Some little time before the American troops first went into the trenches, the marines were scattered into small detachments for police duty. Many of them have since been brought together again. There is, of course, a good deal of stuff and nonsense in stories about soldiers saying, "We want to get a crack at them," and all that, but it is literally and exactly true that the marines, both officers and men, were deeply disappointed when they could not go to the front with the others. Their professional pride was hurt.
Still they did not whine, but went about their traditional police work with vigor. I was in a base hospital one day when a doughboy came in all gory about the head. "What happened to you?" a doctor asked. "A marine told me to button up my overcoat," said the doughboy, "and I started to argue with him."
There are not many American army songs yet, but the marines did not wait until the war for theirs. Most of it I have forgotten, but one of the stunning couplets of the chorus is:
| If the army or the navy ever gaze on heaven's scenes |
| They will find the streets are guarded by United States Marines. |
CHAPTER XI
FIELD PIECES AND BIG GUNS
WAR seemed less remote in the artillery camp than in any other section of the American training area for the roar of the guns filled the air every morning and they sounded just as ominous as if they were in earnest. They were firing in the direction of Germany at that, but it was a good many score of miles out of range. Just the same the French were particular about the point. "We always point the guns toward Germany even in practice if we can," said a French instructing officer, "it's just as well to start right."
The camp consisted of a number of brick barracks and the soldiers and officers were well housed. It was located in wild country, though, where it was possible to find ranges up to twelve thousand yards. Scrubby woods covered part of the ranges and the observation points towered up a good deal higher than would be safe at the front. We went through the woods the morning after our arrival and heard a perfect bedlam of fire from the guns. There was the sharp decisive note of the seventy-five which speaks quickly and in anger and the more deliberate boom of the one hundred and fifty-five howitzer. This was a colder note but it was none the less ominous. It had an air of premeditated wrath about it. The shell from the seventy-five might get to its destination first but the one hundred and fifty-five would create more havoc upon arrival. A sentry warned us to take the left hand road at a fork in the woods and presently we came upon one of the observation towers. It was crammed with officers armed with field glasses. Every now and then they would write things on paper. They seemed like so many reporters at a baseball game recording hits and errors. When we got to the top of the tower we found that large maps were part of the equipment as well as field glasses. These were wonderfully accurate maps with every prominent tree and church spire and house top indicated. The officers were ranging from the maps. The French theory of artillery work was not new to the American officers, but this was almost the first chance they had ever had to work it out for we have no maps in America suitable for ranging.
According to theory the battery should first fire short and then long and then split the bracket and land upon the target or thereabouts. The men had not been working long and they were still a little more proficient in firing short or long than in splitting the bracket. Later the American artillery gave a very good account of itself at the school. The French instructors told one particular battery that they were able to fire the seventy-five faster than it had ever been fired in France before. Perhaps there was just a shade of the over-statement of French politeness in that, but it was without doubt an excellent battery. In the lulls between fire could be heard the drone of aeroplanes for a number of officers were flying to learn the principles of aerial observation in its uses for fire control. Turning around we could also see a large captive balloon. All the junior officers were allowed to express a preference as to which branch of artillery work they preferred and, although observation is the most dangerous of all, fully seventy-five per cent, of the men indicated it as their choice.
Some American officers in other sections of the training area came to the conclusion in time that we should go to the English for instruction in some of the phases of modern warfare. We did in fact turn to the English finally for bayonet instruction and a certain number of officers thought that the English would also be useful to us in bombing, but I never heard any question raised but that we must continue to go to the French for instruction in field artillery until such time as we had schools of our own.