HISTORY
OF THE 305th FIELD ARTILLERY
by
Charles Wadsworth Camp
1919
SOUGE AND FIRST CASUALTIES
THE coolies, we soon realized, would be an irritation,
for we wouldn't be allowed to loaf here. We were to be
put at once into the way of fulfilling our destiny. We
were equipped first of all like the artillery regiment we
were. Six batteries of soixante-quinzes were delivered to
us in the spacious gun park. Sleek and lithe with an iron
grace, they stuck their noses from their painted shields.
They looked terribly competent, a little snobbish, too.
They seemed to remind us that they weren't three inch
guns, and that we had a lot to learn before we would
really be fit to handle them.
Limbers and caissons were of an unfamiliar pattern. We
gathered about the gray fourgons-a cross between a gypsy
van and a prairie schooner. They looked sturdy and
faithful, and they turned out so.
Telephones, switchboards, wire, wireless sets,
goniometers, scissors-they all came streaming in. Except
for horses we were fully equipped within the first few
days, and the horses commenced to arrive and breed
dissension almost at once.
We didn't have much time to admire all this. We were put
to work to learn something about it before we tried it on
the Bosche. The course was announced as eight weeks long.
After the first day we glanced at each other hopelessly.
What had they done with us at Upton for seven months? How
could we absorb all this strange, fascinating, and
fundamental knowledge in a few days?
At first officers and men went to standing gun drill. The
officers followed with terrain board work, the men with
specialist instruction. The officers spent the rest of
the day at general lectures on conduct of fire,
orientation, communication, materiel. We were given
elaborate range tables. We heard of stripping ranges and
transport of fire, and D v zero, and K zero. Heads
buzzed.
" If I have to figure all these things before I
shoot at the Bosche, " someone said, "the war
will be over before I get my first shell off."
The sun grew
hot and the sand more clinging, reminding us we were in
the south, as we trudged to classes or walked many
kilometers with plane tables and instruments for
orientation exercises.
During this period of education the regiment more or less
ran itself. Officers and men went to different classes.
The hours didn't coincide. Often for drill there would be
no officer present. Yet the work didn't slump. Discipline
maintained its old standard.
We were the first national army division in France, so
our instructors had been drawn from the few Regular Army
and National Guard Divisions that had preceded us. They
had had some little experience in what might be called
parlor trench fighting. We grasped at it. It was
invaluable to us. We tried to emulate their easy command
of the finer points of French artillery specialization.
Frequently we got to Bordeaux for a week end relaxation.
The neighboring villages of Martignas and St. Jean d'Elac
offered a smiling hospitality. For less adventurous
spirits there was a collection of -booths just outside
the gate, where one could sample French cookery and
wines. Then during the second week measles appeared, and
for a time all passes were stopped.
We had solved the mechanical puzzles of the
soixante-quinze, and something of the mysteries of
orientation and modern conduct of fire. On May 27th we
went to the range to shoot. There were just enough horses
at that time to draw one battery out, and the second
battalion got them for E battery, which had won the gun
drill competition and had been selected to fire with C
the first shots on the range.
C battery tried trucks. They got the pieces and caissons
as far as the macadamized road went. There remained,
perhaps a mile and a half of sand. The trucks wouldn't
touch it. The cannoneers looked at the deep ruts and the
heavy pieces.
"We have been honored with this first job to
fire," they said to each other.
They put their shoulders to the wheels. They kept talking
about that honor. They wondered why they had ever gone
into the artillery to be so appreciatively singled out.
They managed, however, a little limp themselves, to get
the carriages to the position in front of observatory 3,
where others had dug emplacements and sunk trail logs.
The details located the guns, got the aiming sticks up,
and ran wires to the observatory and into the range
telephone system.
Captain Roger D. Swaim, of the New England National Guard
was the First Battalion's firing instructor, and Capt.
Kelly, of the same organization, the Second's. They met
us at the observatories at 7:30 Monday morning, and we
started.
We had so much ammunition that we forgot to gaze at each
shell as if it were a precious pearl being cast before
swine.
The projectiles went away in quick salvos, and after the
first few we knew that while we weren't perfect we could
bracket a target and get real effect on it. Then the
instructors criticized, the colonel did the same, and the
majors usually had their say. Those who hadn't fired
looked at the man conducting smugly. Yet always sooner or
later they got, as one phrases it, theirs.
