"FRONTWARD HO!"
When the artillery training had proceeded to such a point that the
French instructors were congratulating our officers upon their
proficiency, the rumours spread through the post that the brigade had
been ordered to go to the front--that we were to be the first American
soldiers to actually go into the line and face the Germans.
The news was received with joy. The men were keen to try out their newly
acquired abilities upon the enemy. Harness was polished until it shone.
Brass equipment gleamed until you could almost see your face in it. The
men groomed the horses until the animals got pains from it. Enlisted men
sojourning in the Guard House for petty offences, despatched their
guards with scrawled pleadings that the sentences be changed to fines so
that they could accompany the outfits to the front.
With one special purpose in view, I made application to General March
for an assignment to Battery A of the Sixth Field Artillery. I received
the appointment. The Sixth was the first regiment of the brigade and A
was the first battery of the regiment. I knew that we would march out in
that order, that Battery A would entrain first, detrain first, go in the
line first, and I hoped to be present at the firing of the first
American shot in the war.
We pulled out of the post on schedule time early in the morning, two
days later. Officers and men had been up and dressed since midnight. Ten
minutes after their arising, blankets had been rolled and all personal
equipment packed ready for departure with the exception of mess kits.
While the stable police details fed the horses, the rest of us "leaned
up against" steak, hot biscuits, syrup and hot coffee. The cook had been
on the job all night and his efforts touched the right spot. It seemed
as if it was the coldest hour of the night and the hot "chow" acted as a
primer on the sleepy human machines.
In the darkness, the animals were packed into the gun carriages and
caissons down in the gun park, and it was 4 A. M. on the dot when the
captain's whistle sounded and we moved off the reserve. As we rattled
over the railroad crossing and took the road, the men made facetious
good-byes to the scene of their six weeks' training.
Soldiers like movement--we were on the move. Every one's spirits were up
and the animals were frisky and high-stepping in the brisk air. Chains
rattled as some of the lead pairs mussed up the traces and were brought
back into alignment by the drivers. The cannoneers, muffled in great
coats, hung on the caisson seats and chided the drivers.
We were off. Where we were going, seemed to make no difference. Rumours
could never be depended upon, so none of us knew our destination, but
all of us hoped that we were going into action. Every man in the battery
felt that the schooling was over and that the battery, if given a
chance, could prove that it needed no further training.
At the same time, some of the men expressed the fear that we were on our
way to some other training camp for some post-graduate course in firing
or maybe for the purpose of instructing other less advanced batteries.
The final consensus of opinion was, however, that "beefing" about our
prospects wouldn't change them, and that anything was better than
staying in the same place forever.
Two miles from the post the road crossed the railroad tracks. The
crossing bore a name as everything else did in that land of poetical
nomenclature. There was only one house there. It was an old grey stone
cottage, its walls covered with vines, and its garden full of shrubbery.
It was occupied by three persons, the old crossing-tender, his wife--and
one other. That other was Jeanne. Jeanne was their daughter.
We had seen her many times as she opened the crossing gates for traffic
on the road. She was about sixteen years old. Her ankles were encased in
thick grey woollen hose of her own knitting and, where they emerged from
her heavy wooden shoes, it looked as if every move in her clumsy
footgear might break them off.
As we approached the crossing, Gallagher, who rode one of the lead pair
on piece No. 2, began to give vent to his fine Irish tenor. Gallagher
was singing:
"We were sailing along
On Moonlight bay,
You could hear the voices ringing,
They seemed to say,
'You have stolen my heart
Now, don't go away,'
As we kissed and said good-bye
On Moonlight bay."
It would almost have seemed that there was need of some explanation for
Gallagher's musical demonstration on this cold, dark morning, but none
was demanded. Gallagher apparently knew what he was doing.
His pair of lead horses were walking in much too orderly a fashion for
the occasion. Apparently the occasion demanded a little greater show of
dash and spirit. Gallagher sunk his spurs into the flanks of his mount
and punched its mate in the ribs with the heavy handle of his riding
crop.
