CHAPTER II
ON THE MOVE[ToC]
"Over there" excitement was the normal condition, and the real soldier was never satisfied unless he was in the thick of the fight. Even "holding the line" on the Alsatian border was tame, and the news of Chateau-Thierry made the Ohio boys "green with envy." Their more fortunate guard comrades of the 26th and 42nd Divisions had covered themselves with glory. Where would the next American blow be struck?
"Anything doing up at the front?" was the first question shot at every dispatch rider or truck driver who came "along the pike" from the north. "The whole d—— country is full of Yanks!" "Ten divisions packed in between Toul and Nancy." "Never saw so much ammunition in my life." "Couldn't get through for the traffic." Such reports kept the boys of the 37th on tiptoe of expectation. Would they get a chance for the "big push"?
Imagine, therefore, the peculiar thrill of every man when about September 11, it was announced officially that the division was to be ready for an immediate move. The boys were to be "stripped" for action. Every unnecessary thing was thrown into the salvage pile. Military trains were placed on the sidings in the railway yards at Baccarat to be loaded with men, horses, and equipment. These trains to move off on schedule time, about two hours apart, until the last had taken its departure.
For two nights steady streams of French troops, ammunition wagons, guns, and army trucks had poured into Baccarat on their way to relieve the various units of the Ohio Division. Four horses, two abreast, would be hitched to an artillery wagon on which was mounted a camouflaged '75 (three-inch gun). The heavy guns were drawn by six or eight horses, two abreast, with a rider for every two horses.
The Y.M.C.A. headquarters were on the corner where the two main streets of the town crossed. One night about ten o'clock we stood on the curb watching two lines of men and wagons, one from the south and one from the west, as they came together at this corner and flowed on through the town. It was a fascinating and weird night scene. Suddenly we heard a Boche plane. When it passed overhead it dropped a star shell which lighted up that whole section of the town and revealed the long lines of French infantry and artillery. The burned out shell dropped just across the street from us. Evidently, German spies had given notice of the movements of troops and scouting planes had come over to get information and take pictures. These were closely followed by bombing planes which tried to destroy the bridge over the Meurthe and thus hinder the movement of troops, but their bombs went wide of their mark and our anti-aircraft guns made it so hot for them that they could not get near enough to do any material damage.
Many Chinese troops in French uniforms passed through Baccarat the next day. With military precision our boys, relieved by these French and Chinese troops, poured into the town and were quickly loaded on the troop trains.
Three days before the move a secret order had come to the chief of our "Y" division to be ready to move with the troops. Immediately all our secretaries were notified to close their huts and prepare their stock for removal. "Y" trucks were dispatched to bring the secretaries and all stock on hand in to the central warehouse. Where the hut was a tent—and four of the seventeen huts were canvas—our expert, who had traveled for years with Barnum & Bailey, went with the trucks and brought in tent and all.