"Ah! You have an enviable reputation," was the reply from the man in the car. "I should like to lunch with your division today."
Which he thereupon proceeded to do. As the car passed on, a group of very red-faced private soldiers looked each other in the eye in a startled way and one voiced the thought of all when he said:
"And that was General Pershing! And he spoke to us! Gee!"
The 103d Engineers again were covering themselves with glory in this Argonne drive. Time after time they were sent out to repair existing roads and construct new ones, often working right on the heels of the infantry, for only after they had performed their work could supplies be brought up to the fighting troops and the artillery maintain position to continue the barrage in advance of the infantry and machine gunners.
The 103d Supply Train, too, performed its work under incredible difficulties. Doughboys rarely thought to give a word of praise to the men of the big camions. More often their comment was: "Gee! Pretty soft for you fellows, riding around in a high-powered truck while we slog through the mud!"
But to those who knew of the trying night drives in utter darkness over roads which not only were torn to tatters already by shells, but which were subject at any time to renewed shelling; of the long stretches without sleep or food or drink; of the struggles with motors and other parts of the trucks which fell heir to every kind of trouble such things are liable to under great stress—only to that understanding few, and to the supply chaps themselves, were their activities regarded as subject for praiseful comment. Had the supply train "fallen down on the job" and "chow" not been ready at every opportunity—which truly were few and far enough between—Oh, then the doughboys would have howled in execration at their brothers of the big lorries.
The same kind of credit was due as much and given as rarely to the 103d Ammunition Train, which kept all the fighting men supplied without stint and without break with the necessary powder and steel to keep the Hun on the run.
Even the men of the four field hospitals found themselves nearer the front than such organizations usually go. So well had the plans been laid for that opening assault that it was realized the hospitals would have to be well forward to avoid too long a carry for the wounded after the first rush had carried our men well beyond their "jumping-off-place."
The hospitals took position during the night and erected their tents, so they would not be subject to air bombing before the attack and so their presence would not betray the concentration of forces. French officers who passed along the American front inspecting it the night before the assault were amazed at this concentration, and so were the field hospital men when the bombardment was started and they found themselves far ahead of the big guns. In the morning they discovered, to their astonishment, that they had been thrust in between the first line of infantry and the support.
Throughout the Argonne fighting, as they had done from the beginning of the division's activities, they performed their work in as thorough and capable a manner as did any of the organizations in the division, and found their chief recompense in the gratitude of the wounded and suffering who passed through their hands.