And they thought we wouldn't fight

"We have some instances of stealing, but most of them are trivial. Recently, we took from the pay of one whole battalion the cost of thirty-one cheeses which were taken from a railroad restaurant counter. The facts were that some of our troops en route were hungry and the train was stopping only for five minutes and the woman behind the counter didn't have time to even take, much less change, the money offered, so the men grabbed the cheeses and ran out just in time to board the train as it was moving off.

"There was one case, though, in which Uncle Sam didn't have the heart to charge any one. He paid the bill himself and maybe if you could send the story back home, the citizens who paid it would get a laugh worth the money. It happened during a recent cold spell when some of our troops were coming from seaboard to the interior. They travelled in semi-opened horse cars and it was cold, damn cold.

"One of the trains stopped in front of a small railroad station and six soldiers with cold hands and feet jumped from the car and entered the waiting room, in the centre of which was a large square coal stove with red hot sides. One man stood on another one's shoulders and disjointed the stove pipe. At the same time, two others placed poles under the bottom of the stove, lifted it off the floor and walked out of the room with it.

"They placed it in the horse car, stuck the pipe out of one door and were warm for the remainder of the trip. It was the first time in the history of that little village that anybody had ever stolen a red hot stove. The French government, owning the railroads, made claim against us for four hundred francs for the stove and eleven francs' worth of coal in it. Uncle Sam paid the bill and was glad to do it.

"I know of only one case to beat that one and that concerned an infantryman who stole a hive full of honey and took the bees along with it. The medical department handled one aspect of the case and the provost marshal the other. The bees meted out some of the punishment and we stung his pay for the costs."

There was one thing, however, that men on the move found it most difficult to steal and that was sleep. So at least it seemed the next morning when we swung into the road at daybreak and continued our march into the north. Much speculation went the rounds as to our destination. The much debated question was as to whether our forces would be incorporated with Foch's reserve armies and held in readiness for a possible counter offensive, or whether we should be placed in one of the line armies and assigned to holding a position in the path of the German push. But all this conjecture resulted in nothing more than passing the time. Our way led over byroads and side lanes which the French master of circulation had laid down for us.

Behind an active front, the French sanctified their main roads and reserved them for the use of fast motor traffic and the rushing up of supplies or reserves in cases of necessity. Thousands of poilus too old for combat duty did the repair work on these main arteries. All minor and slow moving traffic was side-tracked to keep the main line clear. At times we were forced to cross the main highroads and then we encountered the forward and backward stream of traffic to and from the front. At one of those intersections, I sought the grass bank at the side of the road for rest. Two interesting actors in this great drama were there before me. One was an American soldier wearing a blue brassard with the white letters M. P. He was a military policeman on duty as a road marker whose function is to regulate traffic and prevent congestion.

Beside him was seated a peculiar looking person whose knee length skirts of khaki exposed legs encased in wrap puttees. A motor coat of yellow leather and the visored cap of a British Tommy completed the costume. The hair showing beneath the crown of the cap was rather long and straight, but betrayed traces of having been recently close cropped. For all her masculine appearance, she was French and the young road marker was lavishing upon her everything he had gleaned in a Freshman year of French in a Spokane high school.

I offered my cigarette case and was surprised when the girl refrained. That surprise increased when I saw her extract from a leather case of her own a full fledged black cigar which she proceeded to light and smoke with gusto. When I expressed my greater surprise, she increased it by shrugging her shoulders prettily, plunging one gauntleted hand into a side pocket and producing a pipe with a pouch of tobacco.