The leads lunged forward against their collars. The sudden plunge was
accompanied by a jangle of chains as the traces tightened. The gun
carriage jolted and the cannoneers swore at the unnecessary bouncing.
"Easy, Zigg-Zigg, whoa, Fini." Gallagher pulled on the lines as he
shouted in a calculated pitch the French names of his horses. And then
the reason for Gallagher's conduct developed.
A pair of wooden shutters on a first floor window of the gate-tender's
cottage opened outward. In the window was a lamp. The yellow rays from
it shone upward and revealed a tumbled mass of long black hair, black
eyes that gleamed, red cheeks and red lips. Then a sweet voice said:
"Gude-bye, Meeky."
"Orry wore, Jeen," replied Gallagher.
"_Apres la guerre_, Meeky," said Jeanne.
"Orry wore, Jeen," repeated Gallagher.
"Oh, Jeanie, dear, please call me 'Meeky,'" sang out one of the men,
astride one of the wheel pair of the same gun.
The window had closed, but before the light disappeared, black eyes
flashed hate at the jester, and Gallagher, himself, two horses ahead,
turned in the saddle and told the taunter to shut his mouth, observing
at the same time that "some guys didn't know a decent girl when they saw
one."
We rode on. Soon, on the left, the sun came up cold out of
Switzerland's white topped ridges miles away, and smiling frigidly
across the snow-clad neutral Alps, dispelled the night mist in our part
of the world.
The battery warmed under its glow. Village after village we passed
through, returning the polite salutes of early rising grand-sires who
uncovered their grey heads, or wrinkled, pink-faced grandmothers, who
waved kerchiefs from gabled windows beneath the thatch and smiled the
straight and dry-lipped smile of toothless age as they wished us good
fortune in the war.
We messed at midday by the roadside, green fields and hills of France,
our table decorations, cold beef and dry bread, our fare, with canteens
full to wash it down. When the horses had tossed their nose-bags
futilely for the last grains of oats, and the captain's watch had timed
the rest at three-quarters of the hour, we mounted and resumed the
march.
The equipment rode easy on man and beast. Packs had been shifted to
positions of maximum comfort. The horses were still fresh enough to need
tight rein. The men had made final adjustments to the chin straps on
their new steel helmets and these sat well on heads that never before
had been topped with armoured covering. In addition to all other
equipment, each man carried two gas masks. Our top sergeant had an
explanation for me as to this double gas mask equipment.
"I'll tell you about it," he said, as he ruthlessly accepted the
next-to-the-last twenty-five centime Egyptian cigarette from my
proffered case. I winced as he deliberately tore the paper from that
precious fine smoke and inserted the filler in his mouth for a chew.
"You see, England and France and us is all Allies," he said. "Both of
them loves us and we love both of them. We don't know nothing about gas
masks and they knows all there is to know about them. The French say
their gas mask is the best. The British say their gas mask is the best.
"Well, you see, they both offer us gas masks. Now Uncle Sam don't want
to hurt nobody's feelings, so he says, 'Gentlemen, we won't fight about
this here matter. We'll just use both gas masks, and give each of them a
try-out.'
"So here we are carrying two of these human nose-bags. The first time we
get into a mess of this here gas, somebody will send the order around to
change masks in the middle of it--just to find out which is the best
one."
The sergeant, with seeming malice, spat some of that fine cigarette on a
roadside kilometer stone and closed the international prospects of the
subject.
Our battery jangled through a tunnelled ridge and emerged on the other
side just as a storm of rain and hail burst with mountain fury. The
hailstones rattled on our metal helmets and the men laughed at the sound
as they donned slickers. The brakes grated on the caisson wheels as we
took the steep down-grade. The road hugged the valley wall which was a
rugged, granite cliff.
I rode on ahead through the stinging hailstones and watched our battery
as it passed through the historic rock-hewn gateway that is the entrance
to the mediaeval town of Besancon. The portal is located at a sharp turn
of the river. The gateway is carved through a mountain spur. Ancient
doors of iron-studded oak still guard the entrance, but they have long
since stood open. Battlements that once knew the hand of Vaubon frown
down in ancient menace to any invader.
