The following day the gun squads and engineers hiked to the town of Laneuveville-aux-Bois, about two kilometres away. There they had for billet a big room, formerly the police magistrate’s office. The town contained only French soldiers billeted there en route to the trenches or return. So close to the lines was it, that shells fell there frequently.
Back of the town and to the left was the site of Battery E’s first gun position. On the far side (from the enemy lines) of a gently sloping hill, covered by tall yellow grass, was staked out the four gun pits, with abris between. The first work was to construct the camouflage. This was composed of strips of chicken wire, in which long yellow grass was thinly woven so as to blend with that growing around the position. These strips were supported by wires stretched from tall stakes, forming the ridge, to short stakes, scarcely two feet above the ground, at either side. In shape, the result was something like a greenhouse. The angles were so graduated that no shadow was cast by the sun, and the color blended so well with the surroundings that no human trace was visible on the hillside from a distance.
As fast as the camouflage could be “woven” and put in place to shield them from observance by the enemy planes that whirred overhead in the bright afternoons, the gun pits were dug. Platforms and “circulaires” were installed as each pit was dug. The guns of the second platoon were brought from Lunéville on the evening of March 7, and caissons of ammunitions followed during the night. The rapidity and excellence of the work on the position were partly due to the French officer, Captain Frey, whose battery was near, who gave his advice and counsel, and to the little sergeant, nicknamed “La Soupe” (the words with which he always signified his intention to depart for mess, for he acquired no English), who constantly supervised the work.
At 9:50 a. m., March 8, Battery E fired its first shot at the front, the Third Section piece having the honor. The gun crew was composed of Sergeant Newell, Corporal Monroe, and Privates Sexauer, Ekberg, Farrell and Kilner. The crew working on the Fourth Section piece, which registered the same morning, included Sergeant Suter, Corporal Holton, and Privates O’Reilly, O’Brien, Ladd, Colvin and Kulicek.
Until the first platoon’s guns came up, the gun crews of that platoon alternated on the pieces with the crews of the second platoon, who could sleep in the billet in town on their nights off. The men on the guns had two watches to keep, one at the guns, and one at the “rocket post” on top the hill, to notify the battery if a red rocket, the signal for a barrage, appeared at points laid out on a chart. At first there were two barrages, Embermenil and Jalindet, the names of two towns in whose direction the different fires lay. If the sentinel on the hill-top shouted either of these names, the sentinel at the position was to fire the guns and awake the crews. The names, unusual and difficult to ears unfamiliar with French, were not easy to remember. From that difficulty developed the “Allabala” barrage which made Mosier famous.
Seeing a rocket rise in the vicinity of Embermenil (whether white or red is a mystery), he started to shout the name, but in his excitement could not pronounce the French word, and stuttered forth a succession of syllables like some Arabian Nights’ incantation. Whatever it was, “Allabala” or something else, it worked. The guns were fired—until an order from the O. P. called a halt, declaring the alarm false.
The First and Second Section pieces were brought from Lunéville on the evening of March 15, and registered the next day. The First Section gun crew was composed of Sergeant Bolte, Corporal Fred Howe and Privates Nickoden, Freeburg, Mosier, Wallace and Hodgins; the Second Section crew of Sergeant McElhone, Corporal Clark, Privates Donald Brigham, Meacham, Nixon and Herrod.
March 17, 1918, was remarkable not because it was Sunday or St. Patrick’s day so much as because on that day Battery E’s camouflage burnt. In the course of a 10-round reprisal fire, about 4 p. m., the flame from the muzzle of the Second Section gun set ablaze the grass woven in the wire netting overhead. In a second the covering was in flames. The dry grass burnt like tinder. The men beat the blaze with sand bags, but could check it but little in the face of the intense heat and thick smoke. By tearing off several strips of netting, they succeeded in preventing the fire’s spreading to the other end of the position. Within a short space of time the first platoon’s camouflage was changed from yellow grass to black ashes. The work of seven or eight days was undone in as many minutes.
On so clear and bright a day there was grave danger that the position would be betrayed to enemy observation by the flames, or by the black scar they had left, or even by the men’s activity in repairing it. A few bursts of shrapnel gave warning of the danger. Immediately as much of the burnt surface as could be was covered with rolls of painted canvas on wire netting, such as the French artillery used. Then all the men were set to gathering grass in the fields back of the position. Not long after, about fifty men from D and F batteries came over to help, and all the available men were brought out in the chariot du parc from the battery’s horse-line at Lunéville. So eagerly and rapidly did all of them work that the old netting was restretched and woven full of grass by midnight.
During the next two days the firing was small, only a few rounds occasionally. The chief work was digging the abris and carrying up beams and concrete blocks from the road for their construction.