Capt. Colonna and Lt. Foulkes at Camp Dix, 1918.

THE HISTORY
OF
COMPANY B, 311th INFANTRY
IN THE
WORLD WAR.

Edited by
B. A. Colonna
with contributions by David Gardenier, Charles Peter,
and Tracy S. White.

Statistics compiled by Bert W. Stiles.

FREEHOLD, N. J.
TRANSCRIPT PRINTING HOUSE,
1922

COPYRIGHT, 1922,
BY B. A. COLONNA AND B. W. STILES.

INDEX

INTRODUCTION

You, my comrades of the past two years, for whom this history is written, know that I have but small gift of expression at any time, and least of all for the things closest to my heart. At your request, however, made when we parted for the last time, I am writing the story of our company. I shall do my best to put down everything as it occurred, so far as my knowledge and memory will serve; and I trust that if the matter is true, you will overlook crudeness in the form.

“Company B, 311th Infantry”—Only a letter and a number? Only one company out of the hundreds in the National Army? Yes, to outsiders; but to me, and I trust and believe to you, Company B was a living and vital being, composed of part of what was best in each of us. Its official life was twenty months; in that time it was born, grew to full strength, was trained, travelled some 7500 miles, fulfilled its destiny—fought, suffered, lost; and finally returned to its birthplace and was mustered out. But the spirit of B Company is still with each of us, and not a man but has carried away more than he gave.

Relatively, B Company was a very small part of the army. But to us, it was the army; just as we shall always think of the war in terms of St. Mihiel and the Argonne. We have heard of the Marne, Ypres, Verdun, Chateau Thierry; but every man sees the war through his own eyes.

For this reason, I am writing in the first person. The best I can do is to relate things as I saw them so I shall not take refuge behind an artificial impersonality. Probably a good many things were pulled off that I did not know anything about. And then you may discover that I knew more about some little matters than you thought I did.

CHAPTER I
MADISON BARRACKS

On May 5, 1917, I reported for duty at the Officers’ Training Camp at Madison Barracks, New York, with a commission as Second Lieutenant of Infantry in the Reserve Corps. My call to active duty had cut short my law course at Columbia University two months before I was to take my degree.

Having graduated three years before from the Virginia Military Institute, and served there a year as sub-professor of German and tactics, I had some idea of the fundamental principles of military training; but, like almost all the other reserve officers, army paper work and administration was a closed book to me.

A few days later I was told off to report to Capt. Haynes Odom, U. S. R., commanding Co. 5 of the 2d Provisional Training Regt. Capt. Odom was already conspicuous among the batch of reserve officers for his efficiency and tireless energy and industry. The tall, upstanding figure, with the mark of the regular army man indelibly stamped upon him; the head carried well back; the weather-worn, sun-wrinkled face, the hooked nose, cool hazel eyes; the smile that accompanied alike a friendly greeting or a merciless balling out; the soft Southern accent indescribably harshened by thousands of commands given—do you recognize the Major, boys?

The three long, hot, arduous months of training at Madison Barracks can be passed over briefly. My cot in the long frame barrack was next to that of a tall, lithe, black haired lad from Rochester, N. Y., with the merriest, keenest, black eyes I ever saw. Before a week went by he stood out above the average candidate. He was young, just twenty-one—I was at the venerable age of twenty-two. But he had the keenest, quickest, practical mind I have ever met, and the gift of natural leadership, which is compounded of courage, intelligence, unselfish sympathy, and a sense of humor. He had graduated from Cornell in 1916. Later you knew him as 1st Lieut. Louis Sinclair Foulkes, the best officer in “B” Company; the best officer it was my fortune to come in contact with during the war.

One of the training companies was organized as a cavalry troop. We saw them now and then being led in physical drill by a handsome, muscular young chap, so alive and vibrant with nervous energy that it was good to watch him work. He was Roy A. Schuyler, of Schenectady, a graduate of Union College, and a descendant of that General Schuyler whose record in the Revolutionary War makes so bright a page in American history. Brilliant, impulsive, generous, full of the joy of life, passionately eager to serve; he was a worthy descendant of a long line of fighting patriots.

In Co. 9 was an earnest, dignified, hard working reserve first lieutenant, one of the most capable of the reserve officers on the post. He was a prominent lawyer of Utica, N. Y., and one of the leaders in the Plattsburg movement. Though well over the draft age, he had given up his large practice and had gone into the service at the first call. This was Russell H. Brennan, the first commander of “B” Company.

At last our course drew to a close; the commissions were announced and we departed for ten days’ leave before reporting to Camp Dix for duty. Will we ever forget those ten golden August days? The world was ours, and life was sweet. No one knew what lay ahead, but we all made the most of our last taste of the old life for some time.

CHAPTER II
CAMP DIX

Most of you saw it for the first time when you rolled into the long train shed, and hiked up to your barracks through a mile or more of company streets, in a city of forty thousand men, the hundreds of large barracks already weatherbeaten with the snows and rains of winter.

We, however, after changing trains several times, finally rolled up to what was apparently a piano box in a lumber yard, and were there assured by the conductor that this was Camp Dix. We tumbled off, and trudged away through six inches of New Jersey dust toward the only building in sight with a roof on it—camp headquarters. Our bags became heavier and heavier; our new uniforms were fearfully hot; our new shoes and puttees, with which we had been dazzling admiring womenfolks and causing menfolk to grunt with assumed indifference, were abominably tight and pinchy.

Finally we straggled in to headquarters, to indulge for a couple of hours in that amusement so familiar to every man in the army—standing in line for an hour to do two minutes of red tape. When our turn was over, we went over to a partially completed barracks, where we were each allowed to appropriate 1 cot, iron. This was the limit of our accommodation—those who couldn’t get away to some nearby town slept on the soft side of a piece of bristol board. We walked to the ether side of camp for all our meals—about two miles, if you didn’t lose your way.

The next morning we attended a rollcall at 9 A. M. There we met Col. Marcus B. Stokes, the commanding officer; and Lt. Col. Edgar Myer, second in command. We found that the officers from Madison Barracks, Cos. 5 and 6, with half of the Troop formed the nucleus of the new regiment.

Capt. Odom was Regimental Adjutant and to my horror I was at once made Regimental Supply Officer. The following officers were assigned to “B” company:

Capt. Russell H. Brennan, commanding company,
2d Lt. Roy A. Schuyler,
2d Lt. Fred S. Fish,
2d Lt. Wm. D. Ashmore.

For a month the regiment went through the agonies of organization. Supplies came in by driblets; transportation there was none, save for two hopelessly over-worked motor truck companies, which put in half their time trying to separate their trucks from the sacred soil of Jersey. A great swarm of civilian workmen were toiling feverishly to get up the barracks. The regiment was moved four times in as many weeks. The roads were six inches deep in mud or dust.

The first enlisted men in the regiment were three former candidates at Madison Barracks, who, through no fault of their own, had not received commissions, but who wouldn’t leave the bunch, and enlisted in the regiment,—Dave Gardenier, Art McCann, and Jimmie Hooker. McCann and Gardenier were made regimental sergeants major, and Hooker was my regimental supply sergeant.

In about a week a number of men came in from various Regular Army regiments, to form a nucleus of N. C. O.’s. “B” company received Ertwine, Robbins, and J. M. Newell. These men were shortly afterward made corporals on recommendation of Capt. Brennan.

From Sept. 19th to Sept. 22d, the men of the first draft came in. As Supply Officer, my own troubles kept me pretty busy during those strenuous days. I knew “B” company, however, as a good outfit. Capt. Brennan’s steady, methodical, tireless work, and the energy and devotion of his three lieutenants showed results from the first. Lt. Fish, a former National Guard officer, was an old hand and steadied the younger officers.

After two months of hard work, the companies began to round out into some sort of shape. The non-commissioned officers were selected, with as much care as was possible in the limited time allowed for observation of the new men. The first top sergeant of “B” Co. was Eilert, a sturdy and sterling product of the first draft, who had been a foreman in a large factory. The “top” is, absolutely, the most essential man in a company. His position is such that he has to see to the carrying out of all the disagreeable orders, and making the details for all the dirty jobs, while at the same time he is not protected by any barrier of rank. He is usually cordially detested and thoroughly respected by the men, and is about as useful to the officers as a right hand. We never had a top in “B” Co. who was not absolutely loyal to the service and to the company commander; never one who shrank from the most disagreeable duty, nor who gave a thought to his personal popularity. They were human, of course, and made mistakes like the rest of us; and sometimes they couldn’t help being placed in a bad light to the men. But you men—some of you, even, who beefed most against the tops—if you only knew how many times that same top came to the company commander or other officers to help out this fellow or that, to suggest some way of making things easier for the whole company; if you knew how hard and thankless a job they held; possibly you would have been a little more lenient in your judgments.

James McC. Newell was the first supply sergeant, and got away with everything not nailed down. Samuel Tritapoe was Mess Sgt. until Lt. Wagner recognized his ability and took him for a regimental supply sergeant, and Warren Sculthorp succeeded to this thankless but highly important job. The other sergeants, as well as I remember, were Ertwine, Perry, Anness and Robbins. Joe Levy was soon drafted by Newell to make the accounts balance; Harold Sculthorpe started on his culinary career; Sweeney, Rogers, Tom Viracola, Howard Lehy, Hayden and Long Bill Reid were corporals. Sutton and Weber were detailed at the regimental exchange where they were a great factor in making it the best in the division. And last, but not least, deBruin was man of all work and plumber-in-chief. Red Sheridan also started his lurid career with “B” Co., and helped deBruin and “Bugs” Wardell to dispose of the vanilla extract rations.

Toward the middle of October, Lt. Foulkes arrived from Cambridge, Mass., where he had been sent for a special course in trench warfare. He was assigned to B Co., and remained as second in command until he was made battalion adjutant in July 1918.

Now started in the era of transfers. New drafts were constantly coming in; and as soon as we would get them uniformed and able to negotiate a “Squads Right” without losing each other, they would be drawn away to fill up some other division destined for overseas duty before the 78th. Not once, but a dozen times between September and May did this happen, leaving the company with its officers and a skeleton of N. C. O.’s, cooks and orderlies.

On December 6th, Capt. Brennan and I were interchanged, he taking over the Supply Company and I, “B” Co.

The winter wore on, and spring was upon us, and we seemed no nearer France than before. Changes took place in officers as well as enlisted men. Lt. Ashmore went to “A” Co.; Lt. Fish to the Supply Co.; 2d Lts. Dunn and Merrill and 1st Lt. Vanderbilt took their places with “B” Co. The time was filled with training and equipping the ever changing quotas of recruits and drilling them in fundamentals; for the training cadre of officers and N. C. O.’s there were special courses in bayonet fighting, bombing, trench digging—how many cold and weary hours were swallowed up in that trench system east of the regimental area!—and ever and always wind, mud and snow, or wind, sun and dust.

When the March drafts came in, rumors took a new lease on life. The 77th division was being equipped to leave Camp Upton; our turn would probably come next. The transfers went out now to fill up, not other divisions, but our own artillery regiments across the parade ground. Work on the target range was increased. Ah, the joys of being routed out of the hay long before daybreak, snatching a hasty breakfast, and hiking off through the cold dawn, five miles through the barrens to that wind-swept waste with the long rows of targets.

1st Sgt. Eilert and Supply Sgt. Newell had been selected to attend the officers’ training school. Sgt. Ertwine, who had shown exceptional ability while in charge of the recruits’ barracks, was made 1st Sgt., and Joe Levy, of course, became Supply Sgt.

It was not all work and no play, though. At night there were movies at the “Y” huts; the Post Exchange for those who had something left from insurance, allotments and other ornaments of the pay roll,—or who were gifted enough to fill a full house or roll a “natural” consistently. And on Saturday afternoon and Sunday the lucky 25% would be off for a few precious hours at home or in the city, while the camp would be filled with visitors to the less fortunate.

April passed, and May arrived with green trees and warm days. We bought baseball equipment, and each company had a team (I wonder who got hold of all that stuff finally?). The April drafts had brought the companies above normal strength. Tents were put up in the company streets to accommodate the overflow.

These were busy days for Supply Sgt. Levy and Cpl. Jimmie Jones, Company Clerk. There was a continuous procession in and out the door of the squad room where Levy had established his headquarters; recruits going in with blissful visions of emerging in the likeness of a magazine ad. soldier; departing with murder in their hearts because their trousers bagged at the knees. And Joe, who remembered last September when recruits would bum around for a month before getting a sign of a uniform, had scant sympathy with them.

