Then we again donned our equipment, and plashed down the sloppy road on weary feet. The night was very dark, and the road, as usual, jammed with transport, our kitchens among others. As we threaded our way through, we got mixed up somehow with a company of Marines going in the same direction. Finally the jam thinned out, and we turned off on another road, though we had to sort out B company and the Marines almost man by man. And so we plodded on.
It is remarkable how much a man can do after he thinks he is all in. We picked ’em up and put ’em down for three hours. At last we drew near some woods. Our orders were to proceed to Bois d’Euvezin and bivouac, and show no lights. Well, we couldn’t see a map, and didn’t know where we were on one anyhow, so this wood looked pretty good. At any rate, we turned off the road and headed for it.
Easy enough for a staff officer to look at a map and say, “Bivouac in these woods.” Unfortunately, there was a 30 foot belt of wire fringing this particular one. Orders are orders, though, so we scrambled through somehow, and pushed in far enough to hide from any further marching orders that night. Then we flopped down, any place at all, and dropped off.
It seemed but a couple of minutes before the sun came prying through the leaves and under my eyelids. I rolled over, and saw Lt. Col. Budd, sitting up with his back against a tree, wrapped in his trench coat—no better off than we were. Right away my morale went up.
An American outfit is never so weary that it doesn’t furnish a few inquisitive souls. Already curiosity was driving the doughboys out of the woods, by two’s and three’s, to see what was around. Just over a knoll they found a little fragment of history. A German machine gun, cunningly camouflaged; across it the body of a big “Feldwebel,” or German top sergeant, with a bayonet wound through his body; a couple of yards away a dead Marine, riddled with machine gun bullets, still grasping his rifle with the bloody bayonet fixed.
At 9 A. M. the outfit was rounded up, and we were off again. As we plugged along the road in column of squads we thought with some disgust of the night marches we had made a hundred kilos behind the lines. Fortunately this hike was short. In an hour we entered another and larger wood, the Bois d’Euvezin sure enough, this time. Here we found the rest of the brigade, and bivouacked in the woods just off the road.
The woods were full of German dugouts, evacuated by the enemy only a day or so before. Most of these were preempted by various headquarters. We settled down to make the most of our rest. For a wonder the sun was out; and despite the mud under foot, we were soon fairly warm and dry—and oh, how hungry! It was well along in the afternoon before the water carts pulled in, though, and we got our hot slum and coffee.
The Y. M. C. A. kicked through with a canteen, and after some trouble in keeping the men from mobbing the place, crackers, chocolate and tobacco were sold.
That night our gas training blossomed forth again. The Boche dropped a couple of shells around and our over-anxious sentries promptly bawled “Gas!” The alarm would be taken up and spread through the brigade, and by the time things quieted down they were off again. We finally got some sleep by the primitive but effective expedient of promising to blow the head off the next guy that raised the cry.
Next day a great bunch of orders were dumped on me to read—all about the new censorship regulations. After wading through these, the officers were summoned to go up on a reconnoitering party to look over the sector which we were to take over that night.