[Illustration: CAPT. CHEVALIER, OF THE FRENCH ARMY, INSTRUCTING AMERICAN
OFFICERS IN THE USE OF THE ONE-POUNDER]
[Illustration: IN THE COURSE OF ITS PROGRESS TO THE VALLEY OF THE VESLE
THIS 155 MM. GUN AND OTHERS OF ITS KIND WERE EDUCATING THE BOCHE TO
RESPECT AMERICA. THE TRACTOR HAULS IT ALONG STEADILY AND SLOWLY, LIKE A
STEAM ROLLER]
No Roman conqueror at the head of his invading legions ever rode through
that triumphal arch with greater pride than rode our little captain
at the head of his battery. Our little captain was in stature the
smallest man in our battery, but he compensated for that by riding the
tallest horse in the battery.
He carried his head at a jaunty angle. He wore his helmet at a nifty
tilt, with the chin strap riding between his underlip and his dimpled,
upheld chin. He carried his shoulders back, and his chest out. The reins
hung gracefully in his left hand, and he had assumed a rather
moving-picture pose of the right fist on his right hip. Behind him flew
the red guidon, its stirruped staff held stiffly at the right arm's
length by the battery standard bearer.
Both of them smiled--expansive smiles of pride--into the clicking lens
of my camera. I forgave our little captain for his smile of pride. I
knew that six weeks before that very day our little captain had fitted
into the scheme of civilian life as a machinery salesman from Indiana.
And there that day, he rode at the head of his two hundred and fifty
fighting men and horses, at the head of his guns, rolling down that road
in France on the way to the front.
In back of him and towering upward, was that historic rock that had
known the tread and passage of countless martial footsteps down through
the centuries. Behind him, the gun carriages rattled through the
frowning portal. Oh, if the folks back on the Wabash could have seen him
then!
We wound through the crooked narrow streets of Besancon, our steel-tired
wheels bounding and banging over the cobblestones. Townsfolk waved to us
from windows and doorways. Old women in the market square abandoned
their baskets of beet roots and beans to flutter green stained aprons in
our direction. Our column was flanked by clattering phalanxes of
wooden-shoed street gamins, who must have known more about our movements
than we did, because they all shouted, "Gude-bye."
Six weeks' familiarity between these same artillerymen on town leave and
these same urchins had temporised the blind admiration that caused them
first to greet our men solely with shouts of "_Vive les Americains_."
Now that they knew us better, they alternated the old greeting with
shouts of that all-meaning and also meaningless French expression, "Oo
la la."
Our way led over the stone, spanned bridge that crossed the sluggish
river through the town, and on to the hilly outskirts where mounted
French guides met and directed us to the railroad loading platform.
The platform was a busy place. The regimental supply company which was
preceding us over the road was engaged in forcibly persuading the last
of its mules to enter the toy freight cars which bore on the side the
printed legend, "Hommes 40, Chevaux 8."
Several arclights and one or two acetylene flares illuminated the scene.
It was raining fitfully, but not enough to dampen the spirits of the Y.
M. C. A. workers who wrestled with canvas tarpaulins and foraged
materials to construct a make-shift shelter for a free coffee and
sandwich counter.
Their stoves were burning brightly and the hurriedly erected stove
pipes, leaning wearily against the stone wall enclosing the quay, topped
the wall like a miniature of the sky line of Pittsburgh. The boiling
coffee pots gave off a delicious steam. In the language of our battery,
the "Whime say" delivered the goods.
During it all the mules brayed and the supply company men swore. Most
humans, cognizant of the principles of safety first, are respectful of
the rear quarters of a mule. We watched one disrespecter of these
principles invite what might have been called "mulecide" with utter
contempt for the consequences. He deliberately stood in the dangerous
immediate rear of one particularly onery mule, and kicked the mule.
His name was "Missouri Slim," as he took pains to inform the object of
his caress. He further announced to all present, men and mules, that he
had been brought up with mules from babyhood and knew mules from the
tips of their long ears to the ends of their hard tails.