This was also an era of reports. Reports on how many men we had; how many shirts each man had; how many extra shoe-laces were in our possession; how many men had W. R. insurance; how many were yet to be inoculated and how many times. Twice a day did I have to report for officers’ meeting; twice a day would the Colonel hold forth on the reports the general wanted, which company commanders would prepare at once, personally, in writing; then the adjutant would begin on the reports the colonel wanted; then the supply officer would chime in with a few more that he had to have by six o’clock at the latest. Life was a veritable nightmare of typewritten figures. The supply sergeant of “L” company actually lost his mind under the strain. Drill was carried on in the intervals of lining up for another check or inspection. And the men, quite naturally, looked upon the officers as a set of lunatics who didn’t know their own minds for ten minutes at a time.

About May 1st, an advance party of some 25 officers and men left the regiment, so we knew we were soon to follow. Lts. Schuyler and Merrill were in this party. They attended the A. E. F. Schools at Chatillon-sur-Seine, and rejoined us about July 1st.

At last the company was filled up to war strength, and equipped down to the last shoe lace. On Friday, May 17th, all visitors were excluded from camp. That evening I assembled the company and put the proposition up to every man in it whether he wanted to go to France or not, offering to leave anyone behind who wished to remain. I am proud to say that not a man applied to be left.

Saturday was a hectic day of last preparations. The barracks were stripped down to their last mattress and swept out. The typewriters clicked busily until the last minute. Tom Viracola, one of our best sergeants, who had been tripped on a slight disability by the medicos at the last minute and was nearly heartbroken, was to be left in charge of barracks.

About nine o’clock the company was formed for the last time at its old home. Packs were heavy with the regulation equipment, tobacco, and gifts from home. As I was signing some last papers under the arc light, “C” company moved out silently. I gave “Squads left, march,” the company wheeled out and we were off for the station.

The road was lined with soldiers from the Depot Brigade as we passed. Here and there we saw a familiar face, and though the movement was to be kept as quiet as possible, there was many a husky “so long, fellows” and “good-bye, 311, good luck,” to cheer us on our way.

Packs were heavier every step, and what with the extra rations, typewriter, etc., we were glad to have a half hour’s rest at the station. Then the word came to fall in again—how many times were we to hear those weary words, “Fall in”—and the company filed along to the day coaches awaiting them. Equipment was removed, and all made themselves as comfortable as they could for the night.

Early in the morning the train pulled out. As dawn broke, we made out the names of some of the New Jersey towns we passed through. Many a lad saw his home town for the last time as we rolled through it in the chill of that May morning.

At Jersey City we detrained and passed through the station to the ferry. Several civilians asked us where we were going; but the men realized the importance of secrecy, and all the curious ones got was a gruff invitation to “put on a uniform and find out.”

Then we were jammed on a ferry boat. It was some jam, too, leaving those who hadn’t been trained on the subway gasping.

Down to the street, on between the great warehouses, and into a spacious covered pier. Here was the point of embarkation, where we had been told every service record was examined, every man inspected; the focus of all the red tape that had been driving us insane for the past two months. To our very agreeable surprise, however, the loading was handled by two or three business-like men in civvies, who merely checked each company on the boat by the passenger lists as fast as the men could hike up the gangplank.

We were met by Lt. Gibbs, battalion adjutant, who led us below, pointed out three decks each about the size of our Camp Dix orderly room, and announced that these were B Co.’s palatial quarters. I gasped, and remarked that we were much obliged, but suppose someone should want to turn around, where would he be, and howinell was Geoghegan going to get in one of those little canvas napkins they called hammocks, anyhow? He replied that I ought to see “C” company’s place, and melted away in a fashion peculiar to Bn. Adjts. when leaving Co. Cmdrs. S. O. L. A few moments later we heard him consoling Capt. O’Brien on the deck above by telling him that he ought to see “B” Co.’s place.

CHAPTER III
THE CRUISE OF THE “NESTOR”

By the time the space and hammocks were assigned to platoons and squads, the ship was under way. Orders were to keep below decks until out of the harbor; and for many, their last look at America was a glimpse of the harbor front through a port hole.

At this point Lt. Gibbs reappeared, with the cheerful order that life preservers would be donned at once, and kept on for the rest of the voyage. For the next ten days all waddled about feeling like motherly hens. The apparatus I drew seemed particularly dirty, and most unbecoming to my figure, which is built close to the ground anyway.

Breakfast had been nothing more than a cracker and bully beef, snatched at odd moments. The good ship hadn’t started to roll much yet, so all looked forward to dinner with a robust interest. Then it evolved that this was an Australian transport, the “Nestor;” and as such, sailed under the British flag; and hence and therefore, the next meal would be tea at 5 o’clock. Eternity passed, and about half an hour thereafter the steward came around, and in queer, clipped cockney English introduced us to “dixies” and “flats.” Another half hour, and the first messes to be served saw their hash-grabbing detail returning, bearing through aisles of famished Yanks—bread and cheese and tea! A planked steak would have been more to the point, we felt, and a towering, raw-boned countryman in a corner,—Lory Price, I imagine—opined dismally that we were being mistaken for an orphan asylum. However, what there was aroused the boys sufficiently to take a less morbid view of life, and as the officers departed to the cabin, cards and books appeared, and the mystic words were softly chanted: “Natural, bones”—“Read ’em and weep.”

But there was not what you might call a festive air to that first evening; nor to many thereafter. Of course, for some fellows who had no one dependent on them, who were setting out foot loose for a great adventure, there was nothing to interfere with the thrill of the unknown before them. But the majority of these men had been taken out of their civilian life but two or three weeks before; they were among strangers, and in an absolutely foreign environment; their new uniforms still uncomfortable and scratchy, and army regulations and discipline an incomprehensible set of shibboleths. Far down in each heart the love of their country burned, steadily enough for the most part; white hot in some; in others, but recently kindled. All hid it diligently, of course, from the general view. They had been so fed up with windy orators, with politicians waving the flag with one hand and keeping the other on exemption certificates, that the real thing was jealously concealed.

As I made my final inspection that night, looking out from the companion-way over the rows of close slung hammocks, I wondered what their occupants were thinking; what forms of dear ones were present to their minds; to what homes their thoughts went back—a Harlem flat, a Jersey farmhouse, a great hotel, a tiny pair of rooms in Jersey City; comfortable, well-off American homes; tenements in the foreign districts—each one dear for its memories, each one the home to fight for. Would we have time to train these men into a fighting machine, or would we be thrown in at once to stop the great Hun drive in Flanders, then at its height? How many of us would see these homes, these dear ones again?—But a company commander has little time to indulge in reflections; and thoughts of the morning report, and how to distribute the chow more evenly, and a large budget of orders I had to read, soon chased away everything else.

The NESTOR carried the 1st and 2d Bns. and Headquarters Co. of the 311th Inf., a Machine Gun battalion, and Brig. Gen. Dean, our brigade commander, and his staff. Our colonel was in command of the troops on board, such things being below the dignity of general officers. He was in his element; he had an officers’ meeting the first thing, and dished out about 4 square acres of orders to be read and put into effect at once.

1st Platoon, Flavigny, France, 1919.

Now no one knows better than I how many orders you men received, and how it was often beyond human power to obey all of them. But I call any company commander to witness that we got them coming and going. The Co. Cmdr. is the one man who can’t pass the buck on responsibility. We had to take the bushels of orders we received, eliminate those utterly impossible, select from those remaining what seemed essential and what we thought the Major and Colonel would deem essential, and then get those things done by the company—that is, issue orders to the 1st Sgt. for details, Supply Sgt. for supplies, Mess Sgt. for mess, officers for drill and instruction, company clerk for paper work, and then see to it that the whole is carried out. And then one usually amasses a balling out for something or other that he has left out.

One of these orders was the censorship order, of which we had heard so much. Instead of having all letters censored at post offices by clerks, some genius had decided to follow the British plan of having officers censor their own men’s mail. Thus at one brilliant stroke a situation was created which embarrassed men and officers alike, imposed an irksome and continual task on over-burdened officers, delayed the mail, and was in every way sweet incense in the nostrils of the little tin gods of the red tape; the exponents of the theory of How Not to Do It.

The principal morning sport on the trip was the ship’s inspection. The holds of that old tub received such a scrubbing and cleaning as they had never had before. In spite of the close quarters, everything was kept quite fresh and clean. It gave me a vast respect for the women who do such work all day for paltry wages. At 10:00 A. M. the call would be sounded, and all except the day’s orderlies would be massed on decks in their boat drill stations, and a merry little crush it was. Then the lords of the earth would solemnly parade along in single file, preceded by a bugler, who blew a seasick “Attention” at each deck. Everybody would then step on everyone else’s feet, and make a little lane for the procession. The adjutant, the ship’s captain, the colonel, the ship supply officer—poor old Gibbs was the goat for that job—would play “follow my leader,” and look into corners, and sniff importantly, and everything would be very formal and terrible, and grand.

The rest of the day would be taken up with physical drills—one company using the deck at a time—and fire and boat drills. It was given out at first that four long blasts of the boat’s whistle would be the signal for “Abandon ship.” This was changed later by the ship’s captain, but somewhere along the line there was a hitch, and the information never got down to the company commanders. About five nights out, at about 10:30 P. M., the whistle began to toot, once—twice—heads began to appear over the hammocks; thrice—the hammocks began to be agitated; four times—two hundred and thirty odd hearts gave a leap, four hundred and sixty feet hit the floor, and B Company started up the gangway, with three sergeants, who shall be nameless, leading the way to victory. Lt. Foulkes, who was on fire watch, judged hastily that it must be all a mistake somehow, and calmed the riot with his .45 and a few choice remarks in the vernacular.

Then the chow—oh, the chow; oh, the Gawd-forsaken chow. It was doled out as breakfast, dinner, and tea. It was none too much in quantity. There were here and there newly made n. c. o.’s who were not above holding out more than their share. And our American stomachs were several times abruptly introduced to strange dishes. First it was a weird looking mess that tasted like an explosion of mustard gas. How did we know it was currie? Few had sufficient faith in human nature to down their portion. Then one day a ghastly odor tainted the noonday air, and we were introduced to tripe. The latter was finally buried with military honors, and I arrived on the scene just in time to save the ship’s cooks from being the star actors in a similar ceremony.

“Tea” was bread and cheese and tea. We thought of the days of plenty at Camp Dix and reflected that the culinary end of this war business was hardly a success so far.

The officers were fed well and in civilized fashion in the cabin, which didn’t help matters much for the men. Also some members of the boat’s crew took advantage of the situation by running a sub-rosa restaurant in the forecastle, gouging such as had the price. Of course the Americans thought right away that they were holding out part of our rations for this purpose, and international relations began to get very strained. The officers were finally informed, and the practice stopped.

There were ten or twelve other ships in the convoy, which was headed by the battleship Montana. At last one morning the latter was missing, and we knew that we must be nearly across. Precautions were redoubled and life preservers were not removed even at night.

On the morning of May 31st we sighted land—a welcome sight indeed. Capt. Breen at once identified it as dear auld Ireland, and was much disgusted when we learned later that it was Scotland. We had sailed around the north of Ireland, and were dropping down the Irish sea to Liverpool.

This was the submarine zone indeed. Destroyers appeared from the horizon and hovered on the outskirts of the convoy. A great silver dirigible swung lazily from the clouds and floated along above us. The Irish coast came into view on our right.

At about 2:00 P. M. there was a scurry among the destroyers. The dirigible descended above a spot some half mile off our port bow. Guns began to speak from the transports and destroyers. It only lasted for about five minutes, however, and we couldn’t see any visible results. But we were told that a sub had been spotted and destroyed.

Late that night we took the pilot aboard and proceeded up the Mersey. Few of us slept a wink. After the long strain it was good to see ourselves surrounded by the lights of shipping, and to see the shore on either side, though as few lights as possible were shown even then. However, we could open the portholes, and the long, long line of docks slipped by until we wondered if this great harbor had any end. At last, about 2:00 A. M., we docked and settled down to wait until morning for a glimpse of Merry England.

The next day we waited around until 1:30, when we disembarked. We were marched about half a mile through the streets to a railroad terminal. The people hardly glanced at us. They were well used to soldiers by that time. Not a cheer, not a sign of curiosity. Another herd for the slaughter house. A few wounded soldiers, in their flaring “blues,” looked us over with some professional curiosity.

At the railroad station we were halted on a cobbled street for a weary three hours’ wait. There was an English-American Red Cross canteen there, and we bought them out of buns in short order and distributed them to the companies. An aviator appeared on the scene and amused us for a while by doing all sorts of acrobatics—loops, whirls, twists through the air—such as we had never seen before.

