“Yes, but I thought Metz was the Germans’ stronghold and a long ways off,” answered O. D.
“Oui. What of it? We’ll take it all right. Wait till this old Yankee army gets loose at ’em.” Jimmy spoke with a confidence which O. D. hadn’t yet learned to grasp.
The day was spent by Jimmy in cleaning and getting Betsy, his faithful Schneider howitzer of 155-millimeter range, in condition for the work that was in store for it. O. D. got a chance to familiarize his fingers and sight with the parts that were henceforth to engage his attention while a member of Jimmy McGee’s gun crew.
A few minutes before supper final moving orders were announced. The regiment was to hike twenty-four kilometers and camouflage in a woody valley near Rupt-en-Woevre.
Jimmy, standing around with O. D. and Neil, hearing the orders, remarked.
“Can you imagine this stuff back in the States? Suppose a guy blew in your office just before supper and told you to grab your typewriter and hike eighteen miles or so. Why, man, you’d throw him down ten flights of stairs. Over here they tell you to load up with a hundred pounds of junk and hike twenty-odd kilometers, and you do it like you was goin’ off to a dance. Don’t know what the hell we’ll do when we do get back.”
CHAPTER XIV—“WELL, WE’RE HERE.”
After the usual amount of orders and rescinding of orders had been accomplished the regiment was lined up in a column of three battalions and awaited the command “forward.”
Just as the sun fell behind the green hills of Verdun and the shadows of night began to fill the valleys a long column of American artillery started rolling toward the lines of the St. Mihiel sector. Jimmy McGee and William G. Preston, alias O. D., loaded down under their equipment and carrying canes, followed behind Betsy, the third piece of Battery C, humming the chorus of “Where Do We Go from Here, Boys?”
It was two o’clock in the morning when the regiment reached its rendezvous in a wooded valley near Rupt-en-Woevre. The sky had become clouded and the early morning was jet black.