There was nothing dainty about that pipe. It had no delicate amber stem nor circlet of filigree gold. There was no meerschaum ornamentation. It was just a good old Jimmy pipe with a full-grown cake in the black burnt bowl, and a well bitten, hard rubber mouth piece. It looked like one of those that father used to consent to have boiled once a year, after mother had charged it with rotting the lace curtains. If war makes men of peace-time citizens, then —

But she was a girl and her name was Yvonne. The red-winged letter on her coat lapel placed her in the automobile service and the motor ambulance stationed at the road side explained her special branch of work. She inquired the meaning of my correspondent's insignia and then explained that she had drawn pastelles for a Paris publication before the war, but had been transporting blessés since. The French lesson proceeded and Spokane Steve and I learned from her that the longest word in the French language is spelled "Anticonstitutionellement." I expressed the hope that some day both of us would be able to pronounce it.

On the girl's right wrist was a silver chain bracelet with identification disk. In response to our interested gaze, she exhibited it to us, and upon her own volition, informed us that she was a descendant of the same family as Jeanne d'Arc. Steve heard and winked to me with a remark that they couldn't pull any stuff like that on anybody from Spokane, because he had never heard that that Maid of Orleans had been married. Yvonne must have understood the last word because she explained forthwith that she had not claimed direct descendence from the famous Jeanne, but from the same family. Steve looked her in the eye and said, "Jay compraw."

She explained the meaning of the small gold and silver medals suspended from the bracelet. She detached two and presented them to us. One of them bore in relief the image of a man in flowing robes carrying a child on his shoulder, and the reverse depicted a tourist driving a motor through hilly country.

"That is St. Christophe," said Yvonne. "He is the patron saint of travellers. His medal is good luck against accidents on the road. Here is one of St. Elias. He is the new patron saint of the aviators. You remember. Didn't he go to heaven in a fiery chariot, or fly up on golden wings or something like that? Anyhow, all the aviators wear one of his medals."

St. Christophe was attached to my identification disk. Steve declared infantrymen travelled too slowly ever to have anything happen to them and that he was going to give his to a friend who drove a truck. When I fell in line with the next passing battery and moved down the road, Spokane Steve and the Yvonne of the family of Jeanne had launched into a discussion of prize fighting and chewing tobacco.

In billets that night, in a village not far from Beauvais, the singing contest for the prize of fifty dollars offered by the battalion commander Major Robert R. McCormick was resumed with intense rivalry between the tenors and basses of batteries A and B. A "B" Battery man was croaking Annie Laurie, when an "A" Battery booster in the audience remarked audibly,

"Good Lord, I'd rather hear first call." First call is the bugle note that disturbs sleep and starts the men on the next day's work.

A worried lieutenant found me in the crowd around the rolling kitchen and inquired:

"Do you know whether there's a provost guard on that inn down the road?" I couldn't inform him, but inquired the reason for his alarm.

"I've got a hunch that the prune juice is running knee deep to-night," he replied, "and I don't want any of my section trying to march to-morrow with swelled heads."

"Prune juice" is not slang. It is a veritable expression and anybody who thinks that the favourite of the boarding house table cannot produce a fermented article that is très fort in the way of a throat burner, is greatly mistaken. In France the fermented juice of the prune is called "water of life," but it carries a "dead to the world" kick. The simple prune, which the army used to call "native son" by reason of its California origin, now ranks with its most inebriating sisters of the vine.

The flow of eau de vie must have been dammed at the inn. On the road the next day, I saw a mule driver wearing a sixteen candle power black eye. When I inquired the source of the lamp shade, he replied:

"This is my first wound in the war of movement. Me and the cop had an offensive down in that town that's spelt like Sissors but you say it some other way." I knew he was thinking of Gisors.

The third and fourth day's march brought us into regions nearer the front, where the movement of refugees on the roads seemed greater, where the roll of the guns came constantly from the north, where enemy motors droned through the air on missions of frightfulness.

There was a major in our regiment whose knowledge of French was confined to the single affirmative exclamation, "Ah, oui." He worked this expression constantly in the French conversation with a refugee woman from the invaded districts. She with her children occupied one room in the cottage. When the major started to leave, two days later, the refugee woman addressed him in a reproving tone and with tears. He could only reply with sympathetic "Ah, oui's," which seemed to make her all the more frantic.