That was the beginning of endless hours in the
observatories. We averaged four hours firing and eight
hundred rounds a day.
Our first day on the range, it will be recalled, saw the
opening of the great German offensive across the Chemin
des Dames, through chateau Thierry, and nearly to the
gates of Paris. After the thrust at Amiens and about
Ypres the Bosche had lain quiescent, and his startling
initial successes carried a vivid shock to us in the
midst of our schooling. We guessed our plans would be
altered, for more artillery was needed. A cry went up for
every available man. Yet the change when it came was no
less of a shock than the great battle. The schedule was
published at the end of the week. We would start on the
range at 7 o'clock. We would get back in time for a
hurried bite of luncheon. From then until 5 o'clock we
would have terrain board and specialist instruction, and
gas would have to be worked in now. It went between 5
o'clock and supper. From supper time until nine o'clock
we would listen to lectures on ammunition, fuses, and
various subjects. Then, if we liked, we could attend to
our routine organization work, and study. Then, if there
was any time, we could go to sleep.
The emergency was, indeed, grave. We even heard rumors
that the government had moved from Paris to Bordeaux a
second time, and we went into town that week end
apprehensive of too many figures in frock coats and silk
hats.
After a few days the news was better, but it didn't
affect our schedule. During the afternoon classes, after
nights of insufficient rest and mornings of intricate
calculations and eye strain on the range, we struggled
against sleep.
Lieutenant-Colonel Stimson returned to the regiment
during this phase. He had visited several fronts and had
taken the course at the staff college at Langres.
Lieutenant Mitchell, in spite of his experience, was not
named regimental gas officer. That position went to
Lieutenant Gilbert Thirkield. Our gas drill consisted in
exercises in speed, and walks or runs, wearing the masks.
We tried to accustom ourselves to goggles that always
clouded, to mouthpieces that left us a trifle choked, to
head bands that exerted a painful and increasing
pressure.
Into the midst of this earnest endeavor the horses came,
and time had to be found to take care of them and to
wrangle over them. They weren't very good horses, but
they served to arouse that passionate gypsy instinct that
informs all lovers of animals. There was sharp trading
and devious scheming to get the best of each lot.
A new batch would arrive from the remount depot. It
couldn't be assigned to one organization without giving
the others a fair chance for its best. An order would
come around that organization commanders might exchange
the choice of their individual mounts for anything that
caught their fancy in the new lot. The horse fair would
begin.
This fair was usually held in the deep sand by the
stables. Officers and men would form a ring about a row
of shaggy beasts held by self-conscious orderlies.
Critical eyes would run down the line, taking in the
badly used thoroughbred, a thing of possibilities; the
narrow-chested overbreed; the useful animal of poor but
honest ancestry; the pitiful crocks. Arguments would
spring up as to the virtues of some particular beast. You
invariably weighed the reverse of an expressed opinion.
Faces would grow red, and voices hoaxse from reiterated
convictions.
"I'll swop for this one," a captain says.
"All right," from the officer in charge of the
fair. "Bring on your best mount."
The captain strides away. After a time the circle parts
to admit him and his prize-a spring-kneed, mangy cob from
the hospital. It takes two orderlies to support it.
" Whoa! " cries the captain, and pats him
gently as if to persuade him not to cut up.
He points to the new horse he has chosen, and instructs
his orderly.
"Lead that fellow out. I think I'm getting stung,
but I agreed to swop, and I will."
The orderly leaves the invalid, glancing back as if to
make sure he hasn't toppled over. The other side of the
exchange raises his voice.
"Like the deuce you'll swop. What did you bring that
bat-rack here for? "
The captain's expression is of innocent surprise.
"To trade with you as the order directed."
The other sneers.
"Thought you'd made a mistake and believed I was
running a soap factory, or maybe you want to borrow a
detail to dig his grave."
"Very funny! Very funny! That's one of the best
horses in the regiment."
The orderly puts in gravely:
" It's a real hardship to see him go, sir. He's just
a little sick."
"My interpretation of the order," the objector
says, "is that you can trade your best individual
mount. If that's it, your battery will walk."
The captain gestures.
"Orders are orders. You've got to trade."
A very superior officer intervenes.
"Gentlemen!--Or maybe I ought to say gypsies-We
can't do business this way. We'll get an interpretation
that will give everyone a square deal. Meantime, put the
horses up."
And the red disappears from the faces of the wranglers,
and they go away arm in arm, good friends until the next
fair day.
