At three P. M. on June the eighth we rolled our packs and started on our
first venture into the mysteries of France. It took us about forty-five
minutes of steady hiking through hot and dusty streets to reach the
depot where we were to entrain. We found a long string of second and
third class coaches waiting for us. Our barrack bags and three days
rations had been loaded on two box cars by a special detail sent ahead
for that purpose.
We crowded into our cars and all was ready to go. A description of a
French car might help one to get a better idea of our situation. The car
is only about one-half as long as an American coach and it is divided
into five separate compartments. Each compartment has a window and a
door on each side. There is a step on the outside running the entire
length of the car. It is just below the level of the floor and one can
walk from one compartment to the other if he is not afraid of falling
off the car. The compartment is about large enough for four persons to
ride in any degree of comfort if they have cushions to sit on; but the
Railway transport officer evidently thought that there would be more
room if the cushions were removed. There were eight of us to each
compartment.
We were scheduled to leave at three P. M. and by rushing a little we
were loaded by a few minutes after that hour. We lived up to the
reputation of the Sanitary Train for always being on time and pulled out
of the station only three hours late. We thought at least that we were
going to see some of the beautiful France we had heard about. We had not
gone far when we realized that we were going to have plenty of time to
look at the scenery. France must have some very strict laws against
speeding for we never traveled faster than ten miles per hour and it was
very seldom that we ever went that fast.
We ate our supper as soon as we were out of Le Havre. It was a very
hearty meal. Each man's issue was five crackers, one-eighth of a can of
"corn wooley," one-eighth of a can of tomatoes. He didn't have much
variation from that during the trip.
Our next problem was, how were we going to sleep. It did not take long
to solve that. Two of the boys slept in the hat racks, four slept in
the seats and two slept on the floor between the seats. Part of the time
we slept piled on top of each other. When we woke up in the morning we
felt like we had sat up all night.
The second day we began to get our first real sight of France. We saw
soldiers guarding the bridges and tunnels. Troop trains passed us all
day long going to from the front carrying both French and American
soldiers. We saw our first real barbed wire entanglements that day and
it made us realize that we were getting near the place where the
fighting was going on. The children all along the way attracted our
attention by running along the track crying "biskeet" and holding out
their hands. They looked queer to us. They wore a little black apron and
wooden shoes. Some of the fellows threw hard tack out the window to them
just to see them scramble for it.
The rest of our trip was similar to the first day. We went by the way of
Rouen and Troyes and arrived in Epinal, a city on the edge of the Vosges
mountains, on the evening of June the tenth. We were a very tired and
hungry bunch for our rations had run low that morning and we had eaten
nothing but hard tack all day.
We detrained there and marched through the town to an old military
prison of Napoleon's time. We were told that we would spend the night
there. There were several large buildings surrounded by a high stone
wall with only one gate and that was guarded by a French soldier. There
were about one hundred German prisoners in the building next to our
quarters. As we were not permitted to go up town the French people
thought that we were prisoners also. We were given our barrack bags that
night for the first time since we left the states. We were without any
funds so some of the boys who were fortunate enough to have some "Bull
Durham" stored away in their barrack bags disposed of it to the French
soldiers for a franc a package. It was an exchange where both parties
were satisfied.
We learned that the division was billeted a few miles south and the next
morning we received orders to move to Eloyes at two P. M. Trucks were
furnished to haul our barrack bags and packs and we started out hiking
with our company in the lead of the train. We were half way there when
we saw our first aeroplanes in action along the front. There were five
of them in battle formation returning from the direction of the front.
We noticed that houses and lumber piles along the road were camouflaged.
This began to look like the war that we had heard about. We passed
through Arches, division headquarters at that time, about mess. We
thought that we were at the end of our long journey and could almost
taste our supper but we did not stop there. Just as we came in sight of
Eloyes it began to rain. It did not rain long and the sun came out just
as we were climbing the hill to our kitchen. There was a very pretty
rainbow with the end of it, so it seemed, right at our kitchen. That
was one time that there was something better than a pot of gold at the
end of the rainbow, for the cooks had supper almost ready for us. It
certainly tasted good to us after our long hike.
It began raining almost immediately after supper and rained most of the
night. We stood around in the rain until almost eleven P. M., while the
Major de Cantonment was explaining that he had no billets for us. We
were tired enough to pitch our pup tents and sleep in the streets but
finally we marched about a mile out of town and were put in a barn for
the night. One of the boys said he will always feel like a criminal for
robbing a calf of its bed and also for carrying away about a thousand
"petite crawling animals."
We marched back to town the next morning about eight A. M. and enjoyed a
breakfast of bacon, hardtack and coffee. During the day the soldiers who
occupied the town moved out and by five o'clock our company was located
in fairly good billets.
It rained so consistently that we did not get to drill for over a week.
We were issued our overseas caps and spiral leggins a few days after we
arrived in Eloyes. At the same time we turned in our barrack bags and
russet shoes. We were equipped for the trenches.
We began drilling by going out under some trees and practicing with our
gas masks. A few days later we received litters and then our real
drilling began. "Patients" would be sent out and located on the sides of
the steep hills and the litter bearers were supposed to locate them and
bring them safely down the almost impassable paths.
However, the boys were not worked very hard and they had plenty of time
to spend with the inhabitants learning to "parlez Francais." Many of the
soldiers acquired private instructors in the shape of small French boys
who were only too glad to be adopted by the Americans. The typewriter in
the office was a big drawing card for children. There was always a large
bunch hanging around to watch "Abe" operate the machine.
We received some English army trucks here and after teaching them to
"Talk American" used them as ambulances. We evacuated the sick of the
division to Field Hospital 137 at Eloyes.
About the middle of June the division was ordered up to take over the
sector east of us in Alsace. Lieut. Siberts took a detachment with
trucks to Bussang to cover the movement, evacuating his patients to
Field Hospital 139 which went into action there. This detachment was the
first detachment of the Sanitary Train to operate in Alsace.