the same ground you did, and got up in time
to feed you-as they did that painful morning.
It was soon
apparent that this second day was not to be any grand and
glorious achievement; tormenting feet, aching bodies,
insufficient rest and groaning backs soon began to take
their toll. Man after man, struggling as long as human
endurance could maintain them, fell by the wayside, sick,
exhausted and oftentimes unconscious. 'Long about midday,
General Wittenmyer came upon a pathetic figure by the
roadside, propped against his pack which he hadn't the
energy to takeoff. "Dogs," he soliloquized,
gazing ruefully at his feet, "you've gone back on
me. For many a year you've been my main support and
you've done your duty noble. I've been careful of you
right along; but I guess I was too easy with you. And
now, because you've had to take some hard knocks, you're
laying down on me, ain't you. But I guess you done the
best you could an' I can't blame you for putting me out
of the running."
Any feeble attempt
at mirth and hilarity had long since failed.
Con-versation was at a standstill; but what the boys
thought about the army at that time was unfit for
publication. Yet the hike was productive of many
surprises, among them General Wittenmyer's decision,
after hearing the doughboy's lament, to order a lengthy
rest at noon and-Sidney Wermick's quality of endurance.
"Sid had been
cooking for the Signal Platoon all the time we were out
with the British climbing the hills of Northern France.
We had carried the pack a bit, nearly every day in the
week. Sid hadn't. So, when we started on this jaunt the
hardened veterans thought that Sid would be one of the
first to drop out. Along about the fifth hour, when fully
ready to call it quits, there was Wermick marching
blithely along, seemingly with no cares or worries. He
was in at the finish, and probably the freshest man of
the lot. That night, his bunkie happened to be looking
while Sid unrolled his pack. It comprised one blanket and
a lot of straw - all the rest of his equipment was on the
ration cart."
At Embrey, eighteen
kilometers away, the entire Regiment encamped in the rain
upon a slippery hillside. There ensued the customary foot
inspection by delighted officers who would look
solicitously at masses of blisters and callouses, giving
the highly original and expert advice to prick the former
and shave the latter. A few minutes thereafter, the
nearby stream was full of soapsuds and struggling
humanity, the woods bright with naked bodies and
brandished towels, and the price of wine advancing from
two to six francs a bottle. "The 'Frogs' of that
town," the boys complained, "paid off their war
debts with the money they took over from the Three
Hundred and Fifth."
One more day of it
brought us into Wamin, on a Saturday night. But a
Saturday night in Wamin is not exciting. We rested the
Sabbath day and kept it wholly unto ourselves, lying
about in glorious relaxation on the pleasant grass,
attending Chaplain Browne's services, listening to the
band and watching F Company's ball team trim a group of
Canadians to the tune of 9-5.
Again we quote:
"As we approached Hesdin, the morning of June tenth,
it was our expectation to find accommodation in
compartment cars, such as we had seen the French and
British soldiers fly past in. But for us, there were only
trains of dinky box cars which had been carting horses
around France for three years and never cleaned. While
some men plied the busy pitchfork, our future Argonne
scouts got some valuable pointers stealing straw.
How pleased F Company's bunch of battling Irishmen were
to find their beds suddenly requisitioned by the major's
horse! 'Quarante hommes, huit che-vaux!' We would rather
have been the chevaux, particularly after having ridden
three days and nights in these side-door Pullmans."
But the boys would
put up with 'most any sort of hardship, for they were
going to join up with real Americans. We passed through
Versailles; later, caught a distant glimpse of the Eiffel
tower, thinking that perhaps we'd see something of the
wonderful city of Paris which lingered tantalizingly
before our eyes; but just as everyone had primed himself
for the treat, the engine puffed around to the rear of
the train, and started us off in the other direction.
Think of all the
rumors that went the rounds. Think of all the
difficulties of messing-rushing up to the kitchen cars
only to find the train steaming out, and in a fair way to
leave the greater part of its passengers in some
unidentified portion of France. How many times did
overwrought officers howl at you to "get those legs
inside the car?"
At Nancy, it was
the same old story-a beautiful city temptingly held
before us a moment or two, only to be rudely snatched
away before too many venturesome youths could sneak out
of the side doors for a drink. Down near Blainville, we
saw the first American campaign hats of loving memory.
Old Rain-in-the-Face Overseas Cap couldn't ever come up
to the campaigner could it? Either the sun smote the
eyes, or the rain trickled down through the ears into
one's shirt collar. Great excitement occasioned by the
sight of these first Americans-engineers working on the
railroads! We must be nearing the American Sector!