The obdurate animal in question had refused to enter the door of the car
that had been indicated as his Pullman. "Missouri Slim" called three
other ex-natives of Champ Clark's state to his assistance. They
fearlessly put a shoulder under each of the mule's quarters. Then they
grunted a unanimous "heave," and lifted the struggling animal off its
feet. As a perfect matter of course, they walked right into the car with
him with no more trouble than if he had been an extra large bale of hay.
"Wonderful mule handling in this here army," remarked a quiet,
mild-mannered man in uniform, beside whom I happened to be standing. He
spoke with a slow, almost sleepy, drawl. He was the new veterinarian of
the supply company, and there were a number of things that were new to
him, as his story revealed. He was the first homesick horse doctor I
ever met.
"I come from a small town out in Iowa," he told me. "I went to a
veterinary college and had a nice little practice,--sorter kept myself
so busy that I never got much of a chance to think about this here war.
But one day, about two months ago, I got a letter from the War
Department down in Washington.
"They said the hoss doctor college had given them my name as one of the
graduates and the letter said that the War Department was making out a
list of hoss doctors. The letter asked me to fill out the blank and send
it to Washington.
"'Joe,' my wife says to me, 'this here is an honour that the country is
paying to you. The Government just wants the names of the patriotic
professional citizens of the country.' So we filled out the blank and
mailed it and forgot all about it.
"Well, about two weeks later, I got a letter from Washington telling me
to go at once to Douglas, Arizona. It sorter scared the wife and me at
first because neither of us had ever been out of Iowa, but I told her
that I was sure it wasn't anything serious--I thought that Uncle Sam
just had some sick hosses down there and wanted me to go down and look
them over.
"Well, the wife put another shirt and a collar and an extra pair of
socks in my hand satchel along with my instruments and I kissed her and
the little boy good-bye and told them that I would hurry up and
prescribe for the Government hosses and be back in about five days.
"Two days later I landed in Douglas, and a major shoved me into a
uniform and told me I was commissioned as a hoss doctor lieutenant. That
afternoon I was put on a train with a battery and we were on our way
east. Six days later we were on the ocean. We landed somewhere in France
and moved way out here.
"My wife was expecting me back in five days and here it is I've been
away two months and I haven't had a letter from her and now we're moving
up to the front. It seems to me like I've been away from Iowa for ten
years, and I guess I am a little homesick, but it sure is a comfort to
travel with an outfit that knows how to handle mules like this one
does."
The supply company completed loading, and the homesick horse doctor
boarded the last car as the train moved down the track. Our battery took
possession of the platform. A train of empties was shunted into position
and we began loading guns and wagons on the flat cars and putting the
animals into the box cars.
Considerable confusion accompanied this operation. The horses seemed to
have decided scruples against entering the cars. It was dark and the
rain came down miserably. The men swore. There was considerable kicking
on the part of the men as well as the animals.
I noticed one group that was gathered around a plunging team of horses.
The group represented an entanglement of rope, harness, horses and men.
I heard a clang of metal and saw the flash of two steel-shod hoofs. A
little corporal, holding his head up with both hands, backed out of the
group,--backed clear across the platform and sat down on a bale of hay.
I went to his assistance. Blood was trickling through his fingers. I
washed his two scalp wounds with water from a canteen and applied first
aid bandages.
"Just my luck," I heard my patient mumbling as I swathed his head in
white strips and imparted to him the appearance of a first-class front
line casualty.
"You're lucky," I told him truthfully. "Not many men get kicked in the
head by a horse and escape without a fractured skull."
"That isn't it," he said; "you see for the last week I've been wearing
that steel helmet--that cast-iron sombrero that weighs so much it almost
breaks your neck, and two minutes before that long-legged baby kicked
me, the tin hat fell off my head."
By the time our battery had been loaded, another battery was waiting to
move on to the platform. Our captain went down the length of the train
examining the halter straps in the horse cars and assuring himself of
the correct apportionment of men in each car. Then we moved out on what
developed to be a wild night ride.