Finally we were formed and marched into the station, and boarded the funny little English coaches, and were locked up in different compartments. Canteen girls gave each of us a printed letter of welcome from King George, and finally we jolted out of the station, rolled along between factories and munition plants—manned mostly by girls and women—and so out into the countryside.

That was a wonderful ride through England on the last day of May. It was a perfect evening, the air soft and balmy; light until ten o’clock. It was like a toy country to us, beautifully ordered and groomed, with little villages here and there, and green hedgerows, and usually one or two Tommies on leave walking down the lane with their sweethearts—that made us homesick already. And the train sped along, stopping only once for us to get out and have some coffee and a drink of water; and we were all thrilled and excited and felt a little tickly in the stomach, as you do before a big football game. We were fast drawing near the greatest game, now being played to a finish.

As the night wore on, and it became dark, and we couldn’t look out the windows any more, our cramped quarters were anything but comfortable. Also, sanitary arrangements on European trains are conspicuous by their absence. When at last, at 2:00 A. M., we were told to detrain, we were pretty thoroughly uncomfortable.

After the usual hubbub of detraining—“which way’s comp’ny form?”—“I dunno”—“First squad”—“Ninth squad”—“Where’s me bayonet?”—“Oh, thanks”—“D’ja get the can open all right?”—We departed into the night, filing past a little station out into a dark road, and then at a good round pace on through silent, dark streets, for about a mile. There we were introduced to our first billet.

It was a large empty stone house in a row of similar ones. Bare floors, bare walls, but clean, and not so bad. After a vast amount of unnecessary fussing about the company got itself settled. Sixty men were to leave at six o’clock under Lt. Foulkes.

That night and early the next morning we heard for the first time the distant rumble of the guns in France.

In the morning we discovered that we were in an embarkation camp at Folkestone, near Dover. A beautiful place it was, something like Atlantic City, only everything seemed more permanent, and the boardwalk was lacking. The camp was a section of the town set apart for the purpose. Everything was well ordered. These Englishmen had been at the game a long time, and after some chafing and fussing around we discovered that though no one displayed any particular “pep,” nevertheless things really got done quite well; in the British way, of course. But woe be unto the ambitious Yank who sought to alter anything.

Most of the company had not even been in the service long enough to master the manual of arms, and part of the day was used in instilling the rudiments of this essential into them. Time was still left for a short ramble about Folkestone, however; and the promenade, town, pubs, Tommies and Waacs were all investigated enthusiastically and as thoroughly as time and opportunity permitted.

The next morning the battalion was formed at 6 A. M. and marched along cobbled streets to the pier, where we were sardined into a fast channel steamer, and donned those confounded lifebelts again for a short farewell wearing. Then, with an American destroyer racing along on either side, we slipped swiftly down under the Dover Cliffs, then swerving out and across the channel to Calais. A dock, a Red Cross train on the other side of it, a fisherman in a little boat alongside us—France at last.

CHAPTER IV
THE ENGLISH SECTOR

The company filed off the boat, and crossing the dock stumbled into formation down the railroad track by the hospital train, and was introduced to a bit of backwash from the drive. Some English wounded were being carried from the train to the boat by German prisoners. We looked curiously at the latter. These were the Huns we were taught to hate, whom we were to kill. They were husky, blonde chaps, in faded greenish gray uniforms, with their little flat caps. They paid scant attention to us, but carried the English very carefully and gently. Maybe the Tommy who walked near by with fixed bayonet had something to do with it. At any rate, I didn’t feel any very lusty rage or horror at them, and though one or two of our men cursed at them under their breath, it didn’t seem at all convincing, but rather forced. Most of the wounded men whose faces I saw glared at us with the usual British “What the devil do you mean by looking at me, sir?” so I suppose they were officers. I don’t blame them for not liking to be stared at. One or two fellows couldn’t help groaning when their stretchers were lifted.

But “C” Co. is moving off, and we swing into column of squads and hike off behind them, our great heavy packs, religiously packed with all the items prescribed for us and much besides, getting heavier and heavier. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Calais was quiet; the cobbled streets apparently peopled only by a few little gamins of both sexes who greeted us with the cries that accompanied us through France—“Souvenir,” “Bis-keet,” “Chocolat.”

We passed through the outskirts of the town and into a dusty, sandy road between green dikes or ramparts dotted with anti-aircraft guns. Then we passed by a group of weather-worn barracks, dusty and dreary, labeled—doubtless by some wag, we thought—“Rest Camp,” surrounded by wire fences.

We cross a canal, turn to the left, and pass along to another—“Rest Camp No. 6.” The leading company turns in at a gate in the wire fence; we see American uniforms and campaign hats; one or two officers in overseas caps, strange looking to us then; then we pass in through the gate and realize that this is our temporary destination.

We were billeted in tents, about 12 feet in diameter—and about 20 men to a tent. Sand everywhere. A hideous open latrine next to the mess hall. After the usual hurly-burly and confusion, we finally kick other companies out of our tents, are in turn kicked out of theirs, and, after a long wait, get—“tea.” Oh, how Americans did love that word!

The officers were lodged in luxury—the five of us had a whole tent, with some boards to sleep on. We ate at the British officers’ mess, where meals and very good beer and wine were served by Waacs. The next thing was an officers’ meeting, and that night a talk by an English major. He cheered us up by telling us that very few ever came back, and narrated several choice tales of sudden death in unusual and gruesome forms. He was apparently bent on removing from our minds any impression that we were in for a pleasure trip. We afterwards heard that he was severely criticised by other British officers for trying to get our wind up first thing.

The next morning our equipment was cut down. We could only keep what we could carry on our backs. The contents of our barrack bags, the extra equipment, the complete outfit that had been subjected to so many inspections, upon which we had turned in reams upon reams of reports at Camp Dix, were ruthlessly collected, dumped into trucks and carted off to Heaven knows where by a Q. M. 2nd Lieutenant. No count was taken, no papers signed. The omniscient powers, who had deviled our lives out to collect this stuff, hadn’t told us anything about this little ceremony. So underwear, socks, extra pairs of shoes were a drug on the market; and we simply couldn’t give the cigarettes away. A great quantity were turned over to the Y. M. C. A. canteen. Of course, we never saw our barrack bags again.

The next day we formed with rifles, belts and bayonets, and marched about four miles out into the flat, flat country; past windmills and hedges and a little estaminet here and there, until we came to a British gas house. Here some English and Scotch sergeants issued English gas masks, and after a couple of hours gas mask drill we went through the gas house, and started back to camp. On our way we stopped by at an ordnance hut where our American Enfields were exchanged for English Enfields, with their stubby looking barrels and heavy sight guards. In our army issuing or exchanging any piece of ordnance property is like getting married, and when a rifle is involved it is like five actions at law and a couple of breach of promise suits. Here we filed in one door, shoved our rifle at a Tommy, beat it for the other door, grabbed an English weapon and bayonet, and the deed was done. I happened to be in command of the battalion that day, and somewhere I suppose the British government has a couple of grubby slips of paper on which I’ve signed for 1,000 gas masks, rifles and bayonets. The transaction would probably have been a fatal blow to a U. S. ordnance officer. Being only a reserve officer of infantry, it seemed to me pretty sensible.

Back in camp we were pretty much left alone, and some there were who lost no time making an acquaintance with the estaminets of Calais. In thirty-six hours we had learned enough English to discourse glibly of “tuppence ha’ penny,” and I even overheard Price offer to “Shoot you a bob,” and somebody promptly took “six penn ’orth of it.” But this was nothing compared to our excursions into the unexplored fields of the long suffering French language. By that evening most of the men seemed quite proficient in a few such indispensable phrases as “Vin rouge tout de suite” or rather “Van rooge toot sweet,” “Encore,” “Combien,” and “Oo la la, ma cherie.”

The next morning—Wednesday, June 5th—we left Rest Camp No. 6, and glad we were to leave it, for a dirty, hot hole it was. We hadn’t been bombed, though the town got its usual raid, and the camp was complimented the next night by the Boche.

The hike to the station was long and hot and made without a rest. Of course, not knowing as much as they would later, the men’s packs were tremendous. The overcoat, blanket, 100 rounds of ammunition and extra shoes and rations alone are a good load, and when one adds several suits of underwear, extra toilet articles, Jenny’s sweaters, Aunt Sarah’s wristlets, a couple of cartons of cigarettes and pipe tobacco, and some chocolate, it gets tremendous. Little Effingham’s pack as usual, was down to his heels, but he stoutly refused assistance, also as usual. The company arrived at the station feeling like a dyspeptic bear with scarlet fever.

We were forthwith introduced to the famous “Hommes 40, Chevaux 8.” It was seldom that bad, but even 25 or 30 men are a tight fit in those little cattle cars, as you all can testify.

We rolled out of Havre, pursued to the last by the children and orange sellers, who seemed to spring up from the ground everywhere in Northern France.

This first trip was short. We passed from the low country into a gently rolling terrain, and at about 1 o’clock arrived at Marquise, where we detrained.

We were met by a couple of Scotch officers from the 14th Highland Light Infantry. They guided us up the road to the village where we were billeted, about two miles away. On the way one of them, Captain “Jimmie” Johnston, told us that their battalion was detailed to act as instructors for the 311th Infantry.

The first little crossroads village was our billet—Rinxent. The command “Fall out t’ right of th’ road” sounded quite welcome to the overloaded marchers and we watched the rest of the battalion march by enroute to their billets at Rety, two kilos further.

The company was scattered along the road in small billets of from ten to forty men. Company headquarters was established in the corner estaminet. This was our first introduction to French billets. The usual procedure consisted of:

1. Protest to billeting officer or N. C. O. at putting human beings into such a place. Unsuccessful.

2. Long argument with house holder, he speaking French very fast and we speaking American very loud. Usually ended by the argument of a five franc note to the frugal French peasant.

3. Cleaning out the stable, chicken house, or barn, with voluble protests from f. F. p.

4. Making sundry discoveries during the first night.

5. Pitching pup tents in nearest field.

We got permission to use a field about 100 yards square for a drill ground and two platoons pitched pup tents there.

The first night a few of the boys became slightly excited over the privilege of visiting the estaminets, and tried to drink up all the vin rouge and cognac at once. The consequence was that the dispensers of good cheer were put under the ban for several days.

Now the training of the company began in earnest. The majority of the men had had only the most hasty smattering of the elements of squad drill; many could not shoulder arms properly. Two platoons would use the drill field while two drilled on the roads outside. The training schedules called for a good nine-hour day of drill and ceremonies, varied occasionally by short practice hikes by company or battalion.

Lewis guns were issued to us here. A few officers and n. c. o.’s had taken courses in the use of this weapon at Camp Dix; company and battalion schools were at once started, the latter conducted by Scottish n. c. o.’s from the 14th H. L. I.

In addition, there were battalion, regimental and corps schools for bayonet, gas defense, liaison (for the runners), bombing, rifle grenade, musketry and several more. From this time until we left France there were always a number of men away at schools. Of course this was necessary, but it broke up the training of the company as a whole. Also, we were brigaded with the British, and some men would go to a British school and qualify as instructors, only to come back and find that the American system was being used, and vice versa. Both systems might have their good points, and did have, but the rate at which orders and instructions and ways of doing things changed from day to day was enough to bewilder old hands at this game; and we were greenhorns.

“Jimmy” Johnston helped a lot. He was in command of what was left of the 14th battalion, Highland Light Infantry—about four squads. Of medium height, rather stocky build, with a bonny, handsome face and bright blue eyes under his Scotch cap, Jimmy was one of the finest fellows and best officers that ever stepped. He had been through the Gallipoli expedition, and two years on the Western front; had been reported killed in action, and gone home on leave to be greeted as one risen from the dead.

Jimmy had been through the mill. He knew. Always with a word of encouragement, to avoid dampening our American energy, he would help along with quiet hints and canny suggestions that were worth their weight in gold. When we came staggering along under heavy packs, he said nothing, but strolled along with his little cane and admired the landscape. When orders would come in thick and fast, each one contradicting the last, and all to be executed at once, Jimmy would intimate verra, verra cautiously, that if we used our own judgment we should get along somehow, and that C. O’s and chiefs of staff had to keep themselves busy, and what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt ’em. Like most Scotch officers he seemed to live mostly on whiskey, and throve on the diet.

On June 11, Major Odom went to a Corps school, and I was left in charge of the battalion. Of course, that evening orders came in to move next morning. We had just begun to get in our English transport—the little limbers and the cranky rolling kitchen with which we were to become so familiar later. Up to then we had cooked on our American field ranges.

