And they thought we wouldn't fight Part 13

"In days of old A warrior bold Sang merrily his lay, etc. etc. etc.

My love is young and fair.

My love has golden hair, So what care I Though death be nigh, etc. etc. etc."

With frequent pa.s.sages where a dearth of words reduce the selection to musical but meaningless ta-de-ta-tas, the voices melt into the blackness and the rain.

"Great times to be alive," I say to the wife. "This place is saturated with romance. I don't have to be back to the post until to-morrow night.

Where will we go? They are singing 'Carmen' in the old opera house on the square. What do you say?"

"There's a Charlie Chaplin on the programme next to the hotel," the wife replies.

Romance was slapped with a custard pie.

CHAPTER VI

"FRONTWARD HO!"

When the artillery training had proceeded to such a point that the French instructors were congratulating our officers upon their proficiency, the rumours spread through the post that the brigade had been ordered to go to the front--that we were to be the first American soldiers to actually go into the line and face the Germans.

The news was received with joy. The men were keen to try out their newly acquired abilities upon the enemy. Harness was polished until it shone.

Bra.s.s equipment gleamed until you could almost see your face in it. The men groomed the horses until the animals got pains from it. Enlisted men sojourning in the Guard House for petty offences, despatched their guards with scrawled pleadings that the sentences be changed to fines so that they could accompany the outfits to the front.

With one special purpose in view, I made application to General March for an a.s.signment to Battery A of the Sixth Field Artillery. I received the appointment. The Sixth was the first regiment of the brigade and A was the first battery of the regiment. I knew that we would march out in that order, that Battery A would entrain first, detrain first, go in the line first, and I hoped to be present at the firing of the first American shot in the war.

We pulled out of the post on schedule time early in the morning, two days later. Officers and men had been up and dressed since midnight. Ten minutes after their arising, blankets had been rolled and all personal equipment packed ready for departure with the exception of mess kits.

While the stable police details fed the horses, the rest of us "leaned up against" steak, hot biscuits, syrup and hot coffee. The cook had been on the job all night and his efforts touched the right spot. It seemed as if it was the coldest hour of the night and the hot "chow" acted as a primer on the sleepy human machines.

In the darkness, the animals were packed into the gun carriages and caissons down in the gun park, and it was 4 A. M. on the dot when the captain's whistle sounded and we moved off the reserve. As we rattled over the railroad crossing and took the road, the men made facetious good-byes to the scene of their six weeks' training.

Soldiers like movement--we were on the move. Every one's spirits were up and the animals were frisky and high-stepping in the brisk air. Chains rattled as some of the lead pairs mussed up the traces and were brought back into alignment by the drivers. The cannoneers, m.u.f.fled in great coats, hung on the caisson seats and chided the drivers.

We were off. Where we were going, seemed to make no difference. Rumours could never be depended upon, so none of us knew our destination, but all of us hoped that we were going into action. Every man in the battery felt that the schooling was over and that the battery, if given a chance, could prove that it needed no further training.

At the same time, some of the men expressed the fear that we were on our way to some other training camp for some post-graduate course in firing or maybe for the purpose of instructing other less advanced batteries.

The final consensus of opinion was, however, that "beefing" about our prospects wouldn't change them, and that anything was better than staying in the same place forever.

Two miles from the post the road crossed the railroad tracks. The crossing bore a name as everything else did in that land of poetical nomenclature. There was only one house there. It was an old grey stone cottage, its walls covered with vines, and its garden full of shrubbery.

It was occupied by three persons, the old crossing-tender, his wife--and one other. That other was Jeanne. Jeanne was their daughter.

We had seen her many times as she opened the crossing gates for traffic on the road. She was about sixteen years old. Her ankles were encased in thick grey woollen hose of her own knitting and, where they emerged from her heavy wooden shoes, it looked as if every move in her clumsy footgear might break them off.

As we approached the crossing, Gallagher, who rode one of the lead pair on piece No. 2, began to give vent to his fine Irish tenor. Gallagher was singing:

"We were sailing along On Moonlight bay, You could hear the voices ringing, They seemed to say, 'You have stolen my heart Now, don't go away,'

As we kissed and said good-bye On Moonlight bay."

It would almost have seemed that there was need of some explanation for Gallagher's musical demonstration on this cold, dark morning, but none was demanded. Gallagher apparently knew what he was doing.

His pair of lead horses were walking in much too orderly a fashion for the occasion. Apparently the occasion demanded a little greater show of dash and spirit. Gallagher sunk his spurs into the flanks of his mount and punched its mate in the ribs with the heavy handle of his riding crop.

