That decks the sunny chalk fields of Champagne.
Champagne. The word is a familiar one with other associations. We had thought that the bottles grew on trees and that the thirsty traveler had but to detach the wire that held them. And behold it is a land as dry as Nebraska. There are no such vivifying trees, nor lowly vines, nor even abundant water. A vastly over-advertised country in the opinion of the present collection of tourists.
BOIS DE LA LYRE
July 7th, 1918
Bois de la Lyre—Harp Woods since the 69th got here. We have arrived in two stages. We were to celebrate the 4th of July in proper fashion with games and feasting. But there was not much with which to hold high revelry, and the games were practically spoiled by an order to move. Anyway, our minds are on other things. I came on Terry O’Connor, sitting with his shirt open on account of the heat, busily cleaning his rifle. “Man dear,” I said, “Where is your patriotism? Every man home has a flag in his button-hole. I’m ashamed of you.” “I’ve got me roifle” (patting it) “an’ me Scafflers” (pointing to the brown string showing on his bared neck); “what more does a pathriot need?”
We moved by night, as usual, but not far, to the École Normale de Tir. The Normal School sounded big and fine. One expected a square two-story red brick building with white sandstone trimmings—but we found a collection of half underground iron covered dugouts, and all overground rough little board shacks. We would be happy there now for we find that this poetically named spot is some degrees less attractive. It looks as if somebody had put it up in a hurry because the cattle were out in bad weather. The Officers are in the sheds, the men out in what they call the Bois—which are probably thick enough for concealment from an inquisitive aeroplane. But that is all we need while this blessed weather holds. Sunny France had ceased to be the joke it was.
And then, something seems to be doing at last. We who are in the know have been hearing tales of plans afoot—an attack on the Chateau Thierry salient at Chatillon-sur-Marne seemed to be the plan when we first reached these parts. The indications are now that the Germans are due for another inning and we are to meet them here. Anderson has gone up with the 2nd Battalion to hold the trenches with the French. Donovan and McKenna are in support. There is a big dugout in a knoll ahead of us—they call it a hill, just as in Atlantic City any place four feet above tide water is called a height—and we are to move there when action begins. I am sitting on top of it—have been here all this sunny afternoon reading a book the Colonel gave me, Gabriel Hanotaux on France under Henri Quatre—and I certainly do not like the idea of spending my young life in a dugout P. C. during action. I am going to tell Colonel McCoy that my spiritual duties demand that I visit Anderson’s Battalion. He says that he wants his Officers to enjoy this war—the only war most of them can hope to have. And I hate dugouts anyway.
To get from Harp Woods to Chapel Woods you go north for about four miles through Jonchery to St. Hilaire le Grand—a bit of a village which to borrow from Voltaire’s remark about the Holy Roman Empire does not look particularly saintly nor hilarious nor grand. The Ohios are on the right of it, and our Company E just to the west with patches of blue Frenchmen dotted all around. Follow the Ancient Roman Way for a kilometer or two and you get to a patch of woods with tops of mounds showing through them as if large sized moles had been working there. It is marked on the map as Subsector Taupinière in the Auberive sector. But we carry our names with us, and these bits of the soil of France are to be called while we inhabit them P. C. Anderson, P. C. Kelly, P. C. Prout and P. C. Finny; P.C., meaning “Post of Command.”
I have spent the week with Anderson. He has his P. C. in an elephant hut—a little hole about five feet underground with a semi-circular roof of corrugated iron piled over with sand bags and earth,—enough to turn the splinters of a shell. I passed a couple of days with Captain Charles Baker of Company E, who is over to the right, along the Suippes. Charles is all energy and business, as usual. And Lieutenant Andy Ellett came in one night quite peevish because the French had countermanded the orders for a patrol. Andy likes the scent of danger. At P. C. Baker I saw Jim Murray, whom I once started out for the priesthood. I spent a pleasant day wandering about on my lawful occasions among the men in the different positions, one of which I found very popular, as just there the Suippes had actually enough water for a man to take a decent bath in. At the proper time I did not fail to discover the Company Kitchen, located on the river bank in a charming spot. While doing justice to a good meal I discussed Mt. Vernon politics with Carmody and Vahey.
The battalion is under French command. Colonel Arnoux of the 116th Infantry has us in immediate charge with General Gouraud in high command. Arnoux is an elderly patient kindly man with a lot of seasoned young veterans for officers and for Chaplain a big jolly Breton, whom the men adore. The regiment is not much higher in strength than our one battalion. Like all the regiments over here it has been worn down by constant fighting and the difficulty of finding replacements. During the week they got something to show for the good work they have been doing the past three years—the much desired Fourragère, a bunch of knotted cords worn hanging from the left shoulder. Our fellows call them “pull-throughs,” after the knotted cords they pull through their rifles when cleaning them. It was a very interesting ceremony. Our officers were invited to it and those of our enlisted men who wore the French Croix de Guerre. General Gouraud, a remarkable military figure with an added touch of distinction from his empty hanging sleeve and stiff leg—decorated the regimental colors while the officers invested the men with the coveted mark of distinction. The General reviewed his American Allies, each of the officers being introduced by Major Anderson. It was a formal affair until he came to our bunch of husky soldiers who wore no silver or gold insignia on their shoulders but carried on their breasts the red and green ribbon of the Croix de Guerre. Then you can see why every man in his army swears by him. No cannon fodder here, but interesting human beings. I liked him for it, and felt very proud of the men we had to show him—Corporals Hagan and Finnegan of Company F, Sergeants Coffey, Murray and Shalley of Company G, and Sergeants Jerome O’Neill and Gunther and Corporal Furey of Company H.[2] I was saying to myself, “General, you’re an old soldier but you never saw better men.”