At 7 o’clock next morning we pulled out and marched down to Rety. There we fell in behind the 2d battalion, and started on our first full day’s hike. The packs were still heavy, and those full cartridge belts—Lord, how much 100 rounds of ammunition can weigh after a while! As usual with green troops, the leading element set too fast a pace. Rests seemed but a minute. Finally, on a long, long up grade, we halted for lunch. After chow and an hour’s rest, we pulled on, picking ’em up and putting ’em down. On, over broad white roads; turning off into narrower roads shaded by rows of tall trees, turning into the highroad again. We passed stragglers from the 309th and 310th Infantry, so knew that the whole 78th Division must be in France and on the move near us. The hills were higher, the women were older. We came to a village; three estaminets, two stores, a school house, a blacksmith’s shop, a sign. “Brunembert.” Regimental Hdqrs. and Supply Co. are halted there. We keep on; on the other side of town “C” and “D” companies meet their advance party guides and turn off; we hike on half a kilometer, half way up a hill, turn off to the right, hike around the hill, and finally, at about 3 P. M., plumb tuckered, the company is split, two platoons going to one farmhouse, the other two to another, at Haute Creuse.

Haute Creuse itself was only a crossroads, with one poor cottage. Battalion headquarters was there. The company billets were a good quarter of a mile apart. In addition, when I inspected the billet assigned the 3rd and 4th platoons, I found a remarkably dirty old barn, with a cesspool and manure heap outside that was awful, even for France. The only spring was near the pool. So the next morning we moved these platoons over to the other billet, pitching pup tents in a beautiful field just on the other side of the barnyard.

That afternoon an old duffer in an English major’s uniform came ambling along. He expressed great anguish at our not using the billets assigned to us. It meant nothing to him that our comfort, health, convenience were served by our using our own tents. The plan was that that lousy old typhoid trap should be occupied, and so it must be done. And he, it appeared, was the “area commandant.”

So I said “Yessir,” and tipped Sgt. Ertwine off to have some men make a great show of striking tents, and resolved privately to take a chance yet. Jimmy Johnston came along later and told me that area commandants were a tribe of dud officers who were given that job to keep ’em out of mischief.

I was hauled over the coals three or four times about it. The old Major wrote to his General Hdq., and they wrote to our hdq., and it came down the line to our Colonel, whose soul shivered before the wintry blast. But finally Lt. Col. Myers took it up and obtained permission for us to stay where we were.

At Rinxent a number of second lieutenants, just commissioned at the Officers’ Training Camp at Langres, had joined us. We had a captain and five or six second lieuts. attached to “B” Co. The captain, who was commanding the company in my absence at bn. hdq., was a peculiar individual, with very fierce and imposing mustachios, and a manner to match; but an absurdly incongruous weak and husky voice, due to throat trouble. The lieuts. were rather a good bunch; men who had been n. c. o.’s in outfits that had come over during the preceding year, and some of whom had been in the trenches already. We were fortunate in keeping one of them, Lieut. Bivens Moore, in the company; the others we lost by transfers from time to time.

Training was resumed again; schools ran in full force. Officers and men were continually going off to sundry corps or army schools in the vicinity; at St. Omer or points near by. Harold Sculthorpe went off to a cooks’ school, and we didn’t see him again for many a month. Sgt. Peterson was made Brigade Postal N. C. O. We received our first mail from home, and nobody can ever tell how welcome it was. Letters were the one slender thread that connected our new life with the old. A bit of mail cheered up a soldier for days; a disappointment when mail came in without one for him made him blue for a week. It was pleasant to see the earnest faces of fellows like Sgt. Schelter, and Corporal DeGrote beaming when they heard from their wives and little ones. With the impatience and eagerness of the newlyweds, I was of course sympathetic. And as for the majority, who were waiting for letters from the best little girl in the world, they were either insufferable in their glamourous egotism, or serio-comic in their suffering, according to whether the lady had seen fit to be kind or cool when she took her pen in hand. Certain ones, too, who shall be nameless, would receive letters in sundry handwritings, with a variety of post-marks. Don Juans, these; gay and giddy Lotharios in the old home town.

We were billeted at a typical French farm of the larger type. As you turned in off the road through the gateway, a black dog chained in a little stone dungeon just inside barked fiercely. This poor beast had been chained in that one place for so long that he knew nothing else. He was half blind; and one day when I unchained him and took him for a walk down the road, he was desperately frightened; and as soon as he got back he made a dash for his kennel, and refused to come out.

The long, two story house took up most of the left hand side of the courtyard. The officers had two rooms here, one of which we used for a mess. The family lived mostly in the big kitchen, where a little fire burned on the great hearth. On the other two sides were stables, some of which were used as billets, storeroom and orderly room. The manure heap adorned the center of the courtyard. Behind lay a small but important yard, which in turn opened on the big field where two platoons were in pup tents around the border, and where the company formed.

The people here were dull, homely, grasping and churlish. I do not recollect ever having been given a pleasant word by one of them; but of complaints and claims for damages there was no lack. They seemed to resent our presence from the very first; we were apparently as much intruders to them as German troops could have been.

The men soon began to resent this attitude, and to reciprocate in kind. Soldiers are apt to be heedless, and are of course a nuisance to the people they are quartered on; but at Rety they had greeted us in the main as friends, and we in turn tried to give as little trouble as possible. Here our notions of being the welcome young warriors got a good severe jolt.

We on our side took some time to learn how to conduct ourselves. How were we to know that a French peasant would far rather have you walk over him than over one of his fields? Why was it a crime to cut down a stunted dead tree for the company kitchen? And where, oh, where were the pretty mademoiselles?

But even in Northern France all the people were not like this. Remember the old woman just down the road, who lived with her daughters in the cottage which was battalion headquarters? They were very poor, and worked very hard; all the long summer day—and it was light from 4:30 A. M. to 9:00 P. M.—they were busy, indoors and out. Her three sons were in the army, one a prisonier de guerre, two at the front. When one of them, only a young lad, came home for a few days’ permission, he went out every morning at 6:00 o’clock and worked until dusk. How many of us would have done as much? And the old lady and girl always had a smile and cheery word, and would give soldiers a drink of milk and insisted on having officers going to bn. hdq. stop for a cup of coffee. Even the pretty little goat in the yard grew friendly with olive drab, and would romp with us like a dog.

For several days we used whatever little fields we could for drill; every square foot of land that was suitable seemed to be under cultivation. This was unsatisfactory, to say the least. Finally Col. Meyers arranged for us to have the use of the top of the great hill. It was a splendid place to drill—after you got there. But oh, that hike up that young mountain and down again, twice a day! Will we ever forget it?

When we had been here about a week, Major Odom returned, and a day or so later Lieuts. Schuyler and Merrill rejoined the company. They were all primed with the new wrinkles they had picked up at school at Chatillon, and took over the first and third platoons respectively. Schuyler’s conscientiousness, high spirits and inexhaustible energy made him a great asset to the company. Merrill was an equally hard and willing worker, and though young, was one of the brightest men in the regiment. He had graduated from the school at the head of his class, which included majors, captains and lieuts. from all over the A. E. F.

We were stationed about 50 kilometers behind the lines; and had the Germans made one more drive on Calais that summer we should have undoubtedly gone into action. No lights were shown at night, and it was seldom that we did not hear the droning buzz of the great Boche bombing planes winging their way to bomb Calais or Boulogne, or maybe some nearer town, Desvres or St. Omer.

At the beginning of July details of officers and n. c. o.’s were sent up to the front lines for four day tours of observation. Sgts. Ertwine, Perry and I went on the first one, and were in the line with a battalion of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers. Our experiences, while interesting, hardly belong here. Lieut. Foulkes went up the next week and landed in the midst of an attack, so he saw plenty of action. Then Lieut. Schuyler went up with an Australian outfit, who didn’t let him pine for excitement during his stay. It was an excellent system, and we saw at first hand how things were really run in the trenches.

When I returned from my tour, an orderly brought around late that night some red covered books and leaflets, and we were told that these would be put into effect the next day. These were the new system of combat formations, involving an absolutely new extended order drill, and formation of the company. Lieut. Moore had drilled a few times in these formations; the rest of us knew no more about them than the company cooks did. So next morning we sallied forth, books in hand, and worked the formations out step by step. Everyone was quick to see that this was something like business, as of course our old army regulations were absurd when it came to using the new special weapons, such as automatic rifles, hand and rifle grenades, and so on. So the new formations were mastered remarkably quickly.

A bayonet course with trenches, “shell holes” and dummies was installed, and a sergeant of the Northumberland Fusileers was instructor. He was a good one, too; but as usual, we were up against it, as he taught some things slightly differently from the American methods.

It was while going over this course that Gustave Fleischmann stepped in a hole and broke his leg. It was a bad break, for I saw his foot and lower leg go out sideways at a right angle, in spite of his leggings. He was game enough, though, and smoked a cigarette while waiting for an ambulance and surgeon. We heard from him several times from English hospitals, but he was never able to rejoin the company.

We also lost another very valuable man in Corporal Edward Johnson. This man could have claimed exemption for either dependents or a weak heart. He refused to do either, and we managed to get him passed by the medicos for foreign service. The daily hike up that hill, however, and the strenuous life generally, were too much for him, though he kept at it until he was worn down to a very dangerous point. I made him go before the surgeon, who at once ordered him transferred to a depot brigade. I know that Johnson was not liked by some of you men on account of his conscientiousness. I believe, however, that when you look back upon it you will appreciate his honest, unselfish and unceasing labor for his squad, platoon, and company.

That countryside was beautiful at this time. It rained often, but in showers; not the continuous drizzle that came later. Maybe it was because we took more notice of such things than usual, not knowing if we would see another summer, but the green fields, fresh in the early morning and cool and sweet at night, and the hedges, and the pretty little bits of woodland along the creeks and ravines, all seemed lovely as never before.

In the next town, just over the hill, was an Australian rest camp. We got along with the Aussies much better than with Tommies, and every night numerous visitors went down to cultivate the entente cordial with the assistance of the town estaminets.

Our first payday in France came about this time, and what with back pay coming in, and the high rate of exchange, and being paid in francs, some of the boys waxed rather too exuberant over the flowing bowl. What with Janicki and Effingham trying to clean up Brunembert, starting in with a couple of Tommies and ending with an abrupt thud when they got around to “D” Co. headquarters; and sundry members of the Irish brigade making a Donnybrook Fair out of the highways and byways, I had a busy night.

Another night we shall remember is that of July 4th. Sgts. Ertwine, Perry and Anness were going up for commissions at the Officer Candidates’ School at Langres, and the officers gave them a farewell supper that evening. The company was, I understand, also celebrating the national holiday conscientiously. When the festivities were at their height, we heard the squealing of bagpipes, and the curious bump-bump-bumpetty-bum of the Scottish drummer, that nobody on earth but a Jock can keep step with. The band of the H. L. I. had been serenading the Col. and were going back to their billets.

All turned out to see them pass, and as they swung up the road, Lt. Foulkes, in an inspired moment, detailed Supply Sgt. Levy to bring ’em back for “B” Co.

In five minutes the pipes returned, with Joe marching at their head twirling the drum major’s baton. They turned into the courtyard, and were taken into our midst with a mighty burst of cheers, skirling of pipes, and thunder of the drums. That was a scene I shall never forget—a wonderful setting for a musical comedy. The dark courtyard, fitfully illumined by the glare of a few lanterns and torches—the crowd of olive drab figures around the Scotties in their kilts, with one in the center doing a Highland fling. The visitors were already fortified, but additional liquid refreshments were hastily procured for them, and a testimonial taken up in the way of a collection. In the meantime the drummer, well on the shady side of sober, rendered several ballads. We reciprocated with Irish songs by Peter and others, and a breakdown by Kitson. It was well on towards midnight when they left; and next morning the Major wanted to know “what the hell was B Company up to last night?”

Another pleasant time was had by all one day while I was at the front. Someone at staff hdq. felt an idle curiosity to see how fast the division could turn out, if it had to. Accordingly the order went forth—march at 2:00 P. M. Thinking the Boches had broken through and we were “for it,” there was a mad scurry and scramble; the kitchen pulled to pieces; rations hastily issued; and the company, under Lt. Dunn, reported to the Brunembert road about half an hour after the time set, and about two hours sooner than had seemed possible that morning. After fussing about a bit, the companies were marched back to their hastily abandoned billets.

All the time we were in the English area, rations were short. The British ration must have been much smaller than ours, or else there was a hitch somewhere. Our men were used to three square meals a day. The British only had porridge, tea and bread and jam for breakfast; a regular meal—stew or meat and vegetables—in the middle of the day, and tea and bread and cheese at night. This didn’t go far to relieve the aching void that every American soldier cherishes under his belt. We spent thousands of francs from the company fund buying potatoes and whatever else we could to eke out the ration. But even so, there was never any difficulty in following the advice of those doctors who say to stop eating while you still feel hungry.

