World's War Events Volume III Part 24

[Sidenote: The first need is a signal station.]

"The battery is to be over there," he pointed through the night, "and we will set up a signal station right here. The first thing to do is to dig in the telephone wires, for headquarters reports that there is considerable rifle fire about here in the daytime. Order a detachment of men to help you!"

[Sidenote: Digging in the telephone wires.]

"Yes, sir," and I went quickly back toward where I knew the men were waiting, happy to think that there was work to be done at once. I gave the orders that had been handed to me, and in about twenty minutes we were turning over the earth. While we were working others were just as busy, for our battery was being placed in position, and some fifty feet behind the battery the others of the signal service detachment, of which I was a member, were setting up a receiving station. As I helped in the digging of that small trench for telephone wires my heart sang, and I lived again the months that I had served in order that I might be fit for the service I was performing that minute.

It might be well, before going further into this narrative, to say that the fellows who had accompanied me were the first American troops to take charge of a sector of the French line, a sector which some day will be moved into the heart of Germany and make old friend Hun wish that there was a way for him to change his nationality and viewpoint.

[Sidenote: The artillery training camp.]

The training camp where we had prepared for the front after our arrival in France had been purchased by the United States from the French, and had been in use since the beginning of the war for the purpose of putting the high spots on the training of men belonging to both the heavy and light artillery. It was a s.p.a.cious place; we had comfortable quarters and lots of good food. I had been on the Mexican border, so that sound of the heavy guns that were being used for training purposes did not annoy me, though to about ninety per cent. of the rest of the fellows this was a new sound, and orders were issued that cotton was to be put in the ears.

[Sidenote: The French officers are fine fellows.]

Except for the return fire, we might have been at the front, for the camp was an exact duplication of conditions under fire. Our equipment was largely French, and the officers who tutored us in modern warfare were all French--and as fine a bunch of fellows as ever lived.

[Sidenote: Buying a village for a target.]

One of the exciting incidents of the Camp was the day that news arrived that the American government had purchased a small village just beyond the Camp (France is honeycombed with small villages,--it is almost impossible to walk a mile without pa.s.sing through a village) and that it was to be used as a target for the American boys.

We practiced in turn, a battery going out for a few hours' work, and then returning. Both light and heavy Artillery used the village as a target, and it was not long before there was only a heap of rubbish to tell where there had once been houses.

[Sidenote: The instructors praise American marksmanship.]

One of the things that the American fellows felt proud of was the fact that they were constantly being praised by their French instructors because of their very superior marksmanship. Several men told me that the American troopers learned in two weeks' time as much of the craftsmanship of war as the French learned in three months. As the story was on themselves, I guess it must be true.

[Sidenote: Good care close to the firing line.]

[Sidenote: A question of high prices.]

We worked hard in camp, but the fellows liked it. We had good food, lots of fresh vegetables, and meat. It is a fact that the closer you get to the firing line the better care you get. There was plenty of recreation through the Y.M.C.A. activities, but we did not have many furloughs.

Remember that at the time I am writing of, the American boys were new in France. One of the reasons for the lack of furloughs was that in many of the towns near the great camps that were set apart for the Americans the merchants had decided that it was harvest time, and prices had gone very high. General Pershing himself ordered that no member of the American force should buy anything in these towns until the matter of prices was adjusted, and this was speedily done.

[Sidenote: A journey in motor trucks.]

[Sidenote: Making the new quarters sanitary.]

I had been in the training camp about a month, making a special study of telephone work as carried on between the front-line trenches and outposts regimental headquarters, and the various gun batteries of the regiment. At the end of that time I was detached from my regular battery and a.s.signed as Signal Sergeant to work with another battery proceeding immediately to the American sector of the Front. We did not travel forward in gradual stages as is the usual custom of approaching the firing line for the first time, but made the journey as quickly as possible, in motor trucks--a never-to-be-forgotten journey. Our destination was a village between five and ten miles from the Front, where we were to be billeted, and where the American troops would spend their time while not actively in the trenches. We got there in the afternoon, and a batch of the men were detached to make the place clean and perfectly sanitary. It needed their work. The village had been used by the French soldiers for some time, and there had been no time or opportunity for repair work. With the coming of the Americans it was different. Cleanliness is a strictly enforced rule with the fellows of our fighting force, and from a standpoint of sanitation we are literally introducing soap, water and whitewash into France.

[Sidenote: The order to advance.]

Later that afternoon, when it was growing dusk, came the orders to go forward--and at nightfall I found myself walking beside the French officer across rough ground, a very occasional dull boom telling us that there was an enemy before us--but all other sounds seemed natural.