The leads lunged forward against their collars. The sudden plunge was accompanied by a jangle of chains as the traces tightened. The gun carriage jolted and the cannoneers swore at the unnecessary bouncing.

"Easy, Zigg-Zigg, whoa, Fini." Gallagher pulled on the lines as he shouted in a calculated pitch the French names of his horses. And then the reason for Gallagher's conduct developed.

A pair of wooden shutters on a first floor window of the gate-tender's cottage opened outward. In the window was a lamp. The yellow rays from it shone upward and revealed a tumbled ma.s.s of long black hair, black eyes that gleamed, red cheeks and red lips. Then a sweet voice said:

"Gude-bye, Meeky."

"Orry wore, Jeen," replied Gallagher.

"_Apres la guerre_, Meeky," said Jeanne.

"Orry wore, Jeen," repeated Gallagher.

"Oh, Jeanie, dear, please call me 'Meeky,'" sang out one of the men, astride one of the wheel pair of the same gun.

The window had closed, but before the light disappeared, black eyes flashed hate at the jester, and Gallagher, himself, two horses ahead, turned in the saddle and told the taunter to shut his mouth, observing at the same time that "some guys didn't know a decent girl when they saw one."

We rode on. Soon, on the left, the sun came up cold out of Switzerland's white topped ridges miles away, and smiling frigidly across the snow-clad neutral Alps, dispelled the night mist in our part of the world.

The battery warmed under its glow. Village after village we pa.s.sed through, returning the polite salutes of early rising grand-sires who uncovered their grey heads, or wrinkled, pink-faced grandmothers, who waved kerchiefs from gabled windows beneath the thatch and smiled the straight and dry-lipped smile of toothless age as they wished us good fortune in the war.

We messed at midday by the roadside, green fields and hills of France, our table decorations, cold beef and dry bread, our fare, with canteens full to wash it down. When the horses had tossed their nose-bags futilely for the last grains of oats, and the captain's watch had timed the rest at three-quarters of the hour, we mounted and resumed the march.

The equipment rode easy on man and beast. Packs had been shifted to positions of maximum comfort. The horses were still fresh enough to need tight rein. The men had made final adjustments to the chin straps on their new steel helmets and these sat well on heads that never before had been topped with armoured covering. In addition to all other equipment, each man carried two gas masks. Our top sergeant had an explanation for me as to this double gas mask equipment.

"I'll tell you about it," he said, as he ruthlessly accepted the next-to-the-last twenty-five centime Egyptian cigarette from my proffered case. I winced as he deliberately tore the paper from that precious fine smoke and inserted the filler in his mouth for a chew.

"You see, England and France and us is all Allies," he said. "Both of them loves us and we love both of them. We don't know nothing about gas masks and they knows all there is to know about them. The French say their gas mask is the best. The British say their gas mask is the best.

"Well, you see, they both offer us gas masks. Now Uncle Sam don't want to hurt n.o.body's feelings, so he says, 'Gentlemen, we won't fight about this here matter. We'll just use both gas masks, and give each of them a try-out.'

"So here we are carrying two of these human nose-bags. The first time we get into a mess of this here gas, somebody will send the order around to change masks in the middle of it--just to find out which is the best one."

The sergeant, with seeming malice, spat some of that fine cigarette on a roadside kilometer stone and closed the international prospects of the subject.

Our battery jangled through a tunnelled ridge and emerged on the other side just as a storm of rain and hail burst with mountain fury. The hailstones rattled on our metal helmets and the men laughed at the sound as they donned slickers. The brakes grated on the caisson wheels as we took the steep down-grade. The road hugged the valley wall which was a rugged, granite cliff.

I rode on ahead through the stinging hailstones and watched our battery as it pa.s.sed through the historic rock-hewn gateway that is the entrance to the mediaeval town of Besancon. The portal is located at a sharp turn of the river. The gateway is carved through a mountain spur. Ancient doors of iron-studded oak still guard the entrance, but they have long since stood open. Battlements that once knew the hand of Vaubon frown down in ancient menace to any invader.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CAPT. CHEVALIER, OF THE FRENCH ARMY, INSTRUCTING AMERICAN OFFICERS IN THE USE OF THE ONE-POUNDER]

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN THE COURSE OF ITS PROGRESS TO THE VALLEY OF THE VESLE THIS 155 MM. GUN AND OTHERS OF ITS KIND WERE EDUCATING THE BOCHE TO RESPECT AMERICA. THE TRACTOR HAULS IT ALONG STEADILY AND SLOWLY, LIKE A STEAM ROLLER]