But while their own training was unusually long drawn out, they were being schooled in the most intensive methods in use in either French or British Army. It was an unending matter for disgust to the doughboy that it took him so long to learn to hurry.
CHAPTER VII
SPEEDING UP
WHILE the soldiers were still, figuratively speaking, in their own trenches and learning the several arts of getting out, the officers of the infantry camp were having some special instructions in instructing.
Young captains and lieutenants were placed in command of companies of the Blue Devils, and told to put them through their paces—in French.
It was, of course, a point of honor with the officers not to fall back into English, even in an emergency. One particularly nervous young man, who had ordered his French platoon to march to a cliff some distance away, forgot the word for "Halt" or "Turn around" as the disciplined Blue Devils, eyes straight ahead, marched firmly down upon their doom. At the very edge, while the American clinched his sticky palms and wondered what miracle would save him, a helpful French officer called "Halte," and the American suddenly remembered that the word was the same in both languages—an experience revoltingly frequent with Americans in distress with their French.
But disasters such as this were not numerous. The officers worked excellently, at French as well as soldiering, and little precious time was needed for them.
Three battalions were at work at this first training—two American and one French. As these learned their lessons, they were put forward to the next ones, and new troops began at the beginning. This plan was thoroughly organized at the very beginning, so that the later enormous influx of troops did not disrupt it, and as the first Americans came nearer to the perfection they were after, they were put back to leaven the raw troops as the French Blue Devils had done for the first of them.
The plan further meant that after the first few weeks, what with beginners in the First Division and newly arriving troops, the Vosges fields offered instruction at almost anything along the programme on any given day.
Over the whole camp, the aim of the French officers was to reproduce actual battle conditions as absolutely as possible, and to eliminate, within reason, any advantage that surprise might give to the Germans.
By the end of the first week in August, the best scholars among the trench-diggers and bombers were being shown how to clean out trenches with live grenades, and the machine-gunners and marksmen were getting good enough to be willing to bet their own money on their performances.