As I said before, it is impossible to accurately describe the sensations that come over a fellow when he discovers that he is on the firing line, and I welcomed the work to which I was so quickly a.s.signed, and which we rapidly accomplished. I marveled at the precision with which I had gone to work that first night on the front, but everyone had their work to do, and did it so quickly and coolly that we had no time to think of personal feelings.

[Sidenote: An interesting day on the firing line.]

The first day on the firing line was very interesting. The battery kept up a constant fire, getting range from the map which is issued daily--as well as the given ranges, targets, etc. (which arrived over the field telephone). That night we stood ready to do any work required, but no orders came through, and I had my first experience in sleeping in a gun pit.

Our food, by the way, was brought up daily from the headquarters at the village and was prepared in rolling field kitchens.

[Sidenote: Food is good and abundant.]

As an example of the care that the fellows are getting, I might say that we were given bread and milk, fruit, excellent coffee, eggs, or possibly hash, and, of course, bread for breakfast; a heavy meal of soup, steak or some roast meat, potatoes and vegetables, coffee and sweets, came next, with a meal of canned foods for supper. All of it well cooked and mighty tasty. Believe me, Uncle Sam was taking mighty fine care of his soldier boys!

[Sidenote: The telephone system is demolished.]

The following day started as the first, but in the middle of the afternoon the telephone system of our sector was demolished by rifle and it was impossible to get into communication with either the headquarters or the trenches.

"That stops work for today!" the officer told me. "No more gun fire till we get it fixed."

I can remember asking anxiously what we could do.

"Nothing just this minute," he laughed at my eagerness, "but tonight you and I will crawl out on our bellies and find that broken wire. Then we will fix it, and unless they find us with a sh.e.l.l we'll crawl back."

[Sidenote: We go out to mend the wire.]

The prospect was exciting, and I waited anxiously for night. Then, armed with the necessary tools, we started to crawl along the trench containing the wires. We had no light, we could not stand upright. We went about a half mile, feeling every inch of wire for the break, and then suddenly I ran my hand along the wire that suddenly came to a point. We had found the break.

"I've got it," I called in my best whisper, but before I could receive a reply there was a noise from the German trenches.

"Star sh.e.l.l, star sh.e.l.l," my French companion called excitedly.

[Sidenote: A star sh.e.l.l bursts above us.]

Suddenly the sh.e.l.l burst above us, and it was more brilliant than day.

Frightened! Say, that light is so great and the knowledge that if the Germans spot you you're a goner, makes you just lie there and forget to breathe! It does not take many seconds for a star sh.e.l.l to die away to a glow, but in those seconds you go right through life and back to the present. When the light was gone I lay there fairly panting for breath.

"We'll have to work quickly," came the inspiring voice at my elbow, and we did. We had not finished work before a new star sh.e.l.l was sent up.

[Sidenote: The repair work is finished.]

The repair work did not take many minutes, and we started back again. We were halted several times by star sh.e.l.ls, and after the second or third time I began to rea.s.sure myself by saying that the Germans did not know I was out there, that they had nothing against me individually.

Afterwards I heard one of the officers say that they were probably suspicious because of the sudden cessation of the gun fire that afternoon, and were looking for a raiding party to cross no-man's-land.

[Sidenote: The noise of the sh.e.l.ls.]

During the time that I was at the front, it was the custom for men to spend six days at the front, then go back to the village in which they were billeted--always well beyond the firing line--and there rest for about two weeks. By the end of my third day I had become quite acclimated to the noise. One afternoon a scouting aeroplane must have reported some fancied movement of troops in a village two or three miles back of us, for the Germans started a heavy barrage which went singing over our heads. The sh.e.l.ls went high, but just the same they made everyone uncomfortable for a few minutes. Fellows that have been on the line, however, will tell you that you don't mind the noise of sh.e.l.l fire--for you figure it out that the bullet that hits you is the bullet you never hear--and while that doesn't seem a very comfortable thought, you soon forget to think of danger.

[Sidenote: Shifting the gun's position.]

Perhaps the most exciting incident, and at the same time the one that sent more terror to our hearts than any other, occurred late one afternoon. It was foggy, though fog always hung over our battery--in fact, the climate of the front that has been a.s.signed to our troops is notorious for its winter fogginess. Orders had been sent out to shift the position of our gun, and as the afternoon wore away--and the thick smoke-like pall that hung over us made it impossible to recognize the fellow standing next to you when he was half a dozen feet away--it was decided that there was no use to wait till night, but that we could shift the gun at once.

[Sidenote: A German aeroplane right overhead.]

All the crowd started to work, the new gun pit was ready, and the signal station was all moved. It was just as we got the gun into the position and were straightening it into position that a faint breeze came stealing down from the mountains. In a minute the breeze was stronger, and we could see a hundred yards away. In another minute we could see three times that distance, and at the end of the third minute we could see clear up into the heavens--and there was a German plane flying straight for us.