CHAPTER VII
THE TOUL SECTOR
Orders on the morning of March 30 sent the Battalion to Trampot, about fifteen kilometers away. There Easter Sunday was spent in the rain, which had prevailed for two days, as was customary when the organization moved.
On April 1 the men with their guns and ammunition were loaded into trains of motor trucks for the trip to the front, the carts and kitchen having started the journey by road the previous day.
The route of the trucks lay through Neufchateau, center of the 26th Division training area, Domremy, the birthplace of Joan of Arc, to Boucq, divisional headquarters for the new area, which was known as the sector of Boucq, or Foret de La Reine to the French authorities, but more commonly called the Toul sector because of its location northwest of that ancient city. In the trenches of this part of the line long, tedious days were spent, broken by weary hikes through the mud to a rest camp for a day or so, only to pack and return to another section. The experience gained in becoming accustomed to shell fire, getting the most out of meager protection afforded and observation of enemy tactics, proved its value in the lives it saved when the Company went into action later in the year.
After landing in Boucq the men were assigned to barracks near the village. The cooks who had started with the wagon train from Vesaignes failed to put in an appearance but culinary talent was not lacking, and Ackerman and Parmalee prepared the meals until the kitchen arrived. Orders were confused during the following two days and it was not till the morning of April 3 that directions were received sending the Company northwest of Broussey at the extreme left of the sector occupied by the 51st Brigade. Ammunition and equipment were carried to the front on the narrow gauge railroad from Broussey, to which point the Company was transported in trucks.
Rain added to the difficulties of finding a way through the heavily wooded swamp. Confronting the men on their way to the positions assigned the three mile hike from Broussey was one of the worst trips in their experience. Continually in the mud, sometimes over their boots and dropping every few yards into shallow creeks crossing their path, forcing their way through passages overgrown with underbrush and stumbling over broken duck-boards, the men, nearly exhausted, finally reached the wooden shacks used as shelters. Just two days late, they relieved the 1st Division unit which had been languidly fulfilling the necessary duties of the sector.
Partly protected wooden and iron huts described by Lieutenant Nelson as being "shell-proof until a shell hits one of them," were distributed about a central point in the Bois de Besombois and here the entire Company, with the exception of "mule-skinners" and other members of the train section, was quartered. Two hundred yards distant was the front line located in another wood designated Bouqueteau. To the right of these positions in the direction of Pont à Mousson for a distance of fourteen kilometers the 51st Brigade held the line, while to the left for ten kilometers the 52d Brigade with the remaining units of the 26th Division occupied the trenches, its left resting within a comparatively short distance of St. Mihiel.
In this sector there were but few trenches, as the character of the ground made it impractical for the enemy to attempt much of an advance in this direction. It was protected on the right by marshy lakes and on the left by strong defenses on higher ground. To the right could be seen the forbidding German stronghold of Montsec, with Xivray and Seicheprey in the distance, later the scenes of the earliest actions in which American units participated, while on the left was the Apremont region, where the 104th Infantry Regiment won distinction repulsing a German raid.