II
The First Battalion’s voyage to France was more interesting than that of the main body of the regiment or of Companies L and M, who followed them in a few days. Sailing from Montreal on the Tunisian at 8 on the morning of October 27th, they landed at Liverpool, England, on November 10. There they entrained for Southhampton, reaching that city late in the night. In the night of the 11th they crossed the English Channel to Havre, and after a few hours’ rest they were packed into open box-cars for their cold journey across France. They detrained at Sauvoy on November 15.
The voyage of the good ship America was made over a sea so glassy-smooth that sea-sickness was an impossibility. The boat-drills, the rules against smoking or showing lights on deck at night and the constant watch for submarines (a work which was put wholly in the hands of the 69th Regiment, and executed by them with unflagging devotion) served to remind the men that, peaceful as the blue water looked, they were actually in the war already.
The discomforts of a crowded ship could not daunt the spirits of the men of the 69th. The dark holes far below the water-level in which they were tightly packed rang with song and laughter every night until taps sounded. There were concerts on deck and in the mess-room every night, except when the ship’s course was through the danger zone and silence was enforced. If there is left in the Atlantic Ocean a mermaid who cannot now sing “Over There,” “Goodbye Broadway, Hello France,” “Mother Machree,” and “New York Town,” it is not the fault of the 69th New York.
And yet mirth was not the sole occupation of these soldiers, exhilarated as they were by the prospects of battle. During the day, one could find little groups gathered on hatchways and in corners, studying, from little manuals they had bought, such subjects as the new bayonet work and grenade throwing. The talk of the men was very seldom of the homes and friends they had left behind, it was nearly always of the prospect of battle. They talked of what front they might be expected to hold, with what troops they might be trained, and, above all, of how soon they were to go into action. They discussed such methods and instruments of modern warfare as they knew with the keen interest of those who are soldiers by their own choice.
Those who do not know the 69th Regiment would have been puzzled by the spectacle presented by the main deck amidships every afternoon and evening. There could be seen a line of soldiers, as long as the mess-line, waiting their turn to go to confession to the Regimental Chaplain, Father Francis P. Duffy. And every morning—not on Sundays alone—there was a crowd at the same spot, where, on an altar resting on two nail kegs, Father Duffy said Mass.
The voyage passed without any sight of hostile sea or aircraft, and after two weeks the America came to anchor in the beautiful harbor of Brest. That is, it seemed a beautiful harbor at first, with its long white quay and its miles of dark green shore picked out with venerable gray stone buildings. But as day succeeded day with nothing for the soldiers to do but tramp the decks and yearn for the feel of sod under their hobnails, the view began to lose some of its beauty. There were two weeks on the open sea—these soon passed. But the week in Brest Harbor, in tantalizing sight of land, separated by only half a mile of green evil-smelling stagnation from shops and cafes and homes—that was cruel and unusual punishment.
When, after six days a detail for the hard work of loading freight cars was formed, every man in the regiment volunteered—and this sort of a detail usually is eagerly avoided. The volunteers who were accepted had little to reward them except the pleasure of being upon comparatively dry land. They were given no chance to taste the delights of the seaside city. When their task of unloading and loading baggage was finished, they and the rest of their shipmates learned what “Hommes 36-40, Chevaux 8” meant. From 40 to 50 men entered the waiting box-cars, with hard tack and canned corn-beef (Corn Willie) to feed them, and their own blankets to protect them from the hardness of the floors and the cold blasts that swept in at the open sides.
Three days and three nights of such travelling as no soldier of the 69th can ever forget, and they were at the village of Sauvoy, in the Department of Meuse. From this point a hike of some two hours brought them to the tiny village of Naives-en-Blois. Here was to be the new home of Regimental Headquarters, Headquarters Company, Supply Company and Company B. The other companies (including those of the First Battalion, which had arrived in the district on the fifteenth of the month) were quartered in the nearby villages of Sauvoy, Bovée, Vacon, Broussey and Villeroi.
The Regiment was put not in barracks, but in billets. Now billets, to those of the men who had done guard duty in upper New York State during the previous Spring, meant comfortable bedrooms, buckwheat cakes with syrup for breakfast, and the society of good natured farming people. But billeting in the European sense of the term, meant something different, as they soon found out. It meant that certain householders, in return for the payment of a few sous per man per twenty-four hours, were obliged to allow soldiers to sleep in their stables, barns or other outhouses. They were not obliged to furnish any food, light or heat. They were not obliged even to mend the roofs or walls of the shelters. Straw for filling bedsacks was furnished to the soldiers, and they were fairly launched on their first winter in France.
