And they thought we wouldn't fight Part 26

The man who played the "umpah umpah" in the band was heartbroken. The clarinet player, who had watched the operation and whose case followed for inspection, saved the inspector trouble by removing an easily hidden chain of sausage. I noticed one musician who was observing the ruthless pillage but, strangely, his countenance was the opposite of the others.

He was actually smiling. I inquired the cause of his mirth.

"When we packed up, those guys with the big hollow instruments all had the laugh on me," he said. "Now I've got it on them. I play the piccolo."

All the mounted men under the rank of battery commanders were dismounted in order to save the horses for any possibilities in the war of movement. A dismounted artilleryman carrying a pack and also armed with a rifle, is a most disconsolate subject to view just prior to setting out for a long tramp. In his opinion, he has been reduced too near the status of the despised doughboy.

It really doesn't seem like artillery unless one has a horse to ride and a saddle to strap one's pack on. In the lineup before we started, I saw two of these gunners standing by weighted down with their c.u.mbersome, unaccustomed packs. They were backed against a stone wall and were easing their burdens by resting the packs on the stone ledge. Another one similarly burdened pa.s.sed and, in a most serious tone, inquired:

"Say, would either of you fellows like to buy another blanket roll?" The reply of two dejected gunners would bar this story from publication.

We were on the march early in the morning, but not without some initial confusion by reason of the inevitable higher orders which always come at the last minute to change programmes. On parallel roads through that zone of unmarred beauty which the Normans knew, our columns swung along the dusty highroads.

There were many who held that America would not be thoroughly awake to the full meaning of her partic.i.p.ation in the war until the day there came back from the battlefields a long list of casualties--a division wiped out or decimated. Many had heard the opinions expressed in France and many firmly believed that nothing short of such a shock would arouse our nation to the exertion of the power and speed necessary to save the Allied cause from defeat.

On this march, that thought recurred to some and perhaps to many who refrained soberly from placing it in words. I knew several in the organisation who felt that we were on our way to that sacrifice. I can not estimate in how many minds the thought became tangible, but among several whom I heard seriously discussing the matter, I found a perfect willingness on their part to meet the unknown--to march on to the sacrifice with the feeling that if the loss of their life would help bring about a greater prosecution of the war by our country, then they would not have died in vain.

If this was the underlying spirit, it had no effect whatever upon outward appearances which could hardly be better described than with Cliff Raymond's lilting words: "There are roses in their rifles just the same." If this move was on to the sacrifice--if death awaited at the end of the road, then those men were marching toward it with a song.

It takes a hard march to test the morale of soldiers. When the feet are road-sore, when the legs ache from the endless pounding of hobnails on hard macadam, when the pack straps cut and burn to the shoulder blades, and the tin hat weighs down like a crown of thorns, then keep your ear open for a jest and if your hearing is rewarded, you will know that you march with men.

Many times that first day, those jests came to enliven dejected spirits and put smiles on sweat-rinsed faces. I recall our battery as it negotiated the steep hills. When the eight horses attached to the gun carriages were struggling to pull them up the incline, a certain subaltern with a voice slow, but d.a.m.nably insistent, would sing out, "Cannoneers, to the wheels." This reiterated command at every grade forced aching shoulders already weary with their own burdens to strain behind the heavy carriages and ease the pull on the animals.

Once on a down grade, our way crossed the tracks of a narrow gauge railroad. Not far from the crossing could be seen a d.i.n.ky engine puffing and snorting furiously in terrific effort to move up the hill its attached train of loaded ammunition cars. The engine was having a hard fight when some light-hearted weary one in our column gave voice to something which brought up the smile.

"Cannoneers, to the wheel!" was the shout and even the dignified subaltern whose pet command was the b.u.t.t of the exclamation, joined in the wave of laughs that went down the line.

An imposing chateau of the second empire now presided over by an American heiress, the wife of a French officer, was regimental headquarters that night. Its barns and outbuildings were the cleanest in France according to individuals who had slept in so many barns that they feel qualified to judge.

"Painfully sanitary," said a young lieutenant, who remarked that the tile floor might make a stable smell sweeter but it hardly offered the slumbering possibilities of a straw shakedown. While the men arranged their blankets in those quarters, the horses grazed and rolled in green paddocks fenced with white painted rails. The cooks got busy with the evening meal and the men off duty started exploring the two nearby villages.

For the American soldier, financial deals were always a part of these explorations. It was seldom more than an hour after his arrival in a populated village before the stock market and board of trade were in full operation. These mobile establishments usually were set up in the village square if headquarters did not happen to be located too close.

There were plenty to play the roles of bulls and bears; there was much bidding and shouting of quotations.

The dealings were not in bushels of wheat or shares in oils or rails.

Delicacies were the bartered commodities and of these, eggs were the strongest. The German intelligence service could have found no surer way to trace the peregrinations of American troops about France, than to follow up the string of eggless villages they left behind them.

As soon as billets were located, those without extra duty began the egg canva.s.s of the town. There was success for those who made the earliest start and struck the section with the most prolific hens. Eggs were bought at various prices before news of the American arrivals had caused peasants to set up a new scale of charges. The usual late starter and the victim of arrangements was the officer's striker who lost valuable time by having to take care of his officer's luggage and get the latter established in billets. It was then his duty to procure eggs for the officer's mess.

By that time, all natural egg sources had been obliterated and the only available supply was cornered by the soldiers' board of trade. The desired breakfast food could be obtained in that place only. It was the last and only resort of the striker, who is euphoniously known as a dog robber. In the board of trade he would find soldiers with helmets full of eggs which could be bought at anywhere from two to three times their original price. It was only by the payment of such prices that the officer was able to get anything that could possibly leave a trace of yellow on his chin. If there was a surplus, the soldiers themselves had ample belt room to accommodate it.

In one village tavern, I saw one soldier eat fourteen eggs which he ordered Madame to fry in succession. I can believe it because I saw it.

Madame saw it also, but I feel that she did not believe her eyes. A captain of the Judge Advocate's office also witnessed the gastronomic feat.

"Every one of those eggs was bought and paid for," he said. "Our department handles claims for all stolen or destroyed property and we have yet to receive the first claim from this town. Of course every one knows that a hungry man will steal to eat and there are those who hold that theft for the purpose of satisfying demands of the stomach is not theft. But our records show that the American soldier in France is ready to, willing to, and capable of buying what he needs outside of his ration allowance.

"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, d.a.m.n 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 a.s.signed to holding a position in the path of the German push. But all this conjecture resulted in nothing more than pa.s.sing 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 gra.s.s 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 bra.s.sard 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----

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIRST OF THE GREAT FRANCO-AMERICAN COUNTER-OFFENSIVE AT CHaTEAU-THIERRY. THE FRENCH BABY TANKS, KNOWN AS "CHARS D'a.s.sAUTS,"

ENTERING THE WOOD OF VILLERS-COTTERETS, SOUTHWEST OF SOISSONS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: YANKS AND POILUS VIEWING THE CITY OF CHaTEAU-THIERRY, WHERE, IN THE MIDDLE OF JULY, THE YANKS TURNED THE TIDE OF BATTLE AGAINST THE HUNS]

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 _blesses_ since. The French lesson proceeded and Spokane Steve and I learned from her that the longest word in the French language is spelled "Anticonst.i.tutionellement." I expressed the hope that some day both of us would be able to p.r.o.nounce 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 pa.s.sing 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 ba.s.ses 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."