Part 4 (2/2)

Why more persons were not killed in our practice I don't know, as the whole division was in training in a limited s.p.a.ce, all having rifle practice, with no possibility of constructing satisfactory ranges.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BEFORE THE OFFENSIVE Drawn by Captain W. J. Aylward, A. E. F.]

Some officers in another unit organized a rifle range in such a position that the overs dropped gently where we were training. One eventually hit my horse, but did not do much damage.

Lieutenant Lyman S. Frazier, an excellent officer, who finished the war as major of infantry, commanded the machine-gun company of my battalion.

He was very keen on indirect fire, but we could get little or no information on it. One evening, however, he grouped his guns, made his calculations as well as he could, and then fired a regular barrage. As soon as the demonstration was over he galloped out as fast as he could to the target, and found to his chagrin that only one shot had hit.

Where the other 10,000 odd went we never knew.

We had many incidents that were really humorous with the men in the guard mount. A young fellow, named Cobb, who lost his leg later in the war, was standing guard early in his military career. A French girl pa.s.sed him in the dark. He challenged, ”Who is there?” She replied, ”_Qu'est-ce qu'il dit?_” Young Cobb didn't know French, but he did know that when in doubt on any subject you called the corporal of the guard.

So he shouted at the top of his voice, ”Corporal of the guard, queskidee!”

We emphasized the manual of formal guard mount as a disciplinary exercise. One of the regulations is that when the ranking officer in a post pa.s.ses the guardhouse, the sentry calls, ”Turn out the guard--commanding officer,” and the guard is paraded. We had lived so long by ourselves that although we sometimes had the colonel in the same town, when we were in the Montdidier sector, I never could persuade them to pay any attention to him. They had it firmly rooted in their minds that the ceremony was for me and no one else.

Occasionally a German airplane would come over and bomb the towns in the area. This furnished a real element of excitement, as we had anti-aircraft guns set up. The one trouble was that we could not tell at night which was a German and which was a French plane, with the result that if we should happen to hit one it was as likely that we would hit a French one as not. We were saved this embarra.s.sment by never hitting one. Later, in the Montdidier sector, I remember hearing how, in a burst of enthusiasm, the gun crew of one of our 75's had fired at an airplane, and by some remarkable coincidence had torn a wing off and brought it down. On rus.h.i.+ng out to inspect it they found it contained a very irascible Frenchman.

CHAPTER VI

EARLY DAYS IN THE TRENCHES

”How strange a spectacle of human pa.s.sions Is yours all day beside the Arras road, What mournful men concerned about their rations When here at eve the limbers leave their load, What twilight blasphemy, what horses' feet Entangled with the meat, What sudden hush when that machine gun sweeps And flat as possible for men so round The quartermasters may be seen in heaps, While you sit by and chuckle, I'll be bound.”

A. P. H. (_Punch_).

Early in October mysterious orders reached us to spend forty-eight hours in some trenches we had dug on top of a hill close to the village, simulating actual conditions as well as we could. At the same time a battalion of each of the other three infantry regiments were similarly instructed. The orders were so well worked out that we were convinced at once that we were to go in the near future to the front. Everyone was in a high state of excitement, and very happy that we were at last to see action.

The hilltop where we were to stay was covered by the remains of an old Roman camp, commanding the two forks of the stream. We marched up the following day over the remains of the old Roman road, and pa.s.sed our last short period training to meet the barbarians of the north, where Caesar's legions, nearly two thousand years ago, trained for the same purpose. Many features were lacking from the trenches on the hill, such as dugouts, for example, but we felt we could get along without them, and everything went happily and serenely the first day.

We had the rolling kitchens and hospitals placed on the reverse slope in the woods. Carrying parties brought the chow along a trench traced with white tape to the troops, and they ate it without leaving their positions. During the evening, however, ”sunny France” had a relapse, and a terrific rainstorm came on. It was bitterly cold, and a high wind swept the hilltop. We were all soaked to the skin.

The men either huddled against the side of a trench or stretched their ponchos from parapet to parapet, and sat beneath them in a foot-deep puddle of water. In making inspection I pa.s.sed by a number of them that night who looked as if they were perfectly willing to have the war end right then.

The company in reserve was occupying the territory around the old Roman wall. They had dug some holes in it, and crawled into them to keep as near dry as possible. Splendid so far as it went, but nearly disastrous, for a message reached me saying that a first sergeant, the company commander, the second in command and the company clerk had all been buried by a cave-in. I ran back to see about them and found that they had been extricated, and looked like animated mud-pies.

One company commander during the middle of the second day started his men digging trenches as deep as they could, so that at night when the rain started again and the cold wind blew up they would have some place to stay. They dug vigorously all day, but by night, when the rain came down in torrents again, the trenches filled up like bath-tubs, and they had to sit on the edge.

After the maneuvers we received definite orders that we were to go to the front. The equipment was checked and verified, and everything put in apple-pie order. The trucks arrived; we got in and started, all of us feeling that now at last we were to be real warriors. All day long the truck train, stretching out along the road, jolted forward in a cloud of dust. Toward evening we began to pa.s.s through the desolated area over which the Hun had swept in 1914, and about five o'clock we detrucked at a little town about fourteen miles behind the lines.

Here we stayed a couple of days, while our reconnoitering details went forward and familiarized themselves with the position. On the evening of the second day the troops started forward. As usual, it was raining cats and dogs, and our princ.i.p.al duty during the ten days we spent in the sector was shoveling mud the color and consistency of melted chocolate ice cream from cave-ins which constantly occurred in the trench system.

We were all very green and very earnest. The machine-gun company arrived, bringing all its ammunition on the gun carts. The guns were uncased and the carts sent to the rear with ammunition still on them, leaving the guns with hardly a round. Only about five or ten sh.e.l.ls were fired daily by the German artillery against the portion of line we occupied. One man was. .h.i.t, our signal officer, Lieutenant Hardon, his wound being very slight. The adjutant, when this happened, ran to tell me, and we both went down and solemnly congratulated Hardon on having the honor to be the first American officer hit while serving with American troops.

A number of ambitious members of the intelligence group sniped busily at the German trenches. These were about a mile away, and though they reported heavy casualties among the enemy, I believe that the wish was father to the thought.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SIGNAL CORPS AT WORK Drawn by Captain Harry E. Townsend, A. E. F.]

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