The Delta of the Triple Elevens Part 8

Forty men or eight horses may have been the official capacity but when forty soldiers with equipment C were a.s.signed to such a car to spend the night and several succeeding nights, all that was needed to make sardines was a little oil.

Several sections of the battery were fortunate in securing third-cla.s.s accommodations, but the remainder prepared to settle themselves in the box cars, the majority of which cars turned out to have flat wheels as the journey started.

Daylight remained abroad for the first two hours of the journey; while the cars jolted over the rails the boys sang and kept alive the spirit. Then came darkness. No lights in the car. Forty men stretched out in a small box-car. Incidently it might be added that a French box-car is about one-half the size of similar type of car used on the railroads in the United States. It wasn't fair to kick your buddy in the face or get on his ear. The night, however, gradually wore on and the towns of Valognes, Isigny and Manche St. Lo, were pa.s.sed. Thence out of the Manche department, through the railroad center at Vire, in Calvados, the special, with its side-door Pullmans, rolled on, enroute through Flers, Coutenne and Pre during the early hours of the morning of August 6th. Daylight dawned as Alencon was reached and at 11:30 a.

m., Le Mans loomed in sight. A half-hour's ride from Le Mans and an half-hour lay-over was ordered. The troops were allowed to alight for the time. A supply of iron rations was also furnished each car from the supply car of the special.

The next stop was made at Tours from 6 to 8 p. m. A short lay-over was also made at Poitiers at 11 p. m. The troop special was then nearing its destination. But few on board were aware that at the end of the next thirty-four kilometers was Montmorillon, in the department of Vienne, which was to be the stopping off place of Battery D for a stay of several weeks.

The troop special of thirty-five coaches and box cars, pulled into the station at Montmorillon at 1 a. m.; all was quiet about the station. A majority of the soldiers were too tired to care about location. They slumbered on as best they could in their box-car berths, while the special was pulled in on a siding, to remain until daylight when the order to detrain was to be issued.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONTMORILLON STATION Where Battery D Detrained in France After Leaving British Rest Camp at Cherbourg.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONTMORILLON STREET SCENE Building Marked X was Billet for Half of the Battery During the First Month Spent on French Soil.]

CHAPTER XV.

WHITE TROOPS INVADE MONTMORILLON.

Dotted with quaint architecture of 12th and 13th century Romanesque and Gothic design, the hills of Vienne department, France, cradle the crystal-clear and drowsy-moving waters of the Gartempe, a river, which in its course winds through the town of Montmorillon, where four thousand French peasantry, on August 7th, received their first lesson in American cosmopolitism.

Montmorillon, where the boys of Battery D were billeted for the first time in the midst of the French people; where they received their first impressions on French life and mannerisms, lives in memory of the boys as the prettiest, cleanest and most-comfortable place of any the outfit visited during its sojourn in France.

Despite the fact that a feeling of strained hospitality attended the reception of the 311th Artillery, the first body of white American troops to visit Montmorillon, the cloud of suspicion was soon lifted and four weeks of smiling August sunshine days, undarkened by rainclouds, were spent along the banks of the Gartempe.

When the 311th troops alighted from the troop special early on the morning of their arrival, the station and avenues of approach to the town were guarded by American negro M. P.'s, members of the 164th Artillery Brigade, who had arrived in the town several weeks previous and had made themselves at home with the natives.

The 311th was not in Montmorillon many days before the explanation of the half-hearted reception came to light. An element of negro troops had started the story on its rounds among the guileless French peasants that the white troops, who had just arrived, comprised the "Sc.u.m of America," and that they (the negroes) were the real Americans; the whites being the so-called "American Indians." As the flames of gossip spread from tongue to tongue, admonition was added that the white arrivals were dangerous and corrupt and the French should refrain from a.s.sociating with the new arrivals.

Thus there was created an intense and bitter racial feeling that loomed gigantic and threatened open racial hostilities as the white and colored American troops traveled the same streets of a foreign village; were admitted to the same cafes and vied with each other for the friendship of the French populace.

Street fights were not infrequent, while scenes in cafes were enacted wherein white refused to sit in the same room with colored troops or vice-versa.