An interpreter straightened matters out by informing the major that the woman wanted to know why he was leaving without getting her furniture.

"What furniture?" replied the puzzled major.

"Why, she says," said the interpreter, "that you promised her you would send three army trucks to her house back of the German lines and bring all of her household goods to this side of the line. She says that she explained all of it to you and you said, 'Ah, oui.'"

The major has since abandoned the "ah, oui" habit.

At one o'clock one morning, orders reached the battalion for reconnaissance detail; each battery to be ready to take road by daylight. We were off at break of day in motor trucks with a reel cart of telephone wire hitched on behind. Thirty minutes later we rumbled along roads under range of German field pieces and arrived in a village designated as battalion headquarters to find that we were first to reach the sector allotted for American occupation. The name of the town was Serevilliers.

Our ears did not delude us about the activity of the sector, but I found that officers and men of the detail were inclined to accept the heavy shelling in a non-committal manner until a French interpreter attached to us remarked that artillery action in the sector was as intense as any he had experienced at Verdun.

If the ever present crash of shells reminded us that we were opposite the peak of the German push, there was plenty of work to engage minds that might otherwise have paid too much attention to the dangers of their location. A chalk cellar with a vaulted ceiling and ventilators, unfortunately opening on the enemy side of the upper structure, was selected as the battalion command post. The men went to work immediately to remove piles of dirty billeting straw under which was found glass, china, silverware and family portraits, all of which had been hurriedly buried by the owners of the house not two weeks before.

While linemen planned communications, and battery officers surveyed gun positions, the battalion commander and two orienting officers went forward to the frontal zone to get the first look at our future targets and establish observation posts from which our firing could be directed. I accompanied the small party, which was led by a French officer familiar with the sector. It was upon his advice that we left the roads and took cuts across fields, avoiding the path and road intersections and taking advantage of any shelter offered by the ground.

Virgin fields on our way bore the enormous craters left by the explosion of poorly directed German shells of heavy calibre. Orders were to throw ourselves face downward upon the ground upon the sound of each approaching missile. There is no text book logic on judging from the sound of a shell whether it has your address written on it, but it is surprising how quick that education may be obtained by experience. Several hours of walking and dropping to the ground resulted in an attuning of the ears which made it possible to judge approximately whether that oncoming, whining, unseen thing from above would land dangerously near or ineffectively far from us. The knowledge was common to all of us and all of our ears were keenly tuned for the sounds. Time after time the collective judgment and consequent prostration of the entire party was proven well timed by the arrival of a shell uncomfortably close.

We gained a wooded hillside that bristled with busy French seventy-fives, which the German tried in vain to locate with his howitzer fire. We mounted a forest plateau, in the centre of which a beautiful white château still held out against the enemy's best efforts to locate it with his guns. One shell addressed in this special direction fortunately announced its coming with such unmistakable vehemence that our party all landed in the same shell hole at once.

Every head was down when the explosion came. Branches and pieces of tree trunk were whirled upward, and the air became populated with deadly bumble bees and humming birds, for such is the sound that the shell splinters make. When I essayed our shell hole afterward, I couldn't fathom how five of us had managed to accommodate ourselves in it, but in the rush of necessity, no difficulty had been found.

Passing from the woods forward, one by one, over a bald field, we skirted a village that was being heavily shelled, and reached a trench on the side of the hill in direct view of the German positions. The enemy partially occupied the ruined village of Cantigny not eight hundred yards away, but our glasses were unable to pick up the trace of a single person in the débris. French shells, arriving endlessly in the village, shot geysers of dust and wreckage skyward. It was from this village, several days later, that our infantry patrols brought in several prisoners, all of whom were suffering from shell shock. But our men in the village opposite underwent the same treatment at the hands of the German artillery.