July 14th was Bastile Day. We were turned out for a ceremony to celebrate it. The ceremony consisted of marching to Brunembert in the rain, squads left, right dress, present arms, order arms, squads left, and hike back in the rain. I can’t say my bosom dilated with enthusiasm, nor did the spectators—a dozen children, two estaminet keepers and the usual “orangee” girls—emit any rousing cheers.

I see by the Regimental History that the Duke of Connaught and General Pershing “honored us with a visit” at this time, but said visits were practically painless for “B” Company, as we didn’t even see the dust from their automobiles.

By this time the regimental transport was complete—or as nearly so as it ever was; all furnished by the British. Each battalion was now functioning as a separate unit, and Lt. Gibbs had his hands full with the supply and transport. He was accordingly made bn. transport and supply officer, and the Major selected Lt. Foulkes as battalion adjutant. So we lost the best officer in “B” Company, and I believe the best line subaltern in the regiment. I know he hated to leave the company, and there wasn’t a man but missed him from that time on. He always had a soft spot in his heart for us, as Bn. Adjt. and later as Regimental Adjt. Foulkes was one man I was never disappointed in. McMahon, his striker, went with him. Mac was a good scout too.

By July 18th we had skirmished over every inch of the big hill; hiked over all the roads within a six mile radius; bayoneted about 500 “Boche” gunnysacks apiece, and made ’steen triangles at musketry drill. We got another march order, and after the usual bustle of cleaning up we pulled out with full equipment on July 19th at 9:00 A. M.

It was only a four mile hike this time, to Lottingham, the nearest railway depot. There we were parked in a little yard off the road, and saw the 309th and 310th Inf. go by to entrain. We waited about an hour, and I broke up a very promising crap game, to my secret regret. I afterward chucked the bones out of the car window, much to Dunn’s disgust.

At 11:30 we were packed into a train, which rolled off in the usual nonchalant manner, at an average speed of six miles per hour. We passed through some pretty enough country during the afternoon, and speculated wildly on our destination, as usual missing it completely.

At 8:30 P. M. we pulled up at Ligny alongside an American Red Cross train, with a couple of real American nurses in it. How good they looked to us! The car windows were nearly all shattered, and the cars scarred with bullets and shrapnel. This was a bit of the real thing.

The battalion detrained, formed on the road, and we hiked off through the long summer twilight, guided by Vafiadis, our advance party detail. We were being introduced to the Arras-St. Pol road, with which we were to become well acquainted shortly. We went on, over the railroad tracks at Roellecourt, stopped for a ten-minute rest at dusk and watched the cows come home down the hill—another homesick sight for the country lads—and hiked on and on. At last, well after dark, we turned off up another road; past a bit of woods, then off to the right past a large farmhouse, and Vafiadis pointed out a little plot about as big as a Harlem flat and said we were to billet there. I remarked “likell” and pushed ahead into a nice grassy field where we pitched pup tents for the night. I knew there would be an awful yowl from the owners in the morning, but let it slide.

Next morning we found that this was St. Michel, and that St. Pol, quite a sizeable town, was only a quarter of a mile away. Pup tents were pitched up the hill from the field, in the woods, along a rough lumber road. The kitchen was installed under some trees near the farmhouse, which was deserted. We found a lot of kitchen utensils—the place had been an estaminet—and put some of ’em to use. The day was spent in resting and getting cleaned up and settled. In the evening some went into St. Pol.

That night we found out why the place was deserted. St. Pol was a railroad center, and quite convenient for the Boche bombers. No bombs landed in camp that night, but they were hitting all around, with a roar and a jar that gave a fellow a queer sensation in the stomach. Being bombed is such a helpless, hopeless sort of process.

Earlier in the war St. Pol had been under long range artillery fire; and between that and the air raids there were plenty of shell holes all around. There were some among our pup tents, and a couple of huge ones just across the road in the woods.

Company headquarters was established in the attic of the farmhouse, battalion headquarters being on the first floor. Regimental Hdq. was at Foufflin-Ricametz, about 4 kilos away.

In a couple of days a vitriolic and voluble French woman descended upon us. It appeared that we had broken into the house, used her things without permission, taken eggs the hens had laid, used several priceless old boards from the barn to make a mess table, walked on the grass, and disturbed the manure pile. I never did believe she and her husband ever lived there; but we put everything back, and ate in the mud until Thompson and Farry found some boards elsewhere. These two French people made life as miserable as they could for us while we were there, continually claiming damages and protesting at everything we did, it seemed.

Most of the inhabitants of St. Michel and St. Pol slept at night in long dugouts tunnelled underneath the hills. They were very damp, foul close holes, with little cubicles scratched out of the walls to sleep in. They weren’t taking any more chances with H. E.

Our “intensive training” was continued here. We were rejoiced that we hadn’t that awful hill to climb, and somehow we got away with using the field to drill on. The mornings were taken up with problems, and before long we were well acquainted with those woods; then there was bayonet drill, bombing, the everlasting gas mask drill, musketry, physical drill, and so on. The afternoon was devoted to special drill for Lewis gun, V. B. and hand bombers, runners, etc., while the rest of the company did problems or musketry. We stood retreat and reveille along the lumber road—oh, yes, and that 15 minutes of manual of arms before retreat every night.

Usually it rained here. Drill went on just the same, though. We could hear the thunder of the big guns at night, and the crash and roar from the droning bombing planes let us know that this was in grim earnest, and it behooved us to make the most of our time.

Regimental, brigade, and divisional problems began to be all the rage. Since nobody below majors ever get any information as to what these are all about, the troops were usually represented by flags. In good weather these things are just a bore; when it rains, they’re considerably worse.

On August 3d, the H. L. I. detachment left us, and we completed our training on our own.

About two weeks after our arrival at St. Michel, the word was passed that Elsie Janis was coming to visit the division. Of course that afternoon was marked by a good old Northern France soaker. How it rained! We hiked about three miles through it, and were packed into a courtyard with five or six thousand other shoving, soaking doughboys. Miss Janis had our band to help her out, and a little platform with a bit of canvas overhead, which kept off a little of the rain. Half of us couldn’t see her except for occasional glimpses; officers and men were drenched right through and through. Besides, Miss Janis was physically about all in from overwork, and had a peach of a cold—a real A. E. F. cold, not the kind that amateur singers always use for an alibi. The bunch was sore at being hauled out in this weather for anything short of going into action.

And yet, from the first moment that girl stepped on the platform, she had the crowd with her. We were fed up, lonesome in a strange land, sick of hearing a foreign tongue, longing to see a regular girl again. And here was a bit of real America before our eyes; pep incarnate—a snappy, clean cut, clean girl from home, laughing with us, making us laugh at ourselves and in spite of ourselves, jazzing it up in the rain. And we sloshed and squnched back to St. Michel, singing:

“Beautiful Elsie, beautiful Elsie,

“You’re the only, only girl that I ado-o-re.”

On August 5th the battalion left St. Michel at 9:00 A. M. in full marching order. We were going to occupy a trench sector for a practice tour.

As you all know now, the trench systems of each side during the war were in triplicate, or maybe quadruplicate. There was the system actually being occupied against the enemy. A couple of miles back was another complete system, to be defended in case the first was taken; and, if time permitted, yet another behind this.

We were to take over a sector of the G. H. Q., or second system, just behind Arras. While this was partly a regular item on our training schedule—the last one before actually going into the line—it was also contemplated that in case the Boche uncorked another drive on Arras, we should occupy this line and bar the road of the enemy should he break through, as he had done in the spring further north.

After a long 12 mile hike up the Arras road, we turned off to the right, past a long train of British motor lorries, of which there seemed an inexhaustible supply. On through roads ever rougher and narrower we went, and halted at last in a clearing in a patch of woods. The officers went out to reconnoitre the sector and have their company sectors assigned, and the company stacked arms in the wet woods—it was raining, of course—and wondered if we’d get any chow.

It was dark when we had had supper from our one lunged rolling kitchen and filed off to take up our position. “B” Co. was battalion support. The trenches were only dug about waist high; there were no dugouts or cubby holes to sleep in; not even a firing step to keep you out of the mud. We splashed and squatted through the pitchy blackness; no lights were allowed, of course. We reached our post finally, and settled down in the bottom of the trench in abject misery. The only lights were from the star shells that the Germans were sending up from their real lines, only a few kilos away; and the rumble of artillery fire there ahead reminded us that we were pretty close to the real thing.

While I was making my final inspection, I saw a light come flashing down the communication trench towards us. This was against all orders, so I snarled out a peremptory command to put it out. The light didn’t pay any attention. This was the last straw; I thought that so long as we had to go through this performance it was going to be done right, with nobody privileged to cross their fingers and say they weren’t playing. I wallowed off in the direction of that flash light, wet through and getting pretty sore. I hailed it; I adopted a false, feigned politeness; I remarked that this was not puss in the corner, nor was I talking for my health, and if they couldn’t douse that glim I had a .45 that could. The light went out abruptly. I asked if he was simulating a steamboat on the Mississippi. I finally got quite near and demanded whoin’ell that was anyhow. And it was the Colonel. Yes, of course.

The best of it was that he had issued the order against lights himself about two hours before, and couldn’t very well blame me.

An order came round to send a detail after some corrugated iron at point “G24a7.3.” I stumbled around until I walked on a sergeant, Bill Reid, and so I made him the goat, and told him to take a detail and go to it. The place was about 300 yards away over a couple of fields. Bill and his detail floundered off, and roamed about until 3:00 A. M., when they hailed a figure in the darkness as “Hey, buddy.” It was Lt. Col. Myer, at regimental hdq. at Hermaville, a couple of kilos away. He steered Bill back to the company, where he arrived at dawn—without the iron.

During the day the sun shone at intervals, and we scraped out cubbies in the side of the trench, and tried to get a little dry. Barney O’Rourke, who had been missing since the night before, showed up under guard, somewhat the worse for wear. He had wandered off to Hermaville, met an Irish Tommy, found a hospitable estaminet, and subsequently had severely rebuked an officer from Rgt’l. Hdqrs. who undertook to reprove him. Regt’l Hdq. was all for having Barney shot at sunrise or something, and of course I got a call. At the courtmartial, though, we got him off with a month’s hard labor and a $10.00 blind, which was really quite all that happy-go-lucky, golden-hearted son of Erin deserved. He never did the month at that, or rather we all did. But he dug me a company headquarters when he came back, and it would have been fine only someone walked through the roof.

We were relieved that night by “E” Co., 24 hours before we expected. We marched back to the clearing in the woods, had supper at the rolling kitchen, pitched pup tents and had a comparatively dry night’s sleep. Jerry came over and tried to drop an ash can on the kitchen, but didn’t succeed.

They let us sleep late next morning, and we started for our billet at 10:00 A. M., leaving the 2d bn. to the joys of make-believe trench life.

Right here I want to say a word about our experience with court-martials. There has been much criticism of military justice as administered in the A. E. F., but the 78th Division was fortunate in having as Judge Advocate a most capable, honest, experienced, broad minded man, Major George G. Bogert, formerly Professor of Law at Cornell, I believe. His assistant, Lt. John J. Kuhn, was an equally fine type of lawyer and gentleman. I know of no accused man who did not get an absolutely square deal from them, and from the courts-martial before which they appeared.

Well, here we are back in St. Michel, rocked to sleep every night by the free fireworks from our aerial visitors. We had hardly rested from our trench experience before I was ordered to take details from each company to the rifle range. Part of “B” company had gone a week before, and their tales of woe had in some measure prepared us.

We had no guide. As we hiked through Foufflin-Ricametz, I stopped off and Capt. Wagner showed me our destination on a map. We plodded on and on, through about 20 villages, all alike, and all with a maze of crooked little streets that weren’t on any map. We passed by a lot of Canadian artillery back for a rest. The Canadians had been badly shot up before we got to France, and were being reorganized and recuperating that summer. They, the Anzacs, the Australians, the Scotties, and the Guard regiments were the shock troops of the British Army.

Finally we came upon a welcome sign, “Target Range,” and we bivouacked in woods behind the slope whereon the targets were. The next day we plugged away at 200, 300 and 500 yards at four rickety swivel targets. It rained, of course; but we finished in the afternoon, and hiked back to St. Michel. It seemed even longer than before, though we took a short cut by a back road; and we were for once glad to see the lonely tower of St. Michel rising above the woods outside St. Pol.

I returned to find Major Odom on the eve of departure for another school. From this time, then, until he returned on August 20th, the company was commanded by Lt. Schuyler, who carried out his additional duties with characteristic energy and conscientiousness.

