Though the actual drive on this date was northward, by troops west of Verdun, the preliminary cannonading stretched along the line facing eastward, south of Verdun, as well, thus concealing from the enemy the actual line of attack until it was too late for him to concentrate his forces. Battery E, firing from 11:30 p. m. till 6:30 a. m., the morning of September 26, expended about 1,500 rounds in this ruse, our infantry having been withdrawn from the front lines, in anticipation of heavy counterbombardment.
Perhaps the worst task on this night was that of the drivers on the caissons which carried the shells from the railroad track to the position. The haul was short, but the mud was deep and heavy. They made trip after trip, using every possible means of urging the horses to their task. But when the last load had been carried, about 3 a. m., the horses were so exhausted that they could not pull the empty caissons through the long stretch of gumbo on the way back to the horse lines. When the gun crews had ceased firing, therefore, the cannoneers went to the drivers’ assistance. The latter lay, dead asleep, on top of the caissons, while the horses munched in the bushes at the roadside. By much shouting and more pushing, the men at last got the caissons past the wallow of gumbo to the hard road, where pulling was easy for the horses.
On the night of the 27th the battery moved to the front edge of the woods. It was another struggle against heavy mud, and morning came ere the second platoon was finally in position. The two platoons were about half a kilometre apart, Lieutenant Leprohon commanding the first, and Lieutenant Lombardi the second. Brush and trees had to be cut down to permit firing without danger of a shell bursting prematurely in the tree tops in front of the guns. Gun pits were commenced, proving a difficult task in the sticky clay full of wiry roots. But these were not finished by us. After three days here, the battery was relieved by artillery of the 89th Division, and started on the cross country hike to the Argonne, whence had come a hurry call for the tired veterans of the 42nd Division to aid the troops held up at one part of the line by terrific resistance on the part of the Germans.
The horse lines, near Nonsard, occupied one of the many elaborate camps which the Germans had constructed in the vicinity. Boughs had been used with the lavishness of a millionaire building an elaborate rustic garden. Walks, roads, fences, shacks, ornamental gateways, were all of this material, in camps covering acre after acre. Piles of empty hogsheads, and wicker tables and benches, gave evidence that the enemy troops had not lived an overhard life while they had been here.
The battery pulled out of the horse-lines at 8 p. m., October 1, and hiked without stop till after midnight. After covering thirty kilometres, the battalion pulled in at an old German remount camp, near Ambly, alongside the canal. The following night the distance was shorter, but progress was slow and waits were long—during which the drivers fell asleep on their horses with blankets over their shoulders, and the dismounted men dozed in the grass at the side of the road, mindless of cold and damp. At 6 in the morning came the climb up the hill into the Camp du Bois de Meuse, where the whole 67th Brigade encamped.
Spending the day of September 3 there, we made the next journey by daylight on September 4, rising at 4:45 and pulling out on the road at 8. Our way led past the many camps where the French troops had been assembled to engage in the terrible struggles about Verdun, and past fields, at Vadelaincourt, where the red crosses of French dead seemed to grow thick as wheat. A little beyond Rampont, we pulled into another camp, in Brocourt woods, where we spent the succeeding day greasing the carriage axles and cleaning the firing mechanism. On October 6, the brigade moved forward up the hills from Recicourt, through Avocourt, razed to a mere pile of bricks and mortar, over roads still in process of mending by engineer battalions, and that afternoon into a wide valley, pock-marked with shell holes and bearing a desolate look, emphasized by the stark black tree trunks, stripped of their branches, as though the whole area had been swept by a blaze. This was what was left of the forest of Avocourt. Occasional shells burst on the ridge ahead, and orders were strict for every man to dig a hole for his bunk that night.