It was a winter of unprecedented severity. A freezing wind blew through the great holes in the tumble-down sheds where the men slept, covering them, night after night, with snow. They learned many soldierly things. How to make blouse and overcoat supplement the thin army blankets, for instance. How to keep shoes from freezing in the night by sleeping on them. How to dress and undress in the dark—for lamps were unknown and candles forbidden.
These things the soldiers taught themselves, or were taught by circumstances during their stay in Naives-en-Blois and environs. Their work consisted of close order drill, guard duty, and the thorough and much needed policing of the ancient village street.
Now, Naives was near the front—so near that the guns could clearly be heard when the wind blew in the right direction. This was cheering for the men, but as there were indications of a strengthening of the German lines at this point, with a possible view to an offensive, it was necessary to use the district for troops whose training had been completed; and, according to the new European standards, that of the 69th had not yet begun. So it was necessary for the Regiment—indeed, for the whole 42nd Division, which then had its headquarters in the nearby city of Vaucouleurs—to give place to seasoned French troops. So the men made their packs, the wagons were loaded, and the Regiment changed station from the 4th to the 5th area.
After two days of hiking (very easy hiking it seemed, in the light of later experiences) the Regiment arrived, on December 13, in the historic town of Grand. Here, centuries before, the conquering Romans had encamped, one hundred thousand strong. The ruins of the mighty ampitheatre that they built still stands, and the tower of the great church was once part of a fort. It was Caesar himself who planned the broad roads on which our Regiment drilled, and Caesar’s soldiers who made them. In this venerable church Father Duffy said midnight Mass on Christmas, and all the town came to see these strange, gentle, brave, mirthful, pious American soldiers, who, coming from a new land to fight for France, practiced France’s ancient faith with such devotion. The Regimental colors were in the chancel, flanked by the tricolor. The 69th band was present, and some French soldier-violinists. A choir of French women sang hymns in their own language, the American soldiers sang a few in English, and French and American joined in the universal Latin of “Venite, Adoremus Dominum.” It was a memorable Midnight Mass—likely to be remembered longer even than that which Father Duffy had said on the Mexican Border just a year previous, which troops for fifty miles around had crossed the prairies to attend.
Now it was considered advisable for the Division to proceed to the 6th area. This meant a hike of some four days and nights. Accordingly, at 8 on the morning of December 26th, the Regiment passed through the main street of Grand and out over the ancient Roman road.
This hike has become so famous—or so infamous—because of the undeniable sufferings of those who took part in it that it needs no detailed description here. It must by any impartial historian be admitted that during it the men of the 69th Regiment were insufficiently fed and shod, that they endured great and unnecessary pains and privations. It must also be admitted that they bore these trials with a cheerfulness which amazed the French civilians through whose villages they passed, accustomed as were these people to soldiers of almost every human race. They would crush their bleeding feet into their frozen, broken-soled hobnails of a black morning, and breakfastless start out, with a song on their lips, to climb the foothills of the Vosges Mountains through the heart of a blizzard. At noon (shifting their feet about to keep the blood moving) they would (if it was one of the lucky days) have a slice of bread or two pieces of hardtack for noon mess. At night they would have a sleep instead of supper. But they were never dispirited; they were never too cold, too hungry or too weary to sing or to teach the innocent French villagers strange bits of New York slang.
No man in the 69th Regiment “fell out” during that terrible hike. But many fell down. That is, no one, because of heart-breaking weariness, or faintness or lameness went to the roadside and waited for the ambulance to pick him up. Those who finished the journey in ambulances or trucks did so because they had fallen senseless in the deep snow, unable to speak or move. And wherever the Regiment passed there were bloody tracks in the white roadway.
“That hike made Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow look like a Fifth Avenue parade,” said one of the medical officers serving during this period. And many an observer compared the Regiment to Washington’s foot-sore soldiers at Valley Forge. It was only the indomitable spirit of the Irish American fighting man that kept the Regiment afoot through those four tragic days.
The Regiment that arrived in Longeau on the afternoon of December 29th looked different from the Regiment that had left Grand four days before. To judge them by their gait and their faces, the men had aged twenty years. But their hearts were unchanged. As they stood in the deep snow, the ice-crusted packs still on their bruised shoulders, they had a laughing word for every pretty face at a Longeau window. The weary bandsmen started a defiant air, and the Regiment joined in with a roar. The song was “The Good Old Summertime.”