The 110th was relieved, and dropped back for a rest of two days, August 1st and 2d. The men were nervous and "fidgety," to quote one of the officers, for the first time since their first "bath of steel," south of the Marne. Both nights they were supposed to be resting they were shelled and bombed from the air continuously, and both days were put in at the "camions sanitaire," or "delousing machines," where each man got a hot bath and had his clothes thoroughly disinfected and cleaned.
Thus, neither night nor day could be called restful by one who was careful of his English, although the baths probably did more to bolster up the spirits of the men than anything else that could have happened to them. Anyway, when the two-day period was ended and the regiment again set off for the north, headed for the Vesle and worse things than any that had gone before, it marched away whistling and singing, with apparently not a care in the world.
It was about this time that the first of the Pennsylvania artillery, one battalion of the 107th Regiment, came into the zone of operations, and soon its big guns began to roar back at the Germans in company with the French and other American artillery.
The guns and their crews had troubles of their own in forging to the front, although most of it was of a kind they could look back on later with a laugh, and not the soul-trying, mind-searing experiences of the infantry.
The roads that had been so hard for the foot soldiers to traverse were many times worse for the big guns. The 108th, for instance, at one time was twelve hours in covering eight miles of road.
When it came to crossing the Marne, in order to speed up the crossing, the regiment was divided, half being sent farther up the river. When night fell, it was learned that the half that had crossed lower down had the field kitchen and no rations and the other half had all the rations and no field kitchen to cook them. Other organizations came to the rescue in both instances.
At six o'clock one evening, not yet having had evening mess, the regiment was ordered to move to another town, which it reached at nine o'clock. Men and horses had been settled down for the night by ten o'clock and, as all was quiet, the officers went to the village. There they found an innkeeper bemoaning the fact that, just as he had gotten a substantial meal ready for the officers of another regiment, they had been ordered away, and the food was all ready, with nobody to eat it.
The hungry officers looked over the "spread." There was soup, fried chicken, cold ham, string beans, peas, sweet potatoes, jam, bread and butter, and wine. They assured the innkeeper he need worry no further about losing his food, and promptly took their places about the table. The first spoonfuls of soup just were being lifted when an orderly entered, bearing orders for the regiment to move on at once. They were under way again, the officers still hungry, by 11.45 o'clock, and marched until 6.30 A. M., covering thirty kilometres, or more than eighteen miles.
The 103d Ammunition Train also had come up now, after experiences that prepared it somewhat for what was to come later. For instance, when delivering ammunition to a battery under heavy shellfire, a detachment of the train had to cross a small stream on a little, flat bridge, without guard rails. A swing horse of one of the wagons became frightened when a shell fell close by. The horse shied and plunged over the edge, wedging itself between the bridge and a small footbridge alongside.
The stream was in a small valley, quite open to enemy fire, and for the company to have waited while the horse was gotten out would have been suicidal. So the main body passed on and the caisson crew and drivers, twelve men in all, were left to pry the horse out. For three hours they worked, patiently and persistently, until the frantic animal was freed.