Our firing had been only occasional and limited to brief reprisals up to this time. The first platoon, at 163, had suffered most in reply, receiving over 400 shells one day. Now a heavy bombardment was planned, to push back the enemy lines a short way and safeguard our own occupation of “No Man’s Land.” On May 2, some of the batteries kept pounding away all day, cutting barbed wire entanglements and clearing away obstacles in the infantry’s advance.
The following morning we were aroused at 3, and stood by the guns. At 3:50 we added our fire to the din around us, sending over a barrage in front of the troops going over the top. It lasted only two hours, and expended about 175 rounds per gun. So thorough and heavy had been the preliminary bombardment that the enemy had been forced to withdraw all his troops from the shelled area, and the infantry met with next to no resistance in reaching the objective set for them.
May 13 the officers and sergeants went to Azerailles to inspect Battery B equipped and packed in the manner of a battery on the road prepared for open field warfare. Rumors had been plentiful for weeks (1) that the 42d Division was going home to become instructors of the millions of drafted men in the great camps in the United States, (2) that the 42d Division was going to the Somme to aid in checking the rapid drive of the enemy in the north, (3) that the division was to go to a rest camp in the south of France, (4) that the regiment was to turn in its horses and be motorized, etc., etc. The review at Azerailles strengthened some of these rumors and stirred up still others. But, for the present, all these reports came to naught.
May 21 the battery moved four kilometres back to a reserve position just in front of Merviller, which had formerly been occupied by Battery B. The latter moved up to relieve us. After the seven weeks of close confinement in damp abris, the change to the life at the Merviller position was like a trip to a summer resort. Being so far back of the lines, the men were permitted to move about with perfect freedom. The stream just back of the position invited cool swims on the hot dusty afternoons. Ball games passed the time of waiting for mess. Battery E won a close game and keg of Baccarat beer from Headquarters Company by the score of 12 to 11. Just across the road was stationed a bathhouse and laundry unit, and before long the battery had replaced their uniforms, torn and dirty from digging, with more presentable ones.
Merviller’s cafes and “epiceries” furnished food to make up for the lean weeks at Montigny. Being only a few minutes’ walk from the position, the town was a frequent evening’s resort. Baccarat, about eight kilometres farther, was visited when Sunday passes permitted. This city was not so large as Lunéville and held by no means the same attractions as that early favorite of the 149th men. But the shops, cafes, large hospitals, the celebrated Baccarat Glass Works, and the fact that it was a city drew the men there often. Across the Meurthe River, between the cathedral and the heights at the western edge of town lay the ruins of a large section of the city, shelled in those days of August, 1914, that marked the limits of the Germans’ first onrush.
Work had been dropped, after a couple of days, on the position begun by Battery B some distance in front of the one we occupied. Gun drill and instruction in various phases of the battery’s work was the sole occupation of the men. Only once did the battery fire. At 1:30 a. m., June 5, the gun crews were hurriedly aroused, and fired for about an hour, in response to a heavy enemy barrage, to which all guns in the sector replied.
Gas alarms woke the battery many times at night, but by this time the men had reached that stage where their own judgment told them when they should sit up with their gas masks, and when they might turn over and go to sleep. In brief, the alarms, though frequent, bothered them little.
June 9 the first two sections took two Battery D guns up in front of our forward positions, to demonstrate for the officers of the regiment the methods of open field warfare. All of the men learned to put up the “flat-tops” that were always, after we left Lorraine, used as camouflage over the guns. From four corner poles, held firmly by ropes and stakes, heavy ropes were stretched as taut as possible. On this framework was spread a cord netting, about thirty feet square, whose corners slanted out equidistant from the corner poles. On the netting were fastened wisps of green burlap thick enough to conceal what lay beneath it, but not so thick as to cast a heavy shadow which might be distinguished in an aerial photograph. This form of camouflage could be set up and taken down quickly, and used repeatedly.
During the latter part of our stay near Merviller, the peculiar sickness called “trench fever” ran through the regiment, thinning the ranks of the men fit for active duty and sending many to the hospital for a few days. After a few days of fever, languidness and weakness, the illness passed away.
June 19 the first platoon pulled out, and the second platoon followed on the next night, hiking 37 kilometres to Damas-aux-Bois. After two days there, the regiment marched to Charmes, where we entrained for a short train ride to Chalons-sur-Marne. By noon next day the battery was in comfortable billets in Chepy, which, to us, is the cleanest village in France, for no manure piles decorate its main street and no dirty gutters line its roads.