The horse has been described as man's friend and no one questions that a
horse and a man, if placed out in any large open space, are capable of
getting along to their mutual comfort. But when army regulations and the
requirements of military transportation place eight horses and four men
in the same toy French box car and then pat all twelve of them
figuratively on the neck and tell them to lie down together and sleep
through an indefinite night's ride, it is not only probable, but it is
certain, that the legendary comradeship of the man and the horse ceases.
The described condition does not encompass the best understood relation
of the two as travelling companions.
On our military trains in France, the reservations of space for the
human and dumb occupants of the same car were something as follows: Four
horses occupied the forward half of the car. Four more horses occupied
the rear half of the car. Four men occupied the remaining space. The
eight four-footed animals are packed in lengthwise with their heads
towards the central space between the two side doors. The central space
is reserved for the four two-footed animals.
Then the train moves. If the movement is forward and sudden, as it
usually is, the four horses in the forward end of the car involuntarily
obey the rules of inertia and slide into the central space. If the
movement of the train is backward and equally sudden, the four horses in
the rear end of the car obey the same rule and plunge forward into the
central space. On the whole, night life for the men in the straw on the
floor of the central space is a lively existence, while "riding the
rattlers with a horse outfit."
Our battery found it so. I rode a number of miles that night sitting
with four artillerymen in the central space between the side doors which
had been closed upon orders. From the roof of the car, immediately above
our heads, an oil lantern swung and swayed with every jolt of the wheels
and cast a feeble light down upon our conference in the straw. We
occupied a small square area which we had attempted to particularise by
roping it off.
On either side were the blank surfaces of the closed doors. To either
end were the heads of four nervous animals, eight ponderous hulks of
steel-shod horseflesh, high strung and fidgety, verging almost on panic
under the unusual conditions they were enduring, and subject at any
minute to new fits of excitement.
We sat at their feet as we rattled along. I recalled the scene of the
loose cannon plunging about the crowded deck of a rolling vessel at sea
and related Hugo's thrilling description to my companions.
"Yeah," observed Shoemaker, driver of the "wheelers" on No. 4 piece,
"Yeah, but there ain't no mast to climb up on and get out of the way on
in this here boxcar."
"I'd rather take my chances with a cannon any day," said 'Beady' Watson,
gunner. "A cannon will stay put when you fix it. There's our piece out
on the flat car and she's all lashed and blocked. It would take a wreck
to budge her off that flat. I wish the B. C. had let me ride with the
old gun out there. It would be a little colder but a lot healthier. Try
to go to sleep in here and you'll wake up with a horse sitting on you."
"Where do you suppose we are going anyway?" asked Slater, fuse cutter in
the same section. "I'm strong for travel, but I always like to read the
program before we start to ramble. For all we know we might be on our
way to Switzerland or Italy or Spain or Egypt or somewhere."
"Why don't you go up and ask the Captain?" suggested Boyle, corporal in
charge of the car. "Maybe the Colonel gave him a special message to
deliver to you about our dusty-nation. You needn't worry though. They
ain't going to bowl us out of France for some time yet."
"Well, if we're just joy-riding around France," replied Slater, "I hope
we stop over to feed the horses at Monte Carlo. I've heard a lot about
that joint. They say that they run the biggest crap game in the world
there, and the police lay off the place because the Governor of the
State or the King or something, banks the game. They tell me he uses
straight bones and I figure a man could clean up big if he hit the game
on a payday."
"Listen, kid, you've got this tip wrong," said Shoemaker. "If there's
anything happens to start a riot among these horses, you are going to
find that you're gambling with death. And if we ever get off this train,
I think we have a date with Kaiser Bill."
"I've got a cousin somewhere in the German army. He spells his
'Shoemaker' with a 'u.' My dad told me that my grandfather and this
cousin's grandfather had a business disagreement over a sauerkraut
factory some time before the Civil War and my grandfather left Germany.
