While the cannoneers had been firing at the range, the drivers had been busy with horse exercise and grooming. Four guns had been left in permanent position at the range. Now the time had come when we were to practice on other ranges, and our guns to be taken thither by our own drivers and horses each time. The first of these occasions is historic, for it was the day of Sergeant’s Newell’s famous report.
Rain had caused postponement on the first day set, Monday, January 7. Two days later snow made the attempt abortive, blowing in the windows all night and lying on the ground several inches deep when we arose, at 4 a. m. At 6 the battalion was harnessed and hitched, ready to start. The ground was so slippery and the winter morning was still so dark that the drivers did not mount, but led their horses. Things went difficultly but regularly until the Third Section piece was leaving the gun park. There was a slight downhill slope; the brakes refused to work; the horses, new to artillery harness, became tangled up, and ended by running away, disappearing from the column into the darkness. Sergeant Newell was having some concern over starting the caisson. When he caught up with the column on the road, he learned his piece was missing. At the call, “Chiefs of sections, report,” he approached the captain, saluted and said:
“Sir, I understand my piece has run away.”
“Understand?” exclaimed the battery commander. “My God, man! Don’t you know?”
The piece had not gone far. The horses had entangled the harness with the pole of a wagon at the end of the gun park, and halted. No damage was done, and a fresh start was made. Out on the road another runaway started, but came to a quick end when a horse fell. To the perseverance of Lieutenant Apperson is due the fact that the piece at last reached the range,—a stretch of trackless snow, with no sign of another gun. The carriage had taken the wrong road, and missed the battalion, which had given up the journey and returned to camp.
Regimental firing succeeded battalion, and brigade succeeded regimental. Hikes, with blanket rolls on the carriages and packs on the men’s backs, were frequent. One of these, through Plantain les Forges and Plelan, took the road along the edge of the forest in which the heroes of the lays of Brittany, according to legend, once lived, and fought, and had high adventures. Other preparations for service at the front followed. With the departure of the 51st Artillery Brigade, of the 26th Division, for the front, we began to look forward to the day when we should entrain.
Late in January we were issued gas masks, both British and French. Sergeant Bolte and Corporal Holton were appointed Gas N. C. O.’s for the battery. On February 6 the men tested their masks in an abri filled with chlorine gas, some coming out just in time to give an exhibition gas-mask drill before our new brigade and divisional commanders, Brigadier-General McKenstrie and Major-General Menoher. An officer from the British army gave us a more vivid acquaintance with the effects of gas in warfare in some lectures at the Y. M. C. A.
After the 51st Brigade had left the camp, the Q. M. details at the railroad station at Guer fell to the 67th Brigade. Until the day of our leaving, our time was thenceforth largely occupied with details which spent the day unloading rations, forage and fuel at Guer. Since these gave the men an opportunity to get meals in the town, and sometimes to spend the evenings there, these details were not unpopular.
Saturday, February 9, following a mounted inspection, in which the regiment was equipped as for the field, we considered ourselves on our way to war. The guard that night began the wearing of steel helmets. Duffle bags were ordered packed. The following evening they were collected, and taken to the railroad station at Guer. Long will the men of Battery E remember the night they were hauled out of bed twice to push the wagons out of the mud, the night they unwittingly gave their last farewell to their duffle bags, which they expected to see so soon, yet were to see again never.
At the end of January, Harry Overstreet, who had been with the battery on the Mexican border, rejoined, after having seen plenty of activity in the vicinity of Verdun with the French Ambulance Service, winning the Croix de Guerre. With him came Franklin Kearfott, who had been in the same unit with him. February 10, Andre Tubach, formerly of France and Woodlawn, also joined Battery E.