Sharp trading was necessary. Not only were many of the
horses bad, but they died in large numbers, and
re-placements weren't simple to get.
Major Johnson was largely instrumental in holding
casualties down and in conditioning the survivors. He was
also a bulwark between us and the gypsy desires of other
organizations. For the horse trade fever swept the entire
brigade.
"I thought they might court martial me today,"
he would say after an hour or two at the stables or
brigade headquarters with higher ranking officers than
himself, "but I've held them off our horses."
The remount men watched the bargaining and smiled. They
had their own axe to grind, and they liked to see a
favorite animal well placed. They were capable of
diplomacy when officers of higher rank than the one
chosen threatened to interfere.
"Sure. A beautiful horse, Sir," the remount man
might say to the very high ranking officer. Few better in
looks have come out of the depot. You might go farther
and fare worse."
He winks at the junior officer for whom that horse is
destined. The senior glances up.
" What do you mean? What's the matter with him?
" Matter! Who said anything was the matter? Of
course, Sir, all horses have their little foibles."
"I thought so. Talk up. What's the -matter with this
one? "
The remount man gazes at him admiringly.
"No fooling you, Sir! But I don't go back on what I
said. A beautiful animal, and he might give you good
service if you took chances and had a little luck. I go
on the principle that no horse is hopeless, but this one
is a genuine bad actor."
Exit high ranking officer.
We had practical uses for our horses now. Some of the gun
positions and observatories were five kilometers or so
from our quarters. It often took hard riding to snare a
bite of luncheon before the first of the afternoon
classes.
Lieutenants Hoyt, Montague, Gurney, and Church, who had
been delayed in America to bring over casuals, joined us
early in June. Shortly afterwards Lieutenants Hoyt and
Norman Thirkield were sent to balloon school, and
Lieutenants Jones, Montague, and Gurney to aviation
instruction. Lieutenant Hoyt soon after was ordered by G.
H. Q. to the liaison service, and the regiment said
good-by to him regretfully.
We had got into lateral and bilateral observation by this
time. Often the guns were several miles from the officer
conducting fire, but communication was always open, and
the result of these exercises plainly told us that we
were nearly ready for the Hun. Before this war it would
have been considered an absurdity to try to train an
artilleryman even in the old fashioned methods during so
brief a period. But here we were-good. The regiment felt
it. A little later, the Hun felt it, too.
Our first casualties came to us on the range at Souge. It
was on June 20-We were registering for an intensive
"barrage that would mark the close of the course.
The two battalions had established command posts at some
distance from each other. Each had put in elaborate
schemes of communication, practically independent of the
range system. Major Johnson had received permission to
locate the pieces of the first battalion according to the
technique of actual warfare. He got camouflage nets
which, with the natural cover, hid the positions so
successfully that an aeroplane photograph, taken for our
instruction, was innocent of warlike indications.
The first platoon of Battery B was scarcely more than
fifty meters from Major Johnson's command post,
Observatory 1. The pieces were echeloned, each under its
own camouflage net.
The registration progressed, as registrations do, to a
precise and dreary measure. Without warning and with no
unusual noise Battery B's number 2 piece was shattered by
a premature burst. For a moment a cloud of smoke obscured
it. As it drifted away we saw that the camouflage net had
disappeared, that the caisson was blackened and
smouldering, that the breech of the piece had gone. The
crew, from an ordered group, had become a thing,
scattered and incomplete. Men stumbled oddly as they ran
out of the cloud. There were not enough of them.
"Cease firing!" Major Johnson ordered.
"Where's the surgeon? "
The operator passed the word' over the telephone. Flames
sprang from the smouldering caisson. Shells there were
evidently bursting. Major Johnson ordered everyone from
the observatory, and, followed by his adjutant, Captain
Reed, and Captain Ravenel walked for-ward and threw sand
at the caisson. Unasked, volunteers sprang from the ranks
into the danger zone. In a few minutes the fire was
extinguished. Those on the out-skirts questioned.
"How much damage? Anybody hurt?"
And from the group about the smashed piece came back the
quiet answer:
"The gunner and No. 1 killed."
Everyone had guessed that would be so. Sitting on either
side of the breech there had never been much chance for
them.
The director of the school came. A board was appointed
and the evidence taken. We had learned to fear long
fuses, but the damage had been done by a white fused
shell, and No. 2 had looked through the bore, so that the
blanket verdict of faulty ammunition went down.