On August 12th, the whole regiment was on the move; and this time we were leaving St. Michel for good, though a small detail was left to guard the baggage. Sgt. Haynes, who had hurt his leg in bayonet practice, was left behind with water on the knee, and never succeeded in rejoining the company. Our faithful company clerk, too, Cpl. Jimmy Jones, broke his ankle, and was sent to a hospital in England. Fortunately for me, we had Cpl. Stiles ready to step into his shoes. From this time on Stiles handled the company paper work in a most efficient and conscientious fashion. Most fellows never have any idea of the long hours, day and night, that a company clerk puts in, struggling with the labyrinth of forms, records, reports and correspondence that are vital to the running of the company. The greater part of the paper work that was done at Camp Dix by the officers and Co. Cmdrs. was turned over to the Co. clerks in France, and many a night Stiles and Jones have pored over that field desk, by the light of a candle, keeping us straight with the authorities. If records ever went astray, or passes went awry, it was not their fault. “B” Company was certainly most fortunate in its company clerks.

It was a long, hot march that sunny August day up toward the front, and the company pulled into Lattre St. Quentin pretty well tuckered. I had been taken up in a British staff car as we passed through Regt’l Hdq., and, with the other two battalion commanders, was taken to reconnoiter the sectors of the front line which we were to take over. Each battalion was to be brigaded with an English regiment, and to hold the front lines for a regular tour of duty as the last step in the training schedule.

The 1st Bn. was to go in with the 1st London regiment. The officers of this brigade and regiment received me very cordially. Our proposed battalion sector was just outside Arras. The town itself was within the English lines, which ran along the eastern outskirts. The position was well organized, and the trenches were in good shape, as this part of the line had been practically stationary for a year. The outfit we were to relieve were in high glee, as they had been in the trenches for 8 months straight. It was a “quiet” sector, but Jerry buzzed a few shells quite unpleasantly close while I was roaming about.

I rode back in luxury in the staff car to find the battalion billeted and asleep. We had arranged for officers and platoon sergeants to go up in a couple of days to reconnoiter their respective positions.

Lattre St. Quentin was a village of some sixty houses, about 20 kilos from Arras. “B” Co. was billeted in the barn behind the house where Bn. Hdq. was located, and in the house next to it down the road.

During the next few days we had a platoon competition in the battalion. “B” Co. was represented by the 4th platoon. The event was won by the “C” Co. 3d platoon, but all the contestants did well.

There was a nice “vacant lot” by the billet, and we had some good fun kicking a football and staging several baseball matches there. The weather was fine, and we were in great fettle.

On August 14th orders arrived promoting Lt. Col. Myer to Colonel and putting him in command of the 129th Infantry. This was a great loss to the regiment. Myer was the best officer we had, thoroughly efficient, devoted to his profession, always on the job, an excellent judge of men, and an adept at picking out the essential things that counted. He placed the good of the service first, and himself last, and he had the trust and respect of every officer and man in the outfit.

The officers and platoon sgts. left on the evening of the 15th for the front line via a little narrow gauge railway, returning the next morning. All was now in readiness.

But at noon on the 16th, orders arrived postponing the relief. On the 17th, rumors began to fly that we were to go to another part of the front. Then we were ordered to turn in the Lewis guns, with which we had become quite familiar. Somehow it leaked out that we were to go South to the American sector. This rumor became a certainty when we turned in all our British rifles and ammunition, receiving instead American Enfields. Our overcoats and other supplies that we had left at St. Michel were brought over in motor trucks. The details guarding them said that Jerry had bombed the old billet to a fare-you-well the night after we left it.

Our joy at moving was heartfelt and unbounded. Those who had been south to schools or on other duties told us what a “bon secteur” it was. And the prospect of drawing American rations and being with American troops and transport again was welcomed with acclaim. To tell the truth, we were rather fed up with being under the wing of our British Allies. Their ways were not our ways; we would feel better when with our own kind. Theoretically, we were brothers in the great cause. Practically, in the mud and sweat and thousand petty aggravations and misunderstandings, we had undoubtedly gotten upon each other’s nerves. The average Tommy looked upon us as a bunch of greenhorn Yankees, who had all made fortunes during the first three years of the war and were now over in France three years late spending them and raising the price of vin rouge and “oofs.” We looked upon the average Tommy as a degenerate, tea drinking, saluting bellyacher. The Australians and Canadians were our sworn buddies, however, and we liked the Scotties. Maybe this was because the only British combat troops we had been in touch with were these organizations. To me, the few English combat troops that I encountered seemed a fairly decent bunch.

2d Platoon, Flavigny, France, 1919.

It was with light hearts, then, that we pulled out of Lattre St. Quentin on a beautiful summer morning, at 10 o’clock, August 20th. It was only an 8 mile hike to Tinques, a rail head on the Arras road. We turned into a big held and I halted the battalion while I went to find the R. T. O. in charge of entraining.

All was bustle and hurry. Things were being rushed through in the American fashion. Nobody knew where the R. T. O. was; everybody was too busy to know anything. At last I saw Lt. Gibbs on top of a flat car loading wagons. He shouted that our train was across the platform and was due to leave in 20 minutes. I dashed back to the battalion, hurried it across the tracks, entrained them and sure enough the train pulled out just as I got the outfit aboard. As I was finishing, a dapper U. S. Major of the Division Inspector’s Dept. toddled up and said it was the worst entraining he had ever seen, and why weren’t the men marched up to the cars in column of squads? I saluted the boob wearily and swung aboard just as the train pulled out.

Now came our longest rail journey in France. For two days we bowled along pretty steadily. We swung around by St. Pol, with a farewell glimpse of our old billet, and then south, through Amiens, up to the outskirts of Paris. Hearts beat high, and had the train stopped for five minutes at a likely looking place, I was prepared to see the battalion make a break for la vie Parisienne. The only stop, however, was for a few minutes to get routing orders from a business-like French R. T. O. From these orders I learned that our destination was Passavant. It might as well have been Timbuctoo for all that meant to me; but I had learned by this time that these French trains, with all their misery and sin, did get you to the proper place at last, so I didn’t worry.

The houses of Paris fell behind, and we rolled east along the famous Marne river. At Haute Creuse and St. Pol we had read in the Paris editions of the “New York Herald” and “Daily Mail” of the desperate fighting along here in July, in which the mettle of our American regulars and marines had been put to so stern a test; and the next morning, a beautiful, bright day it was, too, we began to pass through towns whose names were yet ringing all over the world. The familiar signs of nearing the front began to appear—the roofless houses, shell holes, and so on. Then we began to see debris lying about—discarded bits of equipment and uniform, empty bandoliers, then here and there a new grave, marked by a helmet, and sometimes a little cross. Presently we went right through Chateau Thierry—one of the first trains since the battle. From our cars we saw the little firing posts that the Americans had scratched out in the side of the railroad embankment. Here and there a grave showed where one had died where he fought. Some German helmets over graves on the south side of the river showed where perhaps some of the enemy had gotten across before they fell under the fire of the Springfields.

But the most impressive and inspiring sight of all to Americans were the hills that stretched up to the North of the river. A long steep, smooth, stretch broken only enough to allow of cover for reserves and machine guns—a position that looked absolutely impregnable if defended by modern weapons. And up these heights, defended by the flower of the German army, flushed with recent success, our countrymen had swept forward, carried the position, and hurled the foe back. It must have been some scrap.

The Marne here is about as large as a good-sized American creek. There were quite a few dead horses and men still bobbing around in it. The countryside had not been under fire for very long, compared to the Arras section; some crops were still standing, and a few people at work reaping them already. I am sorry to say that one of our men was thoughtless enough to grab a pile of new cut hay from a field during a stop. I happened to see him and of course he put it back, and got a summary out of it. I mention this to remind you that in most of our trouble with the French peasants we were at fault to some extent. Of course, it isn’t pleasant to sleep for several nights on the floor of a jolting cattle car. But neither is it enjoyable for poor Jacques to see his hay miraculously preserved from the H. E.’s, laboriously gathered, and then have a doughboy coolly annex it and roll away in a train.

We rolled on through the sunny August day, east to Chalons-sur-Marne, then southeast, away from the battle front. Night came on, and dragged along toward dawn. At about 2:00 A. M. we stopped at a little way station for hot coffee, ready for us in great G. I. boilers. The French corporal in charge of the station gave me a cup out of his own private pot, cooking over a smelly little oil stove, thick as mud, black as night, reeking with cognac, altogether very satisfactory. I wished every man could have had such a shot.

Early in the morning we passed the walled heights of Chaumont, A. E. F. headquarters. On past the picturesque battlements of Langres, centre of the Army Schools; then east again. The country was more rugged and less highly cultivated. Here was a place where one might get off the road without stepping on Jacques’ garden. It looked more like home. The woods were sure enough ones, not little, severely confined, neatly trimmed groves such as they had in the north, with every tree numbered and recorded.

Best of all, we were in the American sector. The M. P.’s at the stations were doughboys instead of Tommies or poilus. Here an American ambulance hustled along the road; there a good old 3-ton Q. M. truck lumbered along. Overseas caps were sprinkled about the stations. No more now of “What is the name of this bally station, old top?,” and “Kesky eessy, Mossure.” We could yell: “Say, buddy, what t’ell burg’s this?” like civilized persons.

Off on a branch line, around hills, over a long, white stone bridge, and the train slid up to the long platform at Passavant station.

CHAPTER V
“THE AMERICAN SECTOR”

The battalion tumbled off, very greasy as to face and stiff as to legs. The rolling kitchens were unloaded; the Colonel and Lt. Gibbs appeared and disappeared. We saw our own supply company hard at work in the adjacent field. In a few minutes it was “Fall in,” and we hiked across the railroad and down into the centre of the little town.

At the town square we halted, and lay around for an hour in the shade waiting for our French guides to take the companies to their billets. There was a cool fountain splashing in the center of the square, but it was marked “Non potable,” so we had to wait until we could get some chlorinated water from our lister bags. Oh, that chlorinated water! Will we ever get the taste of the stuff out of our mouths?

At last a guide came along, but only to take off “C” Co., which was billeted at the little village of Rochere, about 4 kilos outside Passavant. Finally our guide appeared, and “A” and “B” companies hiked off down a narrow street, skirting the great chateau, then up a long hill, under the railroad bridge, and into our billeting area, a little “suburb” of the town across the railroad tracks.

At once we noticed a difference in the people. This town was far behind the lines. No air raids had visited it; lights could be shown at night. And the people seemed actually glad to see us. Instead of lowering brows, grudging admission, furious protests, we met pleasant smiles, bon jour’s, readiness and willingness to accommodate us. Even when we swept out the stables and outhouses where we were billeted there was no objection. Oh, boy, this was something like it!

The rolling kitchen was put to work in a field on the outskirts, and Wilson, deBruin, Lusier & Co. got busy. Everyone was pretty tired, but after chow things looked much brighter.

That night occurred an incident which shows how thoughtless soldiers are. A couple of men, who shall be nameless, patronized the estaminets far too freely. When they had acquired a skinful of vin rouge apiece, they went forth and nobly robbed a hen roost, and had a chicken dinner.

Now had this happened a week before, there would have been immediate and voluble protests to the authorities, and a bill for damages as long as your arm. And on our side, I fear the matter would have been looked on as righteous retribution, and the officers would have received very little assistance in investigating the affair.

But this was different. Wilson and some others found the little girl at their billet and her mother in tears over their loss. The offenders were promptly trailed and spotted, and reported to Lt. Schuyler. And nobody felt more ashamed than they when they woke up in the guardhouse the next morning. Meanwhile, that same evening a hasty collection had been taken up in the company, and the French lady reimbursed a good many times the value of her loss. I understand she wouldn’t take all they collected; but next day I met a couple of the boys, Wilson and Weber, I think, coming back from town with the little girl between them, proudly bearing the finest bonnet that Passavant “epiceries” could produce, and enough chocolate to satisfy a dozen youngsters.

The days at Passavant were about the brightest spot in our stay in France. The training schedules were on hand again, of course. Chauchats were issued to replace the Lewis guns of the English sector; much to the disgust of the auto riflemen, who had worked so hard learning the Lewis, and found the Chauchat but a crude affair comparatively. But the weather was beautiful; there was a stream to wash in, and a lovely lake about a mile away where you could have a swim—the only time we enjoyed this luxury that summer. The people were pleasant; we were getting American rations; all went well.

It was too good to last long. On August 27th we got a march order, and at 1:00 P. M. the next day we pulled out, down the hill to Passavant, up hill through the town, and fell in behind the second battalion for a long, long hike through the summer afternoon and evening.

