3. Cleaning out the stable, chicken house, or barn, with voluble protests from f. F. p.
4. Making sundry discoveries during the first night.
5. Pitching pup tents in nearest field.
We got permission to use a field about 100 yards square for a drill ground and two platoons pitched pup tents there.
The first night a few of the boys became slightly excited over the privilege of visiting the estaminets, and tried to drink up all the vin rouge and cognac at once. The consequence was that the dispensers of good cheer were put under the ban for several days.
Now the training of the company began in earnest. The majority of the men had had only the most hasty smattering of the elements of squad drill; many could not shoulder arms properly. Two platoons would use the drill field while two drilled on the roads outside. The training schedules called for a good nine-hour day of drill and ceremonies, varied occasionally by short practice hikes by company or battalion.
Lewis guns were issued to us here. A few officers and n. c. o.’s had taken courses in the use of this weapon at Camp Dix; company and battalion schools were at once started, the latter conducted by Scottish n. c. o.’s from the 14th H. L. I.
In addition, there were battalion, regimental and corps schools for bayonet, gas defense, liaison (for the runners), bombing, rifle grenade, musketry and several more. From this time until we left France there were always a number of men away at schools. Of course this was necessary, but it broke up the training of the company as a whole. Also, we were brigaded with the British, and some men would go to a British school and qualify as instructors, only to come back and find that the American system was being used, and vice versa. Both systems might have their good points, and did have, but the rate at which orders and instructions and ways of doing things changed from day to day was enough to bewilder old hands at this game; and we were greenhorns.
“Jimmy” Johnston helped a lot. He was in command of what was left of the 14th battalion, Highland Light Infantry—about four squads. Of medium height, rather stocky build, with a bonny, handsome face and bright blue eyes under his Scotch cap, Jimmy was one of the finest fellows and best officers that ever stepped. He had been through the Gallipoli expedition, and two years on the Western front; had been reported killed in action, and gone home on leave to be greeted as one risen from the dead.
Jimmy had been through the mill. He knew. Always with a word of encouragement, to avoid dampening our American energy, he would help along with quiet hints and canny suggestions that were worth their weight in gold. When we came staggering along under heavy packs, he said nothing, but strolled along with his little cane and admired the landscape. When orders would come in thick and fast, each one contradicting the last, and all to be executed at once, Jimmy would intimate verra, verra cautiously, that if we used our own judgment we should get along somehow, and that C. O’s and chiefs of staff had to keep themselves busy, and what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt ’em. Like most Scotch officers he seemed to live mostly on whiskey, and throve on the diet.