"Do you two think you are taking moon baths on the Riviera?" the Major asked sternly. "You are less than two hundred yards from the Germans. You are all wrapped up like Egyptian mummies. Somebody could lean over the top and snake off your head with a trench knife before you could get your feet loose. Take those blankets off your feet and stand up."
The men arose with alacrity, shedding the blankets and removing the grenade box chairs. The Major continued:
"You know you are not sitting in a club window in Fifth Avenue and watching the girls go by. You're not looking for chickens out there. There's a hawk over there and sometimes he carries off precious little lambs. Now, the next time anybody steps around the corner of that trench, you be on your feet with your bayonet and gun ready to mix things."
The lambs saluted as the Major moved off with a train of followers who, by this time, were beginning to feel that these trenches held other lambs, only they carried notebooks instead of cartridge belts.
Stopping in front of a dugout, the Major gathered us about to hear the conversation that was going on within. Through the cracks of the door, we looked down a flight of steep stairs, dug deep into this battlefield graveyard. There were lights in the chamber below and the sound of voices came up to us. One voice was singing softly.
"Oh, the infantry, the infantry, with the dirt behind their ears,
The infantry, the infantry, they don't get any beers,
The cavalry, the artillery, and the lousy engineers,
They couldn't lick the infantry in a hundred million years."
"I got a brother in the artillery," came another voice, "but I am ready to disown him. They talk a lot about this counter battery work, but it's all bunk. A battery in position has nice deep dugouts and hot chow all the time. They gets up about 9 o'clock in the morning and shaves up all nice for the day.
"'Bout 10 o'clock the captain says, 'I guess we will drop a few shells on that German battery on the other side of the hill.' So they pops off forty or fifty rounds in that general direction and don't hit anything 'cause the German battery immediately roots down into its nice, deep dugouts. As soon as our battery lays off and gets back into its holes, the German battery comes out and pops back forty or fifty at 'em and, of course, don't hurt them neither.
"Then it is time for lunch, and while both of these here batteries is eating, they get so sore about not having hit each other during the morning, that they just call off counter battery work for the day and turn their guns on the front lines and blow hell out of the infantry. I haven't got any use for an artilleryman. I'm beginning to think all of them Germans and Allies are alike and has an agreement against the doughboys."
The Major interrupted by rapping sharply on the door.