Six o’clock came, and seven. Still no sign of camp. It was growing dark. The men were good and tired; but “B” company held to its record as the best marching company in the outfit, and plodded along doggedly. I felt uncomfortable every time I looked back at my four platoons; I felt that I ought to be hiking with them instead of on the Major’s horse; knowing, however, that I had a couple of hours hard work ahead of me after we camped, I turned back to the road ahead, and wished the Major were back.

At last, at 8:00 P. M., when it was quite dark, we turned off to the left, crossed several fields, and came to a number of frame barracks. These had bunks within them—about half enough to accommodate the men, but we were glad to lie down anywhere. After the usual turmoil we got supper under way, and as fast as chow could be obtained and swallowed, we hit the hay—some in barracks, others in pup tents in the fields outside. We had done about 20 kilos that day.

The next morning we pulled out at 9 o’clock, hiked into Fresnes, the village near by, and then out on a good wide road, heading generally west. The Colonel, who was making the hike in an automobile, had a theory that no man needed more than a pint of water on any march, and the march discipline was to be very strict. The everlasting rain started again; it was hike, hike, hike. Who that hasn’t done it can ever understand the awful, soul tearing grind of a long hike with full pack? After the first hour, the pack gets heavy on the back and shoulders. You see the feet of the fellow ahead—up and down, up and down, remorselessly, steadily—doesn’t he ever get tired? If he can make it, you can. Some buckle or piece of equipment gets loose, and goes jingle, jingle, jingle, and slap, slap, slap against your leg. It gets irritating. You are sweating and hot and dirty and uncomfortable. “Close up!” You mentally damn the officers, who haven’t any rifles; the ones who ride horses, doubly damned; and as for those birds in the autos—ahem! How long to the 10 minutes rest? Then it starts to rain. It beats into your face. You damn the boob who wished upon the Americans that prize inanity of equipment, the overseas cap. It is ingeniously designed to give the eyes and face no protection from sun, wind or rain, and at the same time efficiently to direct water down the back of your neck. On, on, on, plod, plash, squnchy, sqush. The Major looks at his watch. You eye the side of the road for a likely looking place. At last: “Fall out t’ right th’ road.” You stumble over and plump down on the ground. Oh, blessed moment! you ease the load on your shoulders; your feet are tingling with happiness at being off duty; after a few breaths you fish out a cigarette or the old pipe, and light up for a few puffs. You lean back—

“Fall in!”

Oh, murder! You know it hasn’t been four minutes, let alone ten.

Toward noon we passed through Bourbonne-les-Bains, quite a sizable town; and as we went plugging along by the railroad station there was Major Odom. He was carried off by the Colonel in his car, but took command of the battalion that night, and I was glad to get back to “B” Co.

Up that long, long, steep street we plugged along, rested, then pushed on well clear of the town, and halted beside a pretty green meadow in the woods for lunch. After we finished our hard bread, corned willy and jam, and were lying about in heavenly idleness for a few minutes, Roy Schuyler’s eye fell upon the bn. adjutant’s horse; a dignified and rotund, rather elderly mare, indulging in a roll while her saddle and bridle were off. In a minute Roy was on the astonished beast’s back. Encouraged by a couple of hearty thwacks from a club, Mary started on a very creditable imitation of youthful gamboling. It was a gallant sight for a summer afternoon. Often since, the picture has come back to me—the prancing horse, the laughing young rider with one hand in her mane, the other brandished aloft. But our time is up; Mary must resume her saddle, and we our packs, and off we go.

The shadows lengthened; the sun dropped down behind the hills, and the long French twilight set in. Still no sign of our guides to indicate our billet was near. Village after village came into view, raised our hopes, and dashed them again as we plodded on. At last, at about 6:00 P. M., we slogged into Merrey. There the Colonel was waiting, in his car. He remarked cheerfully that he had had quite a hunt for billets, but had found a splendid spot. We hiked through the village, and turned off the road into the splendid spot—a pine grove, very wet and rooty as to floor, and no water around. We were satisfied to get off our feet, however. After the usual procedure of getting kicked out of X company’s area, and kicking Y company out of ours, we rigged up shelter tents or sleeping bags. Of course the water carts weren’t on hand, and dinner was held up. There are two recurrent occasions in a soldier’s life when the seconds drag most fearsomely; the interval between a shell’s landing and bursting; and the interval between the end of a hike and chow.

Some of the boys went off to wash their feet in a pretty little pond a couple of fields away. That pond concealed some dark secret beneath its placid bosom. Whew! Didn’t it stink when disturbed?

At reveille we rolled out of our blankets, pretty stiff and cold, but rested. Packs were rolled again, and we fell in at 9:00 A. M., Major Odom again commanding the battalion, and were off on the last lap. This was to be a short one, only about five miles. We passed a large field with a number of Boche prisoners at work, and at about 11:00 A. M. crossed a railroad, turned off the road to the right, and came upon a cantonment just outside of Breuvannes, where the battalion was billeted.

While these frame barracks were not so picturesque as other billets we had had, they were infinitely better adapted to our uses. There were bunks for all, mess halls, a parade ground large enough to form the battalion, and a fine level drill field near by, along the railroad track. A good-sized creek ran close by, and Breuvannes was only 5 minutes walk away. A pretty enough little village, with five or six stores and estaminets. Also there was a Y hut, where you could see movies at night if you got there soon enough.

The 42d Division had been here until the day before, resting and replacing their losses from the fighting in July. A bn. of the 5th Marines had preceded them, and that evening I ran across a Marine lieutenant who was following up his outfit. My own alma mater, the Virginia Military Institute, furnished a number of officers to the Marines, and I was particularly interested in news from them. This officer told me of the death of several of my old school fellows at Belleau Woods. When he said that only one in ten had come through out of his own company, however, I thought he was pulling a long bow.

The next morning, August 31, we resumed the familiar drill schedules. Every effort was made to teach the use and mechanism of the new Chauchats. Special training went on as usual, and we practiced the formations of the O. C. S. U. (Offensive Combat of Small Units) on all the bushes and trees in the vicinity.

Barney O’Rourke and I spent one day on a pilgrimage to Bourmont, where the courtmartial heretofore referred to took place; Barney quite prepared to be shot at sunrise, and I suspect a little disappointed at the affair ending so undramatically.

The drill field furnished a very fair baseball diamond, and several inter-company contests were staged. We played one ten-inning thriller with “A” Co., in which Joe Fahey finally pitched us to victory, supported by an able cast. We had the makings of a good football team under way, too, and I remember I had most of the skin off my right arm. But more serious business was on hand, and our athletic activities had to be temporarily laid aside.

On Sept. 4, we prepared to move. The battalion was formed at dusk, and at 9:00 P. M. we filed off for our first night march in France. It started raining promptly, of course. Wasn’t it dark! In an hour you literally could not see your hand an inch before your nose. No lights or smoking were allowed; and even a chew was risky, as you never knew who you’d hit when you let fly. Now and then a glimmer of light from some cottage fire would show the shadowy forms of the last squad of “C” Co. in front, hastening on into the darkness. I walked into an ungainly quadruped and requested the rider to get his damned mule out of the road; and was immediately and discourteously informed that I had better keep my mouth shut and drive on. I recognized Major Odom’s voice and drove on.

Rain, hike, rain, slog, mud, mud, sweat, damn. Halt and fall out and sit in the mud for ten minutes and feel the rain percolate. Fall in, and hike again, your cold, wet clothes clinging to you.

Eight weary hours of this. At last, just before daybreak, we turned off the road through the gateway of a once palatial estate, and hiked across a park to a grove where we were billeted. The fifteen miles we had covered seemed like 30. We were done in enough to fall asleep, many without unrolling their packs. The rain, however, found us out, trickled in at every corner, and morning found us miserable enough.

No word was vouchsafed to us as to when we should move again; and this playing at secrecy cost “D” and “C” Cos. their meal. It was more luck than good management that gave me the hunch to rout out our weary cooks and have chow at 11:00 o’clock. At 12:00 o’clock orders came in a great hurry that we were to clear the crossroads at 2:30. We did it at 3:00.

Our new lieutenant-colonel, Arthur Budd, had joined us the night before. During the first halt Lt. Foulkes came galloping up on old Mary, and his former platoon—the first—chortled with glee every time daylight showed between Louis and the saddle. Col. Budd promptly treated me to a cold and fishy stare, and inquired if it was the custom for “B” Co. to yell at officers when they passed. I hastily delivered a brief resume of Louis’ career with the company and the estimation in which we held him, intimating that he was regarded as one helofa good fellow, and that no mutiny was breaking out. Meanwhile I had hastily sized up our new acquisition as a goof. I had reason to revise this estimate, and that shortly.

The rain let up this evening, for a wonder, and the march wasn’t half bad, except for the mud under foot, which we were pretty well used to. We passed by a sizeable cantonment of Chinese labor troops, and Diskin wanted to fall out and leave his laundry. We had only the most vague idea of where we were; in fact, our notions of French geography were of the crudest anyhow. Bill Reid, from his six-foot eyrie, solemnly announced that he saw the Alps ahead, and had the 1st platoon craning its respective necks for an hour.

Just as darkness fell, we ran into an ammunition train, the tail end of the 42d Division. We pushed on behind them up a hill into the village of Viocourt, where our old dependable of the advance party, Sgt. Hill, met us and pointed out our billets, in lofts and stables on both sides of the “street.”

We all knew pretty well by now that we must be in for action soon. The St. Mihiel salient meant nothing more to us than it did to folks at home then. The general impression was that it was to be a drive on Metz; and this wasn’t so far out of the way, at that.

By this time it didn’t take us long to make ourselves at home in a strange place. We had bagged a good place for the rolling kitchen, and the billets weren’t so bad. Between showers we got in some drilling, and a couple of hours on an extemporized 30-yard range that Lt. Schuyler put up one morning before breakfast. Everyone tried his hand at the Chauchat for a magazine full. This was the only chance we had to fire this gun before we had to meet the enemy with it. The men armed with pistols punctured a few tin cans after a vast expenditure of lead.

There was a beautiful meadow below town, and on Sunday, the 8th, we staged a couple of good ball games. On Monday we had a company problem through the woods beyond the meadow, and Tuesday we got in the target practice.

Wednesday morning the Major assembled the Co. cmdrs. and ordered us to be ready to march at 1:30. After the usual bustle all was ready for the road, two days’ rations being carried. Our kitchen and cooks were attached to the regt’l supply train.

It had been raining all the morning, but old J. Pluvius had only been practising for the real show. We started off in a steady downpour, which speedily became a regular deluge. The wind rose to a gale, which drove the sheets of water directly at us, penetrating right through slickers and clothing. In 15 minutes we were all wet to the skin.

It was only an hour’s march this time. At 3:00 P. M., we came to a crossroads just outside Chatenois. There stood a long line of motor trucks, stretching away in either direction as far as the eye could see. The embussing was well handled, and in 20 minutes we were packed in, 20 or more to a truck, jammed as tight as they could be, every man wet through and chilled. Even our incorrigibly optimistic regimental history says, “We shall never forget this day because of its miserable and nasty weather.”

These busses were driven by Chinese in the French service. With their impassive Oriental faces looking out over their great sheepskin coats, they looked fitting agents of destiny; grave Charons, bearing us on the last lap of our progress toward our fate.

At 4:00 o’clock we were off, with a jerk and a clank of gears and a steady rumble. On and on, over the long French road, rolling on through rain and wind, steadily, inevitably; each lorry nearly touching the one in front. Darkness fell; the long gray train rolled on, not a light, not a sound save the rumble of the trucks. We got colder and colder; more and more cramped. Capt. Fleischmann and I spent most of the night each cherishing the other’s icy feet in his bosom. On and on, through gray, silent towns, past the ghostly figure of a lonely M. P. at a crossroads; through fields, woods, villages, all wet and quiet in the falling rain.

Just as the daylight began to thin the inky mist, the train halted, and the word was passed along the line to debus. Wet, shivering, miserable, “B” Co. struggled hastily into clammy shoes and slung their heavy, soggy packs. As we formed on the side of the road, the busses started again, and rolled swiftly off into the shadows ahead, leaving us on the road, with heavy woods on either side.

We marched down the road to an open field on the left. Here a railroad track entered the corner of the wood. We turned off up the track, and about 300 yards along we came upon the 2nd battalion bivouacking. We went on just beyond them, and were allotted our own share of squishy ground and drenched underbrush.

A limited number of fires were allowed, and we made ourselves as comfortable as we could under the circumstances. I was detailed on O. D. and spent a busy day dissuading the regiment from straggling all over the road and open fields. All knew that a big attack was in preparation, and that it was important that the concentration be kept under cover from the enemy’s aircraft. But some men apparently couldn’t compree that we weren’t roosting in that bally old dysentery generator of a wood for sheer sport.