An ambulance dashed up and backed towards the group. Two
covered forms were lifted into it, then it clanged a
swift way towards camp.
"Brace up!" an officer called with kind
brutality. "You'll see plenty of other men killed
before you get through with this war. Get on the job now.
Firing will be resumed."
The men responded, shaking themselves rather as dogs do
after an unexpected immersion. That afternoon there was a
new piece firing from the destroyed gun's platform. The
gunner and No I did not flinch. The day's work went on
with a noisy rapidity.
"Yet," as someone wisely remarked, "it
can't be like seeing men killed in battle."
Privates Jeremiah S. Lynch and Harry J. Posner were
buried the next day. Chaplain Sheridan conducted the
services, and Mrs. Gariessen, of the Y. M. C. A., who had
a short time before lost her own son in action, tried as
best she could to take the place of the mothers. Lynch
and Posner received full military honors. Men from every
organization attended the funeral and saw more distinctly
in the bland southern sunlight the vicious and amazing
shadow that is war.
X
HUSTLED TO THE FRONT
THE regiment went about its business with its former
eagerness. We were told that our first rolling barrage
was worthy of veteran troops. It certainly made enough
noise and black smoke. The next, with the guns of the two
light regiments in a long row, was as good. We admired
the dust clouds half obscuring the quickly sliding tubes,
and the changing black curtain drawn across the range.
"No one," we told ourselves, "could get
through that."
Our instructors admitted that there didn't seem to be any
holes.
Such perfection wasn't reached without delays and
adventures. The weather had grown steadily warmer. There
had been scarcely any rain. Consequently the range was
abnormally dry. When the 306th got its 155 howitzers and
opened fire with practice shells these factors produced
worse conflagrations than we had bad at Upton. They
stopped our work. They sent us to warm and uncongenial
labor. Towards the climax of a delicate adjustment it was
distracting to hear someone say to the instructor:
"Isn't that smoke over there sir? I think it's a
fire on the range."
The instructor always looked through the binoculars, and
nearly always in a tone of helpless disgust, called to
the operator.
"Ceasefiring! Fire on the range."
The battle roar would die before a threatening silence.
We never learned. We always hoped until the last minute
that the flames would burn themselves out. But always the
small smoke ball with its red center would grow, and
spring into a black fan with a flame fringe, sweeping
before the wind which always blew in that place.
Then the colonel, or the brigade commander, if he was
there, would call for trucks and men until the greater
part of the brigade and the ammunition train was on the
range, starting counter fires, or with picks and shovels
clearing ground before the flames.
It usually meant an afternoon's hot work at the expense
of specialist instruction. That had about run its course
anyway. The days had slipped into weeks, and towards the
end of June we knew we were as nearly ready as Souge
would make us. Our departure waited only on
transportation. We speculated as to where we would go.
Our infantry had trained with the British in Flanders.
For a long time we thought we would fight there.
Tours wanted to know which regiment would volunteer to
hold itself ready to move at a moment's notice. The 305th
offered itself. We entered anew age of packing. We had
more equipment, but we also bad more experience, and we
got ready with little of the neurasthenic hurry of Upton.
Here at the last, our carefully studied organization was
shattered. Other artillery brigades were coming to
France, and they would have to be instructed. Under
orders from the Chief of Artillery the Souge instructors
chose from the brigade a certain number of officers who,
they considered, bad shown aptitude. They would either
remain behind .now, or be called on later to teach
artillery.
We felt our regiment had been unduly complimented.
Captains Reed, Delanoy, and Ravenel were to leave us at
once. Lieutenants Camp, Church, and Fenn might be called
from their organizations at any time.
Lieutenant-Colonel Stimson went to G. H. Q., hoping to
accomplish the release of the three captains.
Lieutenant Camp was made acting adjutant of the First
Battalion, and Lieutenant Fenn of the Second. Lieutenant
Montgomery took command of Battery B. Captain Fox had
some time before been made personnel adjutant, so
Lieutenant Kane was the commanding officer of Battery C.
With these radical changes made we were ready to go into
action.
From day to day we waited for word from Tours that our
transportation was ready. The Fourth of July was near.