Since then, there ain't been no love lost between the branches of the
family, but we did hear that Cousin Hans had left the sauerkraut
business and was packing a howitzer for the Kaiser."
"Well, I hope we come across him for your sake," said Watson. "It's
kinda tough luck to get cheated out of a big business like that, but
then you must remember that if your cousin's grandfather hadn't pulled
the dirty on your grandfather, your grandfather might never have gone to
America and most likely you'd still be a German."
"I guess there's some sense in that, too," replied Shoemaker; "wouldn't
that been hell if I'd been on the other side in this war? But anyhow, I
do hope we run into Cousin Hans somewhere."
The horses had been comparatively quiet for some time, but now they
seemed to be growing restless. They pricked their ears and we knew
something was bothering them. The discussion stopped so that we could
listen better.
Above the rattle of the train, there came to us the sound of firing. It
seemed to come from the direction in which we were going. With
surprising quickness, the explosions grew louder. We were not only
speeding toward the sounds of conflict, but the conflict itself seemed
to be speeding toward us.
Then came a crash unmistakably near. One of the horses in the forward
end reared, and his head thumped the roof of the car. Once again on four
feet, he pranced nervously and tossed his blood-wet forelock.
Immediately the other horses began stamping.
Another crash!--this time almost directly overhead. In the light of the
swinging lantern, I could see the terror in the eyes of the frightened
brutes. We clung to their halters and tried to quiet them but they
lifted us off our feet.
"Put a twitch on that one's nose and hold him down," Boyle ordered.
"Gosh," said Slater, obeying, "we must be right up on the front line.
Hope they don't stop this train in No Man's Land. Hold still, you crazy
b----"
"Cousin Hans must have heard you talking," Watson shouted to Shoemaker.
"Maybe you're going to see him quicker than you expected."
The train was slowing down. The brakes shrieked and grated as we came to
a jerky stop. Three of us braced ourselves at the heads of the four
horses in the rear of the car and prevented them from sliding on top of
us. Boyle and Slater were doing their best to quiet the forward four.
The explosions overhead increased. Now we heard the report of field
pieces so close that they seemed to be almost alongside the track.
There came a sharp bang at one of the side doors, and I thought I
recognised the sound of the lead-loaded handle of the captain's riding
whip. His voice, coming to us a minute later above the trampling and
kicking of the panic-stricken animals, verified my belief.
"Darken that lantern," he shouted. "Keep all lights out and keep your
helmets on. Stay in the cars and hang on to the horses. There is an air
raid on right above us."
"Yes, sir," replied Boyle, and we heard the captain run to the next car.
I blew out the light and we were in complete darkness, with eight
tossing, plunging horses that kicked and reared at every crash of the
guns nearby or burst of the shells overhead.
We hung on while the air battle went on above. One horse went down on
his knees and in his frantic struggles to regain his feet, almost kicked
the feet from under the animal beside him.
At times, thunderous detonations told us that aerial bombs were doing
their work near at hand. We supposed correctly that we were near some
town not far behind the lines, and that the German was paying it a night
visit with some of his heaviest visiting cards.
I opened one side door just a crack and looked out. The darkness above
blossomed with blinding blotches of fire that flashed on and off. It
seemed as though the sky were a canopy of black velvet perforated with
hundreds of holes behind which dazzling lights passed back and forth,
flashing momentary gleams of brilliance through the punctures. Again,
this vision would pass as a luminous dripping mass would poise itself on
high and cast a steady white glare that revealed clusters of grey smoke
puffs of exploded shrapnel.
We had to close the door because the flashes added to the terror of the
horses, but the aerial activity passed almost as suddenly as it had come
and left our train untouched. As the raiding planes went down the wind,
followed always by the poppings of the anti-aircraft guns, the sound of
the conflict grew distant. We got control over the horses although they
still trembled with fright.
There came another rap at the door and I hurriedly accepted the
captain's invitation to accompany him forward to a first-class coach
where I spent the remainder of the night stretched out on the cushions.
As our train resumed its way into the darkness, I dreamed of racing
before a stampede of wild horses.