2d Platoon, Flavigny, France, 1919.
It was with light hearts, then, that we pulled out of Lattre St. Quentin on a beautiful summer morning, at 10 o’clock, August 20th. It was only an 8 mile hike to Tinques, a rail head on the Arras road. We turned into a big held and I halted the battalion while I went to find the R. T. O. in charge of entraining.
All was bustle and hurry. Things were being rushed through in the American fashion. Nobody knew where the R. T. O. was; everybody was too busy to know anything. At last I saw Lt. Gibbs on top of a flat car loading wagons. He shouted that our train was across the platform and was due to leave in 20 minutes. I dashed back to the battalion, hurried it across the tracks, entrained them and sure enough the train pulled out just as I got the outfit aboard. As I was finishing, a dapper U. S. Major of the Division Inspector’s Dept. toddled up and said it was the worst entraining he had ever seen, and why weren’t the men marched up to the cars in column of squads? I saluted the boob wearily and swung aboard just as the train pulled out.
Now came our longest rail journey in France. For two days we bowled along pretty steadily. We swung around by St. Pol, with a farewell glimpse of our old billet, and then south, through Amiens, up to the outskirts of Paris. Hearts beat high, and had the train stopped for five minutes at a likely looking place, I was prepared to see the battalion make a break for la vie Parisienne. The only stop, however, was for a few minutes to get routing orders from a business-like French R. T. O. From these orders I learned that our destination was Passavant. It might as well have been Timbuctoo for all that meant to me; but I had learned by this time that these French trains, with all their misery and sin, did get you to the proper place at last, so I didn’t worry.
The houses of Paris fell behind, and we rolled east along the famous Marne river. At Haute Creuse and St. Pol we had read in the Paris editions of the “New York Herald” and “Daily Mail” of the desperate fighting along here in July, in which the mettle of our American regulars and marines had been put to so stern a test; and the next morning, a beautiful, bright day it was, too, we began to pass through towns whose names were yet ringing all over the world. The familiar signs of nearing the front began to appear—the roofless houses, shell holes, and so on. Then we began to see debris lying about—discarded bits of equipment and uniform, empty bandoliers, then here and there a new grave, marked by a helmet, and sometimes a little cross. Presently we went right through Chateau Thierry—one of the first trains since the battle. From our cars we saw the little firing posts that the Americans had scratched out in the side of the railroad embankment. Here and there a grave showed where one had died where he fought. Some German helmets over graves on the south side of the river showed where perhaps some of the enemy had gotten across before they fell under the fire of the Springfields.
But the most impressive and inspiring sight of all to Americans were the hills that stretched up to the North of the river. A long steep, smooth, stretch broken only enough to allow of cover for reserves and machine guns—a position that looked absolutely impregnable if defended by modern weapons. And up these heights, defended by the flower of the German army, flushed with recent success, our countrymen had swept forward, carried the position, and hurled the foe back. It must have been some scrap.
The Marne here is about as large as a good-sized American creek. There were quite a few dead horses and men still bobbing around in it. The countryside had not been under fire for very long, compared to the Arras section; some crops were still standing, and a few people at work reaping them already. I am sorry to say that one of our men was thoughtless enough to grab a pile of new cut hay from a field during a stop. I happened to see him and of course he put it back, and got a summary out of it. I mention this to remind you that in most of our trouble with the French peasants we were at fault to some extent. Of course, it isn’t pleasant to sleep for several nights on the floor of a jolting cattle car. But neither is it enjoyable for poor Jacques to see his hay miraculously preserved from the H. E.’s, laboriously gathered, and then have a doughboy coolly annex it and roll away in a train.
We rolled on through the sunny August day, east to Chalons-sur-Marne, then southeast, away from the battle front. Night came on, and dragged along toward dawn. At about 2:00 A. M. we stopped at a little way station for hot coffee, ready for us in great G. I. boilers. The French corporal in charge of the station gave me a cup out of his own private pot, cooking over a smelly little oil stove, thick as mud, black as night, reeking with cognac, altogether very satisfactory. I wished every man could have had such a shot.
Early in the morning we passed the walled heights of Chaumont, A. E. F. headquarters. On past the picturesque battlements of Langres, centre of the Army Schools; then east again. The country was more rugged and less highly cultivated. Here was a place where one might get off the road without stepping on Jacques’ garden. It looked more like home. The woods were sure enough ones, not little, severely confined, neatly trimmed groves such as they had in the north, with every tree numbered and recorded.
Best of all, we were in the American sector. The M. P.’s at the stations were doughboys instead of Tommies or poilus. Here an American ambulance hustled along the road; there a good old 3-ton Q. M. truck lumbered along. Overseas caps were sprinkled about the stations. No more now of “What is the name of this bally station, old top?,” and “Kesky eessy, Mossure.” We could yell: “Say, buddy, what t’ell burg’s this?” like civilized persons.