The general commanding the base section wished the
brigade, if it had not moved by the holiday, to take part
in a monster parade in Bordeaux. That ceremony kept us on
the anxious seat for a number of days. In the morning the
parade would be a certainty. After luncheon there wasn't
a chance that we would make it. The next morning there
was no question. We would make it. It wasn't until July
3d that we knew, and then we were told that we would
leave, mounted, immediately after luncheon, camp at a
race course outside Bordeaux, march in the next morning,
parade, and come all the way back before night. On July
5th the regiment would start entraining. -
It looked like a difficult programme. Our drivers had had
very little road work. The regiment had never before been
mounted as a whole. We were afraid of our horses. Could
they do it? Was it wise to make them do it, when they
would have to stand immediately afterwards for three days
in box cars?
Just before we left, Major Johnson's promotion to the
rank of Lieutenant-Colonel came through. It cast another
shadow, because we knew the powers wouldn't let us have
two lieutenant-colonels.
After luncheon the regiment gathered in the gun park.
The teams were brought from the stables, protesting at
the unusual exercise. The drivers reproved them with
harsh voices. A fog of dust arose and settled over the
place. Through it you caught glimpses of prancing horses,
struggling men, yellow harness. Out of it came a chorus
of commands, entreaties, threats. Guidons flashed red,
like a gleam of sunlight through the rolling mist. The
sunlight grew. The mists rolled away. Wheels, swings, and
leads stood in their places. Behind them the yellow and
black carriages rested expectant.
"Prepare to Mount! Mount! "
Drivers sprang to their saddles. The leading battery
moved out. The others followed. Leaving camp, the column
may have twisted a little, and wheels may have slipped
into the sand on either side of the avenue, but the
column kept growing, until from the park it stretched
into a string incredibly long and business like and
military.
Road discipline came to us, as it were, instinctively.
There were no stragglers. Drivers mounted and dismounted
precisely at every halt. We took a narrow country road,
and on a curving hill-as difficult a place as you could
choose-met a supply train coming up. We got our carriages
into the ditches. We wormed by. Nothing upset. On the
jammed roads at the front we found nothing much more
puzzling. We commenced right there to take a pride in the
regiment mounted. Self-satisfied we listened to the heavy
rumbling of the carriages. We glanced back from every
turn at the struggling horses, the sleek pieces, the
caissons, low and awkward. The whole had an appearance of
grotesque beauty.
The Stad Bordelaix was green and trimmed, like a huge
formal garden. We camped by the steeple chase course. We
parked, and pitched tents, then for the first time faced
the problem of watering on the march. We found the
familiar lack of facilities, the accustomed waste of time
in going long distances with a few horses. But it was
experience that we needed, and we saw it was a good thing
we should have come.
A few fortunate ones got passes for Bordeaux. The rest,
after mess, lay about in fresh-cut hay, and tried to
realize it was their last experience in the S. 0. S.
The next morning our apprehension vanished. The First
Battalion took one road to town the Second another.
"We'll rendezvous all right," the commanders
said confidently.
They did, moreover, in spite of the apparent confusion in
the city. Every element fell into its own place in the
column. The parade started.
Bordeaux gave us a gracious welcome. Masses of citizens
threw flowers and confetti from bunting-hung buildings.
They liked the looks of the American artillery, equipped
with their own soixante-quinzes. They were glad to see
the Americans. Turning into the Place de la Comediae the
band blared out the "Sambre et Meuse." The
closely packed mass of the French burst into cheers,
flung hats into the air, madly waved banners.
A tribune had been erected in the Grande Place. Local
celebrities stood there, and French and American
generals. Opposite was a line of veterans, some with
missing limbs, They held flags, decorated with the names
of breathless battles. These they dipped, and our bright
new colors bobbed back.
It did us good. It painted our work for the first time
with sentiment. It was our first touch of the spectacular
side of things military. That has the thrill that war
lacks.
We paid a small price. Only one piece was put out by
unmanageable horses. Only one man on that piece was hurt.
Only one was thrown from his horse, and that was Dr.
Parramore, tearing back to attend the victim of the
accident. The crowd was interested.
Regimental Headquarters and organization commanders
hurried by automobile back to Souge immediately after the
parade to prepare for the movement to the front.
The regiment, in command of Lieutenant Colonel Johnson,
returned to the Stad Bordelaix, watered, fed, and messed,
and afterwards made the long march back to camp.
We had one lesson that impressed on us the necessity of
close liaison even in the smallest column. At a
crossroads another regiment cut our line of march, and
the Second Battalion followed in its wake. There was a
good deal of time and energy lost in finding the three
batteries, turning them around, and getting them back in
line.