Persisting in their set standard of chivalry, the element of the white soldiers often took it as ordained to induce the French demoiselles to leave the company of their opposite in blood. Many of the colored troops were equally persistent, with the result that the breach of ill-feeling gaped bigger, until official cognizance came to bear.

Within a short time the 164th Brigade was withdrawn from Montmorillon, leaving the 311th to commence its active and intensive course of training on foreign soil.

On August 7th, the day of the 311th's arrival, the troops waited at the station for several hours while the billeting officers were locating billets throughout the town. Iron rations were partaken of at the station and everybody was glad that battery mess outfits would soon set up shop and the American Q. M. system of rationing would be resumed.

The march through the town to the various a.s.signed billeting districts was started from the station at 9:30 o'clock. The batteries of the regiment were scattered in various billets throughout the town. Every vacant house, barn or shed that possibly could be pressed into service, was designated as a billet for the troops.

Battery D continued its march through the town; across the cement bridge over the Gartempe; into an octagon-shaped intersection of public streets, lined with several three-story buildings, the princ.i.p.al one of which gave evidence of being a cafe and bore the sign, "Cafe du Commerce."

Opposite the bridge, the route was along Rue de Strasburg, where, in the rear of the Cafe du Commerce, Battery D halted before a three-story stone structure that bore signs of having been vacated for many years.

The area billeting officer produced a large key, threw open the door and half the battery was ushered inside. It immediately fell their task to brush the cow-webs from the ceilings; gather up the fallen plaster from the floor; sweep out several years' acc.u.mulation of dirt and dust; while the old-fashioned shutters were pried open for the first time in many years and the sunshine streamed into the rooms, to drive away, to some degree, the mustiness of environment.

The other half of the battery was directed to a barn structure about a block distant from the first battery abode. Clean-up activities of similar nature were inst.i.tuted in the barn.

About 3 o'clock that afternoon the barrack bags of the regiment were received and distributed to the soldiers. The bags had been in transit ever since leaving Camp Meade.

Arrangements were made with several French farmers to bring a quant.i.ty of straw to the public square, where the soldiers, later in the afternoon, filled their bed ticks. It was on a tick of straw, thrown on the floor of the old dilapidated, vacated house, that one hundred of the battery spent their nights of sleep in Montmorillon while the other half occupied similar beds on the upper-lofts of the barn.

There were no formations the morning after arrival. The battery men spent most of the time about town. It was strange to observe the peasantry hobbling along in their wooden shoes, the flopping of the loose footwear at the heels beating a rhythmic clap, clap on the cobblestone pave.

Each day brought new scenes of peasant life. Quaintly and slowly oxen under yoke were used on the streets to haul the farmers' grain to the large public square, where, under the scorching sun the farmer and his helpers toiled with hand flailers, thrashing the grain. Strange looking carts, drawn by donkeys with large ears, vied with the ox-carts for supremacy of traffic.

Along the river's edge were located public places for clothes-washing.

The peasant whose house adjoined the river had a private place at the water's-edge where the family washing was done. The river served as a huge tub for the entire community, the women carrying their wash to the river, where, kneeling at special devised wash-boards, garments were rubbed and paddled until they shown immaculate.

Washing was greatly increased at the river when the 311th came to town. The hundreds of soldiers sought out washer-women. The peasant women welcomed the opportunity of earning a few francs doing American washing. The more active of the washer-women spent entire days washing at the river for the soldiers. At first one franc was a standard price for having a week's laundry done, but as days pa.s.sed and business became brisker, rates went up to two, five and in some instances higher.

To the Americans the town of Montmorillon, as was the case of most of the ancient towns visited in France, presented an impression of isolation. Houses built during the 12th century with their high walls surrounding and barricaded entrances, were greatly in evidence; houses of such nature, history records, as furnishing protection in the days when feudalism fought at spear-points. The stages and wages of war advanced with the centuries, but not so with the ancient French town; where the peasants live content with no sewerage or drainage system; content to pursue the antiquated customs. To be thrown in the midst of this 12th century environment was productive of lasting impressions on the part of the American troops who were suddenly transplanted from a land of 20th century civilization and advancement, to an old and foreign soil.

The first night the 311th was in Montmorillon fire broke out in "The Baines," an ornate and modern French homestead near the Cafe du Commerce. Several officers of the 311th regiment had secured quarters in the Baines. They were forced to vacate by the fire. Bucket brigades was the only fire protection the prefecture afforded its citizenry.

