“I came to about four o’clock in the afternoon and we started to hunt somethin’ to eat, naturally. Everybody was damn curious to know just where the front was. Nobody seemed to know just exactly what way to take to get to it and to our positions. You see, we were to relieve the French. There was nothin’ else to do but wait ’round.
“Finally, two days later, three French officers came over and got the Cap to go off with them to reconnoiter. He came back that night and told us that we would move the guns into position next day.
“Next night we took the four pieces and everythin’ needed to fight the guerre with and hit for the front. You can imagine us goin’ to the front for the first time. Lots of the boys was expectin’ a battle before we got up there and other guys kept lookin’ for dead men or wounded. It was the same as walkin’ to church on Sunday. We got to the front without knowin’ it.
“‘Here we are,’ says the skipper, and he halted the column on the side of a road. The top-sergeant thought he was tryin’ to fool us and asked him what the halt was for. ‘Do you want to go out in No Man’s Land?’ asked the Cap. To tell the truth, it was hard for any of us to believe that we were at the front. You’ll find that the front ain’t what it’s cracked up to be, in a way.
“We put the guns in four positions that had already been built by the French and camouflaged ’em with a lot of nettin’. When I saw ’em in daylight I thought I was lookin’ at a scene in a theater. The gun positions was right on the road, mind you—any one passin’ could see ’em, and I thought that we would hide the things ’way down in some kind of a mysterious valley, or somethin’ like that.
“Our homes were ’way down under the earth, dug-outs they call ’em. No chance much to keep warm in dug-outs, and two men couldn’t pass each other in ’em, they was so narrow. We cushayed on wooden planks. Every thing, kitchens, officers’ quarters, and all, were down in dug-outs. When you did get upon the ground you had to be mighty careful as there was beaucoup shell-holes. The fields looked as if they had the smallpox—and it was hard to keep from fallin’ into them shell-holes.
“After foolin’ around with the old army stuff of changin’ orders a hundred times a day we put over our first shots by registerin’ on a brewery that the Germans was supposed to live in. Before I forget it let me tell you one of the funniest things about fronts. Our guns pointed one way and the front was in another, or almost that bad, anyway. I kept thinkin’ the lines was out beyond the muzzles of our pieces, but the Cap said that it was off to the right more and that if we walked that way we’d most likely run into the Germans’ first-line trenches. Sure was a puzzle to me for a long time.
“Well, can’t say that there was any too much excitement up on the old Cheman de Damns front (Chemin des Dames) except the mornin’ that Jimmy Leach, our cook, made real biscuits. It’s a wonder the Heinies didn’t hear us hollerin’ and come over, we made so much fuss over those biscuits. Then there was hell to pay after we put over a big barrage once. You compree barrages, don’t you, that’s when all the big and little guns start popping off at once accordin’ to some kind of a schedule and generally the doughboys go over under the barrage to attack the Boche trenches. You see, before we got up there the Boches and French were fightin’ the guerre like this, ‘You don’t shoot and I won’t.’ We changed that argument toot sweet by startin’ in with barrages and raids. Naturally the Germans got mad and came back at us. That made the French hotter than hell. A general came right over to our general and said it had to be stopped. No wonder the guerre ain’t ended. As we was under the French command we had to do accordin’ to orders.
“You might think that we got into the ways of the guerre with an awful jolt. But we didn’t. It just came to us gradual like. We got used to the whine of a shell and got so we could tell when they was comin’ and goin’. There wasn’t many casualties. Few fellows got bumped off in the infantry on raidin’ parties. We lost a couple or so in the artillery.
“I saw my first dead man, killed in the guerre, about three weeks after goin’ in the line. Fragments of a shell had hit him in two or three places. He was messed up all over one side of the road. I couldn’t tell much if he was a man or mule, the way he was scattered ’round. A fellow standin’ near said it was Bill Rand, a lad I used to sleep in the same tent with at Boxford. Course I was sorry for poor Bill, but it didn’t worry me much. Never thought of it anymore—that’s the way it’s been for all the boys. Just got used to takin’ the guerre as it came along.