We pulled into Souge at dusk, tired, dirty, and with a
lot of grooming and rubbing before us, but on the whole
triumphant.
The next day the movement commenced. The Headquarters
Company left the rail head at Bonneau, where less than
two months before we had detrained, uninstructed and
unequipped.
Nearly everyone, it might be said, thought that we would
be billeted behind the lines for several weeks of the
road work we so much needed. That took a little of the
seriousness from the journey.
Regimental Headquarters and the Supply Company left the
afternoon of the sixth, and First Battalion Headquarters
and Battery A that same evening. During the next three
days the other batteries pulled out, while the 304th and
306th waited their turn.
We said good-by to Captains Reed, Ravenel, and Delanoy
without knowing when we would see them again.
Entraining a battery mounted was a new experience for all
our captains except Dana. The entire regiment had arrived
in one train. Now each organization had a train to
itself, and was forced to crowd a little to get
everything on.
These artillery trains were all of a pattern. There were
the Hommes and Chevaux for animals and men, a combination
first and second class coach for officers, and a string
of flats for the carriages.
At Bonneau there was a loading platform. In some places
we found none, and used instead clumsy moveable ramps.
Yet methods varied little. With practice we got some of
the skill of circus men. The different tasks proceeded
simultaneously. An incoherence seemed to prevail. Then
all at once the groups would scatter, and you would see
that the job had been done, that the train was either
loaded or unloaded.
None of our organizations needed the three hours allowed
them for entraining at Bonneau. The carriages were little
trouble. Squads ran them from the platform to the flat
cars across heavy planks, fitted them into the
constricted space allotted, and lashed them there with
cleats.
The drivers struggled with the horses. The horses never
got to like the Hommes and Chevaux. They rose on their
haunches, at times crying out their disapproval. The men
tugged at their halters, and persuaded them from the
rear. A horse already in the narrow, shadowy car would
look out and shake his head. It was often quite difficult
to combat such friendly advice.
The stallions were a problem. If you put them together
they gossiped about old scandals and ended by fighting
jealously. If you placed them with lesser beasts they
expressed their contempt with tooth and hoof.
"Get 'em in so tight they can't fight,"
crystallized the advice of most of the men, and it worked
fairly well.
We got to know after a time which horses liked to travel
together, and that simplified matters.
From the moment the train was loaded until it was
unloaded one lived in a racket like the beating of
countless bass drums. Noiselessness on the part of a
horse was a symptom of extreme illness.
Sick horses were, in fact, a problem. Unless an animal
was practically in rigor mortis we took him along.
Sometimes one died en route then we had to telegraph
ahead and make arrangements to evacuate him. Sometimes
the sick survived the journey and died on the picket line
afterwards. Infrequently they got well. It was the best
we could do with animals as scarce as they were.
When a battery bad finished loading it looked a good deal
like a circus train. The heads of horses appeared through
the open doors of some box cars. Men sat, dangling their
legs, in others. The fourgon always appeared gigantic on
its flat, and behind it stretched the sleek inquisitive
noses of the pieces and the stubby bulk of caissons and
limbers. Usually the water cart and the rolling kitchen
were on a flat next to the men's cars. Brown figures were
busy about the kitchen, and a promising smoke belched
from its chimney.
It was on that first journey that we learned to know and
love the clumsy, sooty rolling-kitchen. On the road it
was incredibly noisy, and it had a habit of shedding its
parts; yet it stood frequently between us and hunger and
cold. It was our best friend against evil weather and too
much physical labor. On these train journeys it gave us
hot food, and it made us independent of the very
unsatisfactory coffee stops.
There were certain stations that were announced to us by
that name. The train paused at them usually at
inconvenient hours, long enough for the men to line up
with mess cups which were filled with a black liquid from
unappetizing pails. They were supposed to be a
convenience, but they seemed to possess also a routine
element. An interpreter would rush up to the officers'
car sometime before reaching one of these places.
"Coffee stop in an hour. You will want coffee
there."
Not a question. A command.
The train commander would shake his head, pointing to the
black cloud rising from the rolling kitchen. He could
grin at the surprise and disapproval of the interpreter.
Corn willy, too, it ought not to be forgotten, loses much
of its agony when warmed and disguised with some less
dreadful substance such as canned tomatoes or stewed
carrots.
