The Delta of the Triple Elevens Part 7

The hour was almost 10:30 when it was finally decided what area Battery D was to occupy for the night. C Camp was a tented camp, the tents being s.p.a.cious enough to comfortably house about four army cots for a healthy soldier to rest his weary bones on. The cots, however, were missing. Battery D was marched down the main road of the selected area. Halt was made at the first tent. Twenty-six men were ordered inside. The remainder continued to the next tent in order where twenty-six more were registered for the night; and so on down the roster, until Battery D was under canva.s.s.

The battery cooks and details were put to work immediately to prepare something to eat, but a majority of the soldiers either got tired waiting or else had such a hard job finding what was prepared that they wended their way through the tented city and after considerable wandering found the tent wherein they were to be one of the twenty-six registered for the night.

Twenty-six men and twenty-six packs in one tent. Crowding was more than a necessity; it was a torture, as was soon evinced when twenty-six men stretched themselves out on the board floor of the tent for the seeming purpose of sleeping. Extra blankets had been drawn from the quartermaster, which, combined with the blankets the soldier carried in his pack, furnished mattress and coverings for the sweet but hard repose. No blue-print diagram was furnished as to how the sleeping s.p.a.ce was to be allotted in twenty-six portions; with the result that one fellow was awakened out of a sweet dream of eating pie and cake, to find his buddy's feet pus.h.i.+ng him in the face.

Reveille sounded at C Camp Woodley at 7:20 o'clock on the morning of August 1st, when Battery D received its first taste of British mess.

Details of varied description were furnished from the battery roster, while the battery spent most of the first day in camp trying to figure out the English system of mess. The outfit was a.s.signed places at tables, by squads, in mess-tents. Two from each squad were delegated a committee to go to the kitchen and bring on the chow.

For breakfast the committee brought back an iron-bound kettle of oatmeal; another kettle of prunes and a quant.i.ty of bread. The system then was one of "help yourself and pa.s.s it on," which was all right for the fellow at the head of the table, but the fellows on the opposite end had to do the figuring.

The same procedure was followed at noon when slum was served. Night mess in England invariably was cheese and tea and jam, which was always good as far as it went. The entire 311th regiment was served from one kitchen. It was good fortune that the Americans had individual mess kits with them and that there occurred no sanitary inspections of said eating utensils while in C Camp where fifteen hundred mess kits were washed in a two by four bucket.

During the first day in an English camp many of the soldiers slipped past the M. P.'s and made their way to the town; a quaint market town and munic.i.p.al borough, numbering almost 4,000 inhabitants, in the New Forest Parliamentary division of Hamps.h.i.+re. As far as sight seeing, the only thing of interest in the town was an old abbey. Cafes were numerous, while English ale signs were more numerous.

An American Y. M. C. A. was housed under canvas at Camp Woodley. The workers in charge prepared a royal entertainment, while the regimental band gave a concert the second night of the soldiers' stay in camp. Members of a Romsey dramatic club furnished the entertainment.

Towards the close the band struck up, "The Star Spangled Banner,"

then, "G.o.d Save the King." The Romsey entertainers started to sing their National Anthem, while the Americans joined in with, "My Country 'Tis of Thee." All that was needed to complete the effect of the Babel scene was John J. Jlosky and Otto Skirkie to sing, "Down Where the Green River Flows."

Reveille for Friday, August 2nd, had been set for 7:30 a. m. All heads were awakened by the bugle at 6:45 o'clock that morning. No one in Battery D stirred. The impression was that the call was for another outfit. Six fifty-five found First Sergeant James J. Farrell going from tent to tent to find out the cause of the silence. Then there was great hustling to get out in line and many a woolen puttee was missing that morning.

The day was destined to be a rough one. It was raining at reveille call and still raining when call was sounded at 9:30 o'clock for a hike. The hike was started and continued for three miles, so did the rain. The longer the soldiers walked the faster it rained. The scenery was beautiful through the stretch of pleasantly situated country in the rich valley of the Test. Picturesque English homesteads, set amid hedges and roses, with moss-overgrown thatched roofs, dotted the wayside. At a cross-roads the battery halted for rest. Along the road came a baker's wagon. There was a raid on its gingerbread cookies. The bakerman reaped a harvest of good American quarters for every three cookies he handed out.

Drenched through slicker, et al. the soldiers retraced their step to Camp Woodley, the beauties of the flowery countryside being lost to a majority by the far-soaking rain. When Lieut. Hugh Clarke dismissed the watery battery admonition was added for everybody to change to dry clothing. But, alas, the advice was far better than expedient. The only clothes the soldiers possessed at the time were wet on their backs. Their extra uniform and clothing was in their barrack-bags, which had not been seen since leaving Camp Meade. No fire was available. The only open course was to let the clothes dry on the back. The boys of Battery D spent a very lonely afternoon, sitting in the tents, with wet clothes. And, it continued raining on the outside.

When the battery drew individual rations, consisting of one can of corned-beef; a hunk of cheese; a box of hard bread and a can of jam, at 9:30 o'clock, Sat.u.r.day morning, August 3rd, the sun was s.h.i.+ning and the day was waxing warm. Under full pack the command started for the seaport of Southampton.

Romsey is seven miles Northwest of Southampton by the London and Southwest railway, but the 311th did not take the L. & S. W. The hob-nail limited was the official troop train and the route covered nine miles by winding road.

It was on this hike that "Corona" became lost. David B. Koenig, the battery clerk, was the chaperon of "Corona." But he could not carry her all the way, so the boys took turns at carrying the precious thing. During one of the rest-halts, however, some one left poor little "Corona" lay by the roadside. When her disappearance was discovered it was necessary for Lieut. Clarke to hike back several miles and find the lost. "Corona" was the battery typewriter.

Southampton was reached at 12:30 o'clock. Stop was made at the British rest camp at the Commons where refreshments, in addition to the cheese and jam rations, were secured at the British Y. M. C. A. canteen. At 2 p. m. that day it started to rain and at 2:15 the regiment resumed its march and reached the docks at 3:15 o'clock.

It was a regiment of tired soldiers who sat on their packs in the big warehouse pier at Southampton waiting for word to go up the gang-plank of the vessel that was to take them across the English Channel.

"The King Edward" was the name of the channel-going vessel that drew alongside the pier late in the afternoon. It was a cute-looking boat, just big enough to transport Battery D across the channel in comfort.

At 6:30 p. m., Battery D and 1200 other members of the 311th were loaded on the King Edward. Everybody had a pleasant time. No s.p.a.ce went to waste, whatever. Some tried to sleep during the long night that ensued while standing against a post and others tried to strap themselves to the ceiling with their cartridge belts. In general the scene was like unto a large meat-cooler in a butcher shop, with the exception that the s.h.i.+p furnished life-preservers instead of meat-hooks and the temperature was the extreme of zero.

Convoyed by several destroyers with piercing search lights, which scanned the same waters that held the dead of the Hospitals.h.i.+p Walrilda, which was torpedoed in the English Channel while conveying wounded back to England, the King Edward started on its dash across the channel at 8:30 p. m., on the night of the day that the Walrilda met its fate.

The troops huddled together in the small hatches of the King Edward did not have much thought where they were or whither bound.

They did not recall at the time that they were pa.s.sing the Isle of Wight and the spot in the English Channel that witnessed the defeat of the Armada in the same month, back in the year 1588.

Sufficient unto the night was the misery thereof. Sea sickness came over quite a few, which was duly abetted by the stifling air. Those near the hatch-ways were fortunate in getting to the deck rails when their inner recesses were most severely tempest-tossed. Those who were hemmed in on all sides by human forms, who lay stretched on the stairs, in hallways, benches and wherever there was an inch of s.p.a.ce, had a difficult time when they attempted to find a pa.s.sage way through the closely matted carpet of humanity.

Col. C. G. Mortimer, the regimental commander, came down from his station on the deck and found it well-nigh impossible to get through the corridor of the forward saloon.

Through the hours of the long night the King Edward was convoyed across the channel at a speed nearing 25 knots an hour. Early morning of Sunday, August 4th, drew the King Edward near the sh.o.r.es of Northern France. At 2 p. m. the s.h.i.+p approached a harbor, but it was not until daylight that those on board could see a sign on a warehouse of a pier, bearing the name Cherbourg.

CHAPTER XIV.

SO THIS IS FRANCE!

"So this is France!"

For the first time the boys of Battery D repeated this phrase in all its reality as they stood upon elevated ground in the vicinity of the British Rest Camp at Cherbourg and viewed the vista of harbor, four miles distant, where, from the gang-plank of the King Edward they set foot on French soil on Sunday morning, August 4th, at 8 o'clock.

The panorama presented the naval and commercial harbors, from which Cherbourg, the seaport of Northwestern France, derives its chief importance. The eye can see the three main basins, cut out of the rock, with an area of fifty-five acres, which forms the naval harbor and to which are connected dry-docks; the yards where the largest s.h.i.+ps in the French navy are constructed; magazines and the various workshops required for an a.r.s.enal of the French navy.

A glance about reveals surrounding hills, in which batteries are located in fortification of the works and the town.

A second glance toward the harbor shows a large naval hospital close to the water's-edge, at the mouth of the Divette, on a small bay at the apex of the indentation formed by the Northern sh.o.r.e of the Peninsula of Cotentin. There is also at the mouth of Divette, the commercial harbor, connecting with the sea by a channel. This harbor consists of two parts, an outer harbor and an inner basin. Outside these harbors is the triangular bay, which forms the road-stead of Cherbourg.

The bay is admirably sheltered by the land on three sides, while on the North it is sheltered by a large breakwater, which is protected and leaves pa.s.sage for vessels. The pa.s.sages are guarded by forts placed on islands intervening between the breakwater and the mainland, and themselves united to the mainland by breakwaters.

Glimpses of the town of Cherbourg which the boys received as they hiked the four miles from the docks to the rest camp, through narrow and crooked streets, revealed no buildings of special interest, apart from the church of La Trinite dating from the 15th century; a statue of the painter J. F. Millet, born near Cherbourg, stands in the public gardens and there is an