SONGS
FOUR
“SWEET AD-O-LINE”
There were places like this down in the Touraine country, around the town Americans called St. Onion. Canals with poplars mirrored in them, where it was pleasant to loaf at the end of the day. The women were kindly and disposed to make friends; it is a pity that there were not enough to go around. They had, also, an eye for corporals and sergeants; the bored privates on the bank, sentimental souls, are singing “Sweet Ad-o-line....” or it may be something very different. The sergeant, a sensitive spirit, will presently see that they get some Extra Police Duty.
V
THE RHINE
V
THE RHINE
The bugles went while it was still as dark as the inside of a dog. There was swearing and sickly yellow candle-light in the billets, mean houses in a mean little Rhine-Province town, and the chow lines formed on the company galleys in an icy December rain. The rain pattered on helmets and mess-kits, and fell in slanting lines through the smoky circles of light where the cooking-fires burned feebly. The faces of the Marines, as they filed out of the dark for food, were gray and frowsy. The cooks issued corn-bill hash, and dared any man to growl on the coffee. How the hell could it be biled enough, with wet wood and very little of that—been up all night as it is—you sports just pull in your necks! The companies gulped their ration in sullen silence, rolled damp blankets into the prescribed pack, and when the bugles squawked assembly, they fell in without confusion or enthusiasm. Platoon sergeants, with flash-lights or lanterns, called the rolls; somewhere out in front, first-sergeants received the reports; officers clumped along the lines to their units, grumbling.—“All here, first sergeant?”—“Beg the capt’n’s pardon—couldn’t see you in the dark, sir—all present-counted-for, sir!—” “Nice day for a hike. Major says, goin’ to the Rhine to-day. Eighteen or twenty kilomets—don’t know exactly. Dam’ such a war! I’d like the old kind, where you went into winter quarters—Brrr—” The captain pulled his collar around his ears.
Presently a bad-tempered drawling voice bayed “Squads right—march!—” There was a shuffle of hobnails in the mud, and the rattle of rifle-slings. The 1st Battalion of the 5th Marines took the road.
These German roads were all honestly metalled, but the inch or so of mud on the surface was like soup underfoot, and the overcoats soaked up the rain like blotting-paper. It was the kind of a morning with no line between night and daylight. The blackness turned to gray, and, after a while, the major, on his horse, could look back and see the end of his column. The battalion, he reflected, was up to strength again. It hadn’t been this large since it went to Blanc Mont, the end of September. He shut his eyes on that thought—a hundred and thirty men that came out, where a thousand went in—then replacements, and, after the Armistice, more replacements. Perhaps the quality was running down a little. The new chaps didn’t seem as tall and broad as the old men, the tall, sunburnt leathernecks that went out the road from Meaux, toward Château-Thierry, in the spring. Odd, just six months since the spring.... But a few veterans and hard drilling between fights would keep the temper in an outfit ... one remembered a phrase in an order of the division commander’s—“The 2d Division has never failed to impose its will upon the enemy....” And to-day it crossed the German Rhine.... He swung out of his saddle and stood by the road to watch them pass; 1,200 men, helmets and rifles gleaming a little in the wet gray light....