The fire drew a large crowd of the new soldiers, a score of whom took active charge of fighting the blaze; giving the Frenchmen a real exhibition in the art of bucket-brigade fire extinction.

Time, however, was not to view French scenery. Training activity was the official topic of interest. It was decreed that instruction in the school of the soldier should begin immediately. Fifty per cent of the regiment comprised new recruits, who had been a.s.signed to the outfit previous to departure from Camp Meade. It was necessary to begin the training at the beginning.

Out from the town, among the open farm lands, a large grain field was secured as a drill field for the battery. It required a thirty-five minute hike from the battery billeting area to reach the drill field.

This hike was in order every morning and afternoon. The time on the drill field was spent in learning the rudiments in much the same manner as the training was started and progressed with the first recruits at Camp Meade.

When 4 o'clock of each afternoon came, the order was established for a swim in the river as the parting day's rejuvenator. Montmorillon was the only place in France where the battery got frequent baths.

Sat.u.r.day morning for the troops at Montmorillon was generally inspection time. Inspections were held on the public plaza. Showdown inspections were as exacting as Camp Meade days. Sat.u.r.day afternoon and Sunday were days of rest for those who were lucky enough to escape detail.

Regimental services were held in the public square on Sunday mornings, while many of the soldiers visited the curious, two-storied chapel of octagonal form and Romanesque style, that was built in the 12th century, in which services were still conducted. The chapel is connected with the ecclesiastical seminary that occupies a building that was formerly an Augustinian convent.

The Church of the Notre Dame is another ancient landmark of Montmorillon that held interest for the Americans. It, also, is a 12th century building, built on a high slope, with its chapel undermined with a series of catacombs. Trips of inspection to these subalterean chambers, where the worship of the early ages was conducted, were numerous and interesting to the soldiers.

Various schools for instruction of the officers of the regiment were established at Montmorillon. A detachment of new officers from the Saumur school arrived in town to take charge of the training work while the regular officers attended the schools. Second Lieut. Sidney F. Bennett of Derby, Vermont, was a.s.signed to Battery D at this time and was given plenty of work in supervising the morning drill and battery instructions. Lieut. Bennett immediately won great favor among the men. He varied his periods of drill and training with athletics.

"O'Grady," "Crow and Crane," "Belt 'Round the ring," and numerous other sport contests were indulged in with great vim.

A battery kitchen, utilizing the field range, was set up in close proximity to the two battery billets. Here the boys lined up with their mess-kits three times a day. They sat out in the narrow French street as they appeased their appet.i.tes. Gone were the mess hall tables of Camp Meade days. Gone were the cots of Camp Meade memory.

Cheer was added, however, when mail from the United States and home began to reach the outfit. The first despatch of mail to reach Battery D overseas was at Montmorillon on August 13th.

Then on August 14th came the first overseas payday. The battery members were paid with an addition of ten per cent for foreign service. The first pay was in French currency, the rate of exchange at the time being 5:45 francs to the American dollar.

When French peasants toiled a whole day for several francs and when the pay of the French soldier was not equalling one franc a day, the French, when the American private was paid $33 a month in 179.85 francs, gained the idea that all Americans were millionaires.

The result was the establishment of two standards of price in French shops; one price for the French and a higher price for the Americans.

Souvenir postcards sold anywhere from 10 centimes to five francs apiece. In the matter of fruits, peaches commanded one franc for three during the peach season; apples sold two for one franc; while tomatoes that should have sold for one franc a basket, brought one franc for five.

The soldiers were allowed to be on the streets until 9 o'clock each night. Many spent their money freely. The wine shops did a thriving business and as is usual in large crowds, the element was present that was not satisfied with sampling the large a.s.sortment of wine-vintages but indulged in Cognac. Strict disciplinary measures were immediately adopted. Several of the first offenders, none of whom, however, were from Battery D ranks, were reduced in rank at a public battalion formation on the public square.

The cognac proclivities of the few endangered the privileges of the many in having freedom to visit in the town at night. Battery punishment was inflicted at times, which const.i.tuted carrying a full pack on the back at drill formation or for a certain period after drill hours.