Eating from the rolling kitchen introduced a sporting element into our
travels. The mess sergeant gambled on having his meal ready for a
suitable stop. The train commander hazarded leaving many men behind when he
ordered them to descend from their cars and form a line
by the kitchen. For you couldn't tell much about the
length of halts anywhere except at coffee or watering
stops.
The train would pull up, let us say at noon. The mess
sergeant would announce himself ready. The train
commander would confer with the chef de gare. Sometimes
the train commander would know French. Afore often he
wouldn't.
" lei! " he would say. " Combien de temps?
The chef de gare would look at him, puzzled. Then a gleam
of pleased intelligence would light his face.
"Oui. 'Fait beaux temps-tres sec."
The train commander would look at him doubtfully. Did
that mean much or little? Sec had a brief sound. One had
to make sure. He would point, therefore, to the train. He
would then with his hand indicate motion. He would
display his wrist watch. He would wheedle:
"Ici! Beaucoup or petit?"
The chef de gare would smile in friendly fashion.
"Oui, Mon Capitaine. Beaucoup des Americans. Les
Boches seront malade."
The captain's face would usuall y express an emotion
bordering on tears-an eloquent emotion, which usually
interpreted everything for the official. His face would
brighten. He would look at his own watch. Realizing the
futility of further words, he would carefully indicate
two points on the dial.
"Quarante-minutes," the captain would say.
"Get them out with mess kits," he would call to
his aides.
Tumbling from their cars the men would come and form a
feverish line. Details would carry pails of food forward
to the drivers. The captain would watch with a smile.
"You know I'm picking up a lot of this lingo,"
he would boast contentedly.
Then the locomotive whistle would blow.
"That can't be for us!"
But the chef de gare would think otherwise. He would come
running, waving his arms.
"En voiture! Vite! Le train partira."
That's always easy enough to understand.
"Quarante minutes. Vous--dit."
The chef de gare would be through with argument. The
engine driver, never having wasted words on the subject,
would simply start the train, out of the kindness of his
soul holding the pace down at first. The men would tumble
back into the cars with their half-finished dinners. The
details would come scurrying back with their pails. From
all directions soldiers who had gone in search of water
would tear back, their clusters of canteens tinkling
pleasantly.
Usually everybody got aboard. Word would come back to the
captain that the men had been checked. Then everyone
would comment pleasantly on the customs of the country.
But as a rule we got fed, and it was good, very, very
good.
When we could we planned meals for the long halts allowed
us for watering the horses. But the schedule for a troop
train is not a constant thing, and these halts often came
at bad times. They were not troublesome affairs as a
rule. Beside our siding were usually a number of taps, so
that the job seldom occupied much time. Sometimes we
could wheedle hay from the American officials. Sometimes
we couldn't. Yet on the whole those summer changes of
stations were not unpleasant or too trouble-some. The
weather was fine. The men were not crowded. They sang.
That's the best indication you can have that things are
going well.
Up through Bordeaux, j Perigueux, Limoges, Chateau-roux,
and Auxerre we ourneyed towards the front.
We expected our definite orders at Is-Sur-Til, but at
noon on the 8th when we paused at Nuits Sous-Raviere we
received a telegram which changed our route, and
prom-ised us orders at Chaumont. We got them there in the
evening. We would detrain the next morning at Baccarat.
It rained that night. It was in depressing and gray
weather that most of the regiment reached its
destination.
Exactly as the entraining of one battery is much the same
as another, just so the arrival of each organization at
Baccarat differed only in the hour.
Escaping from sleep, we glanced from the cars at a
strange France. The change was due to more than the dull
sky, the drifting rain, and the deserted appearance of
the little station.
Opposite stretched a row of depressing stone barracks,
oddly scarred as if they had been for a long time
neglected. Nearby a group of gaunt walls suggested a
devastating fire. A large sign depended from the front of
the station.
"Shelter for forty men."
There existed about that place an air of stealth and
imminence. One responded to a feeling of the proximity of
the Bosche. A man set down there unexpectedly would have
taken one look and known himself in the war zone.
We asked the officer in charge of the yard if we could
have breakfast before unloading. He looked at us as if he
suspected our sanity. He glanced about with nervous eyes.
"Get this battery out of here", he said in a
low tone, "as quickly as you can. Bosche planes come
overall the time. You don't want to get caught, do you,
with your whole outfit in this yard?"
We went to work without argument. It seldom took a
battery, under those circumstances, more than an hour to
desert its train.
