“So this is the Rhine,” remarked the battalion. “Hell!” A few files were interested. A lank Texan said: “I don’t see much to make a fuss about. You boys ever see the Trinity in overflow time? Ten miles from bank to bank, in the McKenzie Bend country—why, we’d call this a creek down where I come from—” “Naw, it ain’t much river—an’ no more is your dam’ Trinity! I was raised in Sent Louie—Ole Miss’sip’, now—” “Well, rivers in this country are mainly over-touted. That Marne, it wouldn’t be much more’n a branch, down South. I never saw that there Vesle River, but a guy in the 32d Division, that was with me in Neuilly, he says you could mighty near jump across it.” “Heard anything about chow?—Galleys went on ahead awhile ago—when do we eat——”
For four years no hostile troops with arms in their hands had seen this river; only sad files of prisoners had crossed it, under German guard. The battalion turned right on the eastern bank and went up the river, on a broad road between a cliff and the swift black water. There were many houses, a continuous town. It was past noon of a Friday, the 13th December, and the Boche school-children were out. They gathered to look at the passing column. The Marines eyed them keenly. These kids were different. They did not point or talk or cry out, after the manner of children. They stood in stolid groups, wooden-faced, with unwinking pale-blue eyes. The boys were nearly all in field-gray uniform cloth—cut down, perhaps, from the cast-off clothes of an elder. Some of them wore boots and round soldier-caps. They carried books and lunch-boxes, knapsack fashion, on their shoulders.—“Look, will you—that kid there ain’t more’n a yearlin’, and they’ve got him in heavy marchin’ order a’ready!” “Yeh,—they start ’em early—that’s howcome they’re the way they are—these Boche.” There were round-faced little girls with straw-colored braids, in cloaks. They did not look poorly fed, like the waxen-faced children the battalion remembered in France. And at every corner there were more of them. The battalion was impressed.—“Say—you see all those kids—all those little square-heads! Hundreds of ’em, I’ll swear! Something’s got to be done about these people. I tell you, these Boche are dangerous! They have too many children——”
They stood in stolid groups, wooden-faced.
“I tell you, these Boche are dangerous! They have too many children.”
The 1st Battalion of the Rhine—5th Marines took the road.
SONGS
FIVE
“LONG BOY”
One of the very few soldier songs that survived the Atlantic voyage—although it suffered some sea change—was “Long Boy.” It ran (with variations):