A constantly recurring source of trouble were the rabbits. The rabbits in all French country families are a sort of Lares and Penates. You find them in hutches around the houses, wandering in the barns, hopping about the kitchens, and, last but by no means least, in savory stews. I don't maintain for a moment that none of my men ever took a rabbit; I simply maintain that it would be a physical impossibility for these men to have eaten the number of rabbits they were accused of eating. Every little while in each town some peasant would come before me with a complaint, the gist of which was that the men had eaten a dozen or so rabbits. With great dignity I would say that I would have the matter investigated. The man would then suggest that I come and count the rabbits in the village, so that I would know if any were missing. I would explain in my best French that from a long and accurate knowledge of rabbits, gathered through years when, as a boy, I kept them in quantities, counting rabbits one day did not mean that there would be the same number the next day.
Eventually we adopted the scheme of making some officer claim adjuster. After this it was smooth sailing for me. I simply would tell the mayor that Lieutenant Barrett would adjust the matter under dispute, and from then on Lieutenant Barrett battled with the aggrieved. He told me once he thought he was going to be murdered by a little woman, who kept an inn, over a log of wood that the men had used for the company kitchen. Several times persons offered to go shares with him on what he was able to get for them from the government.
In this part of France there was quite a little wild life. Sail-winged hawks were constantly soaring over the meadows. Coveys of European partridges were quite plentiful. Among the other birds the magpie and the skylark were the most noticeable, the former ubiquitous with his flamboyant contrast of black and white, the latter a constant source of delight, with clear song and graceful spirals. The largest wild animal was the boar. There were quite a number of these throughout the woods. As a rule, they were not large, and there was, so far as I could find out, no attempt made to preserve them. We would scare them up while maneuvering. They are good eating, and occasionally we would organize a hunt. The French Daniel Boone, of Boviolles, was a delightful old fellow. When going on a hunt he would put on a bright blue coat, a green hat, and sling a silver horn over his shoulders, resembling for all the world the huntsman in Slovenly Peter.
During August a number of the field officers were sent on their first trip to the trenches. I was among them. We went by truck to Nancy, a charming little city, known as the Paris of northern France. At this time the Huns had not started their air raids on it, which drove much of the population away and reduced the railroad station to ruins. Round it cling many historic memories; near by was fought the battle between Charles the Bold, of Burgundy, and Louis XI, in which feudalism was struck its death blow; on the hills to the north the Kaiser stood at the commencement of this war, when the German troops were flowing over France, seemingly resistless.
From Nancy we went to the Pont-à-Mousson sector, where we spent a day with French officers of the corresponding grade. This was a rest sector, and there was little to indicate that war was raging. Occasionally a shell would whistle over, and if you exposed yourself too much some Hun might take a shot at you with a rifle.
Pont-à-Mousson, the little French village, was literally in the French front lines, and yet a busy life was going on there. There I bought cigarettes, and around the arcade of the central square business was much as usual. A bridge spanned the river right by the town, where everyone crossing was in plain view of the Germans. The French officers explained to me that so long as only small parties crossed by it the Germans paid no attention, but if columns of troops or trucks used it shelling started at once. In the same way the French did not shell, except under exceptional circumstances, the villages in the German forward area.
On a high hill overlooking Pont-à-Mousson were the ruins of an old castle built by the De Guises. In old days it was the key to the ford where the bridge now stands. It was being used as an observation post by the French. I crawled up into its ivy-draped, crumbling tower, and through a telescope looked far back of the German lines, where I saw the enemy troops training in open order and two German officers on horseback superintending.
In the trenches where the soldiers were there were vermin and rats and mud to the waist. There I made my first acquaintance with the now justly famous "cootie."
During this night I went on my first patrol. No Man's Land was very broad, and deep fields of wire surrounded the trenches. The patrol finished without incident. The only casualty in the vicinity while I was on this front was a partridge, which was hit on the head by a fragment of shell, and which the French major and I ate for dinner and enjoyed very much. We returned to our training area by the same way we came. The principal knowledge we had gained besides general atmosphere was relative to the feeding of men in trenches.
These were the primitive days of our army in France. We being the first troops who had arrived, received a very large proportion of the attention of General Pershing and his staff. The General once came out to look over the Twenty-sixth Infantry, and stopped in front of the redoubtable Sergeant Murphy and his platoon. Now, Sergeant Murphy could stand with equanimity as high an officer as a colonel, but a general was one too many. He was not afraid of a machine gun or a cannon, but a star on a man's shoulder petrified him. After the General had watched for a minute, the good sergeant had his platoon tied up in thirteen different ways. The General spoke to him. That finished it; and if the General had not left the field, I think Sergeant Murphy would have.