The horses were hustled down the runways. The carriages
were lowered along ready planks. The teams were harnessed
and the battery stood ready for the road.
We glanced often at the dull sky, our ears alert for the
whir of aeroplane engines, or the crash of bombs. The air
remained free of menace, but the sense of imminence
persisted, and we were glad when a French guide appeared
and told Colonel Johnson he was to conduct us to our
bivouac. The column started. Colonel Johnson paused to
confer with the colonel commanding the French artillery
brigade which our brigade was to relieve. For three days
later, the colonel said, a coup de main was planned.
Colonel Johnson determined then to win permission for
some of our artillery to take part in the preliminary
bombardment and he dashed ahead to Neuf Maisons where
infantry brigade headquarters had been established.
The column, meantime, left Baccarat. The order was for a
fifty meter interval between carriages so that if Bosche
bombing planes appeared they would do a minimum of
damage.
There were a number of ruined buildings along the road,
souvenirs of bombardments and bombing attacks. We turned
into a woods road that breasted a hill, and rested at the
top behind a heavy screen of evergreens. The first sounds
of actual warfare reached us there. To everyone it seemed
that we were too near the front for road training. The
men fell silent. Faces were serious.
A good deal of that firing was undoubtedly from infantry
grenade and small arms ranges, but we couldn't know that.
We didn't even suspect it then. Our minds absorbed the
bark of cannon, and the hateful stutter of machine guns
as special menaces for us. We visualized ourselves as
just behind the front line.
We reached finally a thick forest on the slope of a hill.
Scattered among the trees were Adrian barracks and huts
constructed of small logs and trees, of a pattern we had
all seen in pictures of fighting in the Vosges.
This was the Bois de Grammont on the main road from
Bertrichamps to Neuf Maisons. The Headquarters and Supply
companies, we learned were in the woods by Bert-richamps.
The Second Battalion would bivouac near them. Both these
woods were too peaceful for war time. In their shelter
even the firing we had heard fell away.
" A bad place for gas," Colonel Johnson
decided.
" We're as close as that? " someone asked.
"Rather near for a bivouac."
Colonel Johnson smiled, and whispered:
" Not a bivouac. It's our echelon."
Such a place didn't meet with one's pre-conceived notion.
An echelon, station of extra carriages, animals, men, and
sup-plies just behind the lines, surely could not be as
peaceful as this-peaceful and attractive even on a gray
day.
"The first platoon of Battery A," the colonel
said to Captain Dana, "will go into position
tomorrow night."
It brought it very close, but those who got that first
word received also the impression that the movement would
be a temporary one, and that the battery would come out
again after the coup de main, and that we would somehow
get some road work. The colonel shook his head. The
batteries would go into position as soon as possible
after their arrival. The French would remain for a while
to show us the ropes, but the task of supporting our
infantry was now to be our own. How would the men accept
such news in its naked unexpectedness?
The National Army was a good deal of an experiment. It
contained every type, race, and temperament. Had its
brief training fused these uncongenial elements into a
serviceable whole? Each battery commander asked himself
this when he made his abrupt announcement immediately
after his arrival, before his men had had an opportunity
to forget the fatigue of their three days' journey. One
such scene answers for the whole.
The day was about done. In the chilly shadow of the woods
the battery stood in line. Shelter halves were draped
from the men's arms. They waited for the order to take
interval and pitch tents.
Except for a pleasant rustling of wind in the tree tops
the forest was silent when the captain faced his command.
"At ease!" he called.
There may have been something unfamiliar in his tone. The
dead leaves of the forest carpet rustled with the
rest-less movement of many feet. Serious, expectant eyes
answered the battery commander's stern regard.
"Men," he began," I have an announcement
to make. I know you have looked forward to a period of
road training before going into action. My announcement
is that you won't have it. You're going into the line.
The first platoon of this battery will go in tomorrow
night. The second platoon will follow the night after.
That's all. Battery attention! Count off!"
Heels clicked together.
"One, two three, four. One, two, three, four."
The numbers ran crisply down the line. You've heard any
quantity of organizations count off, but it's doubtful if
you've ever heard anything like that outside of the
National Army in France. The serious expressions didn't
alter particularly, but the heads snapped around with a
rare precision. The voices were big and hoarse with a
sort of helpless effort. It was as if these oddly
assorted men were all trying to tell their captain the
same thing, and, because they wanted to tell him so hard,
couldn't quite get it out.