Showers fell intermittently during the day, but nothing like the previous day’s deluge. At about 4 P. M. there was an officers’ call, and we were warned to march at 7 P. M. Co. Commanders were issued maps, and we learned that our present bivouac was in the Bois de la Cote en Haye, east of Tremblecourt.

About 5 P. M., six French tanks came clanking down the road, did a Squads Left, waddled across the fields and disappeared over the brow of the hill, toward the rumble of intermittent artillery fire in the distance that meant the front.

The 312th Inf. was bivouacked on the other side of the railroad track, and the rest of the division was hidden in the woods near by. Across the main road was a great artillery ammunition dump, big enough to blow up ten divisions if a bomb ever hit it. But I kept this to myself, and what a soldier doesn’t know doesn’t worry him. He has enough to worry about anyhow.

The kitchens came up late in the afternoon, and we got outside of a ration of hot slum before dark.

By 6:45 P. M. we had rolled packs, and were ready to hit the road again. I went to sleep on the ground, with my pack on my back, and was awakened by Dunn to find it nearly dark, and the battalion ready to move off.

It seemed hours before we got out of the wood into the open field. We would go forward a few steps along the track, and then stand and wait for ten or fifteen minutes. The road by which we had arrived was crowded with transport and artillery, and we turned off on a bypath through the woods. It was now quite dark, and blind work it was blundering along, touching the man ahead to keep from losing him, slipping and tripping in the wet underbrush. It is remarkable how exasperating a pack and rifle become under such circumstances. However, the excitement of anticipation buoyed us up, and “B” Co. wallowed through the wood, across a mushy field, and scrambled up a slippery embankment on to a strange road, much more cheerfully than now seems possible.

Once re-formed on said road, we hiked along briskly in column of squads. Soon we overtook a long column of transport wagons, trucks and artillery. Road discipline was something apparently unknown; every vehicle seemed to be trying to pass every other one. The consequence was of course wondrous confusion, and here and there a total jam, through which we had to thread our way in single or double file as best we could.

When we got clear of the last jam, the company ahead had gained about 15 yards, and was consequently as completely out of sight as if they had been in Timbuctoo. We passed through a village in hot pursuit of them. At the crossroads, by sheer good luck I turned off up the right one. After a long hour’s stern chase we were relieved to see the bobbing forms of Headquarters Co. show through the gloom ahead.

At about 10:30 we came upon Sgt. Hill waiting for us by the roadside, with the welcome news that our temporary destination was only a couple of kilos off. We toiled up a long hill, and turned off the macadam into a rough road that was a series of four inch ponds. We plashed along to the edge of a large wood, and Hill showed us a pile of empty bandoliers and boxes, where the Marines had been issued ammunition and grenades about an hour before. They had just pulled out, and were going over the top at dawn.

A hundred yards or so, and we turned into the woods, on a road which was from ankle to knee deep in all varieties of mud, from sticky to liquid. We moved on, stumbled over a railroad track, and finally Hill said we were at our bivouac. The trees and underbrush grew so thick along the road that we blundered about a bit before we found a couple of places where we could force our way through. As each man reached a place where he could sit or lie down, down he flopped, and the rest of the company walked over him. The woods already had some occupants, and more and more poured in every minute.

At last “B” Co. had distributed itself on the ground, and was preparing for a dismal wallow until morning. In spite of wet, mud and chill some were already asleep. We were just within the artillery zone, and the jar and grumble of the guns ahead was occasionally punctuated by the roar and scream of one of the heavies nearer by. This, however, was only normal artillery fire, such as we had been accustomed to at St. Pol and Lattre St. Quentin, and we settled down to wait for the big show. Some of the more energetic started to pitch their pup tents.

Just as I dozed off, some idiot shouted “Gas!” Our long hours of gas drill, and many vivid and gruesome lectures on the subject, promptly bore fruit. In fact, the good seed shot up like Jack’s beanstalk. The cry was re-echoed by a dozen, then a score of startled voices. Everyone reached into the familiar canvas satchel that he cherished on his bosom, donned his mask more or less expeditiously, and sat expectantly awaiting developments.

In the midst of the rumpus I heard Lt. Foulkes’ voice from the road bawling for the company commanders. I thought sadly that the lad had probably lost his mask, or the gas had caught him suddenly and he was raving. However, for sake of auld lang syne, I took a long breath, and shouted, “Whatsmatterwhydontyouputonyourmask?” I replaced my mouthpiece, and started blundering toward Louis’ voice, hoping I might be in time at least to view his remains.

During the next two minutes I walked on every man in “B” Co. at least once, and probably on most of “A” and “C” Cos. Then Foulkes roared my name within five yards of me.

“Where’s the gas?” I demanded.

There wasn’t any gas.

CHAPTER VI
ST. MIHIEL AND LIMEY SECTOR

The Major was waiting for us up the “road.” He informed us that the 156th Brigade was the alert brigade. We were not to pitch tents nor unroll packs, but lie on our arms ready to reinforce the front line division should occasion demand it. The barrage was due to start at 1 A. M.; at 5 A. M. the infantry was to go over the top.

I waded back with this gladsome news, and we lay in the mud and wet leaves and shivered and wished we could smoke, and waited for the show to start. Word had passed that there was a big French railroad gun about 30 yards away, and a pleasant time was anticipated by all.

At 1 A. M. the sullen jar of the usual cannonade was shattered by a tremendous crash. And that crash lasted solid for four hours. I shall not try to describe a real A-1 barrage to men who have been there.

The railroad gun came across according to plan too. Every five minutes her mighty roar and scream would announce the departure of a G. I. can towards Metz, and then would come the clanking of the cars as the recoil drove the train back along the track against the logs piled behind it. After an hour or so we got accustomed to the barrage and the glare that lit up the sky ahead; but as often as we drowsed off, the thunder of this mighty gun would shake the earth beneath us, and jar us into consciousness.

The night wore on, and the gray morning light crept into the woods; and still the thunder rolled unceasing. I watched the glow of my wrist watch hand creep to five o’clock. There was a slight lull as the artillery shifted to their rolling barrage schedule. Then she started up again with renewed fury. We knew the doughboys were off. The A. E. F. was starting its first show on its own. The overture was over, the fiery curtain raised, the act begun; and we were awaiting our cue.

Morning broke, cloudy, but little or no rain, and about 7 o’clock it quite cleared off. We made ourselves as comfortable as we could, and prayed for our kitchen.

I went wading through the mud along the road to look for it. There were several Marines about, belonging to the skeleton organization, left behind to act as a nucleus in case a whole outfit was wiped out. I passed a Marine lieutenant whose face looked familiar, and after a moment recognized “Happy” Mason. He had been a cadet at V. M. I. with me, and had helped me wind a red silk sash around my middle for many a dress parade. It was a far cry from the Blue Ridge to the Bois de la Rappe, and from dress parade to the St. Mihiel drive.

We had a glad reunion there in the mud, and he invited the “B” Co. officers to share his breakfast. Their rolling kitchen, or “galley” as they called it, was on hand, and they had hot coffee and peach turnovers!

Those Marines were regular guys. When they heard our transport wasn’t up yet, they turned to and fed as many of our men as they could, until their supply ran out. They had been through the mill before, at Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood. As one of them said “Better help the other fellow now. Tomorrow’s a hell of a way off here.”

The Marines have had an awful lot of joshing, of course, about their press agent stuff—“Ace high with the Satevepost,” and so on. But these were certainly a fine bunch, and gave us a lift when we needed it. Naturally, those of them who did the fighting did the least of the blowing about it afterward.

The sun came out to look at the battle after awhile, and we got warmed and partially dried. Also the kitchen arrived, and a hot dinner was in prospect.

About 11 A. M. bulletins began arriving from the front, and were read out to us. All objectives were being taken according to schedule, and the number of prisoners and guns captured mounted by leaps and bounds. We were not allowed out of the woods, but even from the trees on the outskirts one couldn’t see much except a great cloud of smoke and dust slowly rolling up the slope of a range of distant hills.

The wet exposure and irregular eating of half cooked food had already started to tell on us. Dysentery was appearing; nearly all the company suffered with constant diarrhoea from this time on.

The afternoon dragged on; still no call for the alert brigade. We were allowed to pitch pup tents, but no fires were allowed; the wood was too wet and smoky.

Night fell; we crawled into whatever shelter we had, and surreptitiously smoked, and talked, and listened to the rumble of the guns until we got to sleep.

At about 1:30 A. M. a battalion runner fell over my feet and lit on Lt. Dunn. After a few hasty remarks we stopped for breath, and were informed that the battalion was to form on the road right away. Stiff and sleepy, I stumbled out into the dank night, routed out Chiaradio, my staunch little runner and striker, and broke the glad news to Robbins and the company runners. The woods were soon in a bustle as we rolled packs, donned equipment, and filed out by platoons into the mud of the road.

By 2 A. M. the battalion was standing ankle deep in the slushy mud in column of squads, the Major at our head. Half an hour passed. Not a sound except an occasional “su-luck-slosh,” as someone shifted his heavy pack, or tried in vain to find a less liquid footing. The leaden minutes dragged by. Three o’clock; no move. Half past four—the company ahead moved off, and we sloshed along behind, but only to the edge of the wood. Dawn broke—another gray and misty dawn. Oh, that awful wait in that awful hole! It was quite light before, at 5 o’clock, we finally moved out, and, splashing and sliding over a muddy field, finally hit the road and were off toward the scene of action.

As we were stretching the kinks out of our legs on a fairly good road, we passed a U. S. Coast Artillery outfit; a 12-inch gun. Some of the crew came out to the roadside from the emplacement, and Capt. O’Brien recognized his old outfit, in which he had served as an enlisted man years before.

On we go toward the distant booming of the guns. We wind around hills, hike across a valley, over another long hill. Then the road runs along the bottom of a long, long valley. During the ten-minute rests we snatch a hasty breakfast from our reserve rations, with growls from those who don’t get in on the jam.

Now we begin to see traces of the battle—an overturned wagon, abandoned in the ditch; a train of ammunition trucks crossing the road ahead of us; a motor truck repair shop, hastily set up in a little cabin along the road, from which came a smell of hot coffee that tantalized our cold stomachs. Further on we passed a field hospital; great white tents pitched in a sheltered dell, with red crosses glaring on the tent flies.

At the next halt, a Ford ambulance came down the muddy road with a load of wounded. It stopped by us, and the driver went around behind to see to one of the occupants. The canvas curtain was pushed aside from the top, and a head lolled out—a face of ghastly yellow paste, surrounded by dirty light brown hair. The poor chap was evidently badly gassed. He retched violently time and again, spat out some blood, stared vacantly at us with glassy, miserable eyes. The driver put the head inside with a kindly “All right, buddy; nearly there now;” and the old Henry started off again with a jerk, and a groan from within.

As we resumed the march, a youngster from the 5th Division overtook us. He wore an M. P.’s brassard, and no equipment but a .45 and a canteen. We with our heavy packs and ammunition envied him. He was sleepy eyed and jaded, but still enthusiastic. Ever since the drive started he had been on the job escorting prisoners from front line division headquarters to the pens in the rear.

By 9 o’clock we had done twelve miles under our full pack, ammunition, and two days’ rations, with a breakfast of a little corned willy and hard bread and chlorinated water; the whole preceded by three hours’ standing in eight inches of liquid mud. We felt pretty well done in, for a fact. The auto riflemen were the worst off, having their heavy Chauchats and several big magazines of ammunition besides. One of them lightened his load by the ingenious means of “forgetting” his bag of magazines at a halt. When Lt. Schuyler discovered it, the culprit was promptly accommodated with a double dose to carry.

But this was the exception. As I shifted about, hiking first with one platoon and then another, I always found a set of determined grins, and a cheerful “Oh, we’re all right. How’s the rabble up ahead?”

We had been passing through the rear area of the former Allied sector. Now and again a trench system—trenches, barbed wire, emplacements, all complete—stretched away on either hand. Here and there were great stretches of barbed wire filling gullies and ravines.

At 10 o’clock we crossed a stone bridge and started up a long, long hill. At the top we found that we were on a ridge that had been the front line before the attack. Shell holes covered the whole place. To our left, the ground fell away in a long dip, and we saw the ground over which the first wave had attacked. The battle was now far away over the horizon.

For a couple of kilos we hiked along the road on top of the ridge. It had already been repaired roughly, and all sorts of traffic was passing over it. Once it had been bordered with trees, set at regular intervals, like most self respecting French roads. Now only a shattered, blasted stump stood here and there.

A few men began to straggle from the outfits ahead, but “B” Co. stuck to it gamely. On that day not a man fell out.