A major in that same village who had had a cavalry command before the cavalry, as he put it, became "mere messengers," picked his quarters out himself, on the strength of all he had heard about "Sunny France." His house was nothing much, but behind it was a garden—a long garden, filled with vegetables, decorated with roses, shaded by fruit-trees. At the far end of the garden was a summer-house, in a circle of trees. Here the major took his first guests and showed how he intended to do his work in the open air, while the famous French sunshine flooded his garden and warmed his little refuge.
The one thing it will never be safe to say to any veteran of the First Division is "Sunny France." The summer of 1917, after a blazing start in June, settled down to drizzle and mist, cold and fog, rain that soaked to the marrow.
The major with the garden sloshed around the whole summer, visiting men who had settled indoors and had fireplaces. By the time the warmth had come back to his summer-house it was time for him to go up to the battle-line, and the man who writes a history of the billets in France will get a lot of help from him.
Some of the makeshifts of this first invasion were excusable and inevitable. Some were not. After the first two or three weeks of settling in, General Pershing made a tour of inspection, and some of the things he said about what he saw didn't make good listening. But after that visit all possible defects were overcome, and the men slept well, ate well, were as well clothed as possible, and were admirably sanitated.
The drinking-water was a matter for the greatest strictness. The French never drink water on any provocation, so that water provisions began from the ground up.
It was drawn into great skins and hung on tripods in the shaded parts of the billets, and it was then treated with a germicide, tasteless fortunately, carried in little glass capsules. This was a legacy from experiences in Panama.
Each man had his own tin cup, and when he got thirsty he went down and turned the faucet in the hanging skin tank. If he drank any other water he repented in the guard-house.
So, though the billets were rude and sometimes uncomfortable, the soldiers did stay in them and out of the hospitals.
And there were compensations.
Half of these were in play-times, and half in work-times. The training, slow at first, speeded up afterward and, with the help of the "Blue Devils" who trained with the Americans, took on all the exhilaration of war with none of its dangers. But how they trained doesn't belong in a chapter on billets. How they played is more suitable.