It was true of this sector that what corresponded to the infantry front line was a much safer place to be in than in the reserve positions, or about the gun pits in villages or along roads in our back area. Front line activity was something of minor consideration, as both sides seemed to have greater interests at other points and, in addition to that, the men of both sides were busy digging trenches and shelters. There were numerous machine gun posts which swept with lead the indeterminate region between the lines, and at night, patrols from both sides explored as far as possible the holdings of the other side.

Returning to the battalion headquarters that night by a route apparently as popular to German artillery as was the one we used in the forenoon, we found a telephone switchboard in full operation in the sub-cellar, and mess headquarters established in a clean kitchen above the ground. Food was served in the kitchen and we noticed that one door had suffered some damage which had caused it to be boarded up and that the plaster ceiling of the room was full of fresh holes and rents in a dozen places. At every shock to the earth, a little stream of oats would come through the holes from the attic above. These falling down on the officer's neck in the midst of a meal, would have no effect other than causing him to call for his helmet to ward off the cereal rain.

We learned more about the sinister meaning of that broken door and the ceiling holes when it became necessary later in the evening to move mess to a safer location. The kitchen was located just thirty yards back of the town cross roads and an unhealthy percentage of German shells that missed the intersection caused too much interruption in our cook's work.

We found that the mess room was vacant by reason of the fact that it had become too unpleasant for French officers, who had relinquished it the day before. We followed their suite and were not surprised when an infantry battalion mess followed us into the kitchen and just one day later, to the hour, followed us out of it.

Lying on the floor in that chalk cellar that night and listening to the pound of arriving shells on nearby cross roads and battery positions, we estimated how long it would be before this little village would be completely levelled to the ground. Already gables were disappearing from houses, sturdy chimneys were toppling and stone walls were showing jagged gaps. One whole wall of the village school had crumbled before one blast, so that now the wooden desks and benches of the pupils and their books and papers were exposed to view from the street. On the blackboard was a penmanship model which read:

"Let no day pass without having saved something."

An officer came down the dark stone steps into the cellar, kicked off his boots and lay down on some blankets in one corner.

"I just heard some shells come in that didn't explode," I remarked. "Do you know whether they were gas or duds?"

"I don't know whether they were gas or not," he said, "but I do know that that horse out in the yard is certainly getting ripe."

The defunct animal referred to occupied an uncovered grave adjoining our ventilator. Sleeping in a gas mask was not the most unpleasant form of slumber.

CHAPTER XII

BEFORE CANTIGNY

It is strange how sleep can come at the front in surroundings not unlike the interior of a boiler factory, but it does. I heard of no man who slept in the cellars beneath the ruins of Serevilliers that night being disturbed by the pounding of the shells and the jar of the ground, both of which were ever present through our dormant senses. Stranger still was the fact that at midnight when the shelling almost ceased, for small intervals, almost every sleeper there present was aroused by the sudden silence. When the shelling was resumed, sleep returned.

"When I get back on the farm outside of Chicago," said one officer, "I don't believe I will be able to sleep unless I get somebody to stand under my window and shake a thunder sheet all night."

It is also remarkable how the tired human, under such conditions, can turn off the switch on an energetic imagination and resign himself completely to fate. In those cellars that night, every man knew that one direct hit of a "two ten" German shell on his particular cellar wall, would mean taps for everybody in the cave. Such a possibility demands consideration in the slowest moving minds.

Mentalities and morale of varying calibre cogitate upon this matter at varying lengths, but I doubt in the end if there is much difference in the conclusion arrived at. Such reflections produce the inevitable decision that if one particular shell is coming into your particular abode, there is nothing you can do to keep it out, so "What the hell!" You might just as well go to sleep and forget it because if it gets you, you most probably will never know anything about it anyway. I believe such is the philosophy of the shelled.

It must have been three o'clock in the morning when a sputtering motor cycle came to a stop in the shelter of our cellar door and a gas guard standing there exchanged words with some one. It ended in the sound of hobnails on the stone steps as the despatch rider descended, lighting his way with the yellow shaft from an electric pocket lamp.

