Swimming in the canal near by, French “movies” at the Foyer du Soldat, plenty of food—vegetables were abundant, and so were cheese, butter and milk till the hungry soldiers bought out the creamery completely—made this a delightful place, in spite of the boredom of “trigger squeeze exercise” and overlong “stables” in the heat of the day.
On the night of June 28 the regiment marched up through Chalons to Camp de la Carriere, a large concentration camp in the midst of woods, away from any towns, the nearest of which was the little village of Cuperly. We were in the great area known as the Camp de Chalons, where MacMahon had mobilized his army of 50,000 men in 1870, which ended so unhappily at Sedan.
Sunday, June 30, one year since the regiment had been called out, there was a rigid inspection in the morning, and in the afternoon Colonel Reilly and Major Redden spoke on the work of the regiment in that time, and announced that the 42d was now to go into a new sector as a combat division.
CHAPTER IV
Under Gouraud in Champagne
The 149th had no fireworks on July 4, 1918. Even the games arranged for the afternoon to celebrate the holiday were neglected. There was good reason: one of the biggest batches of mail our battery had ever received. A letter from home was worth many skyrockets or three-legged races to us. But that evening we saw a bigger variety of pyrotechnic displays than we had ever witnessed before, even at “Paine’s Burning of Rome” or some other such spectacle.
After supper we were given the order to pack, and at 10:30 pulled out on the road. Our way was north, through a broad and barren country, marked in the darkness only by chalky white roads and trenches. Overhead were planes whirring and buzzing, invisible, but very audible, in the dark night. Here and there one dropped a sparkling signal light. At our backs were big fingers of whiteness thrust up into the sky; they were the searchlights in front of Chalons, seeking for enemy planes to reveal to the anti-aircraft guns defending the city from bombers. Ahead, and far to the right and left, the front lines disclosed their presence by light rockets or “star-shells” that continually shot up into the sky and perhaps hovered there for long minutes. We were used to rockets in Lorraine, but never had we seen so many and such a variety as confronted us now. Here was visible evidence that we were engaged in something big.
At 3:30 a. m., we unlimbered our guns and pointed them across a deep chalk trench in front of us. The ammunition from the caissons was piled beside them. As day broke we pitched the flat-tops. The first platoon was located about 200 meters to the right of the second platoon. An equal distance on either side were located platoons of D and F batteries. Thus were the regiment’s guns lined along the trench for a distance of two kilometres. To the right flowed the Suippes river, on which was situated the nearest town, Jonchery-sur-Suippes. Several kilometres in front, the church steeple of St. Hilary-le-Grand served as a point for calculating the guns’ fire.