"What is it?" inquired the Major, awakening and rolling over on his side.

"Just come from regimental headquarters," said the messenger. "I'm carrying orders on to the next town. Adjutant gave me this letter to deliver to you, sir. The Adjutant's compliments, sir, and apologies for waking you, but he said the mail just arrived and the envelope looked important and he thought you might like to get it right away."

"Hmm," said the Major, weighing the official looking envelope in one hand and observing both the American stamps in one corner and numerous addresses to which the missive had been forwarded. He tore off one end and extracted a sheet which he unfolded and read while the messenger waited at his request. I was prepared to hear of a promotion order from Washington and made ready to offer congratulations. The Major smiled and tossed the paper over to me, at the same time reaching for a notebook and fountain pen.

"Hold a light for me," he said to the messenger as he sat on the edge of the bed and began writing. "This is urgent and I will make answer now. You will mail it at regimental headquarters." As his pen scratched across the writing pad, I read the letter he had just received. The stationery bore the heading of an alumni association of a well-known eastern university. The contents ran as follows:

"Dear Sir: What are you doing for your country? What are you doing to help win the war? While our brave boys are in France facing the Kaiser's shell and gas, the alumni association has directed me as secretary to call upon all the old boys of the university and invite them to do their bit for Uncle Sam's fighting men. We ask your subscription to a fund which we are raising to send cigarettes to young students of the university who are now serving with the colours and who are so nobly maintaining the traditions of our Alma Mater. Please fill out the enclosed blank, stating your profession and present occupation. Fraternally yours, – Secretary."

The Major was watching me with a smile as I concluded reading.

"Here's my answer," he said, reading from a notebook leaf:

"Your letter reached me to-night in a warm little village in France. With regard to my present profession, will inform you that I am an expert in ammunition trafficking and am at present occupied in exporting large quantities of shells to Germany over the air route. Please find enclosed check for fifty francs for cigarettes for youngsters who, as you say, are so nobly upholding the sacred traditions of our school. After all, we old boys should do something to help along the cause. Yours to best the Kaiser. – , Major. – Field Artillery, U. S. A. On front in France."

"I guess that ought to hold them," said the Major as he folded the letter and addressed an envelope. It rather seemed to me that it would but before I could finish the remark, the Major was back asleep in his blankets.

By daylight, I explored the town, noting the havoc wrought by the shells that had arrived in the night. I had thought in seeing refugees moving southward along the roads, that there was little variety of articles related to human existence that they failed to carry away with them. But one inspection of the abandoned abodes of the unfortunate peasants of Serevilliers was enough to convince me of the greater variety of things that had to be left behind. Old people have saving habits and the French peasants pride themselves upon never throwing anything away.

The cottage rooms were littered with the discarded clothing of all ages, discarded but saved. Old shoes and dresses, ceremonial high hats and frock coats, brought forth only for weddings or funerals, were mixed on the floor with children's toys, prayer books and broken china. Shutters and doors hung aslant by single hinges. In the village estaminet much mud had been tracked in by exploring feet and the red tiled floor was littered with straw and pewter measuring mugs, dear to the heart of the antiquary.

The ivory balls were gone from the dust covered billiard table, but the six American soldiers billeted in the cellar beneath had overcome this discrepancy. They enjoyed after dinner billiards just the same with three large wooden balls from a croquet court in the garden. A croquet ball is a romping substitute when it hits the green cushions.

That afternoon we laid more wire across fields to the next town to the north. Men who do this job are, in my opinion, the most daring in any organisation that depends for efficiency upon uninterrupted telephone communication. For them, there is no shelter when a deluge of shells pours upon a field across which their wire is laid. Without protection of any kind from the flying steel splinters, they must go to that spot to repair the cut wires and restore communication. During one of these shelling spells, I reached cover of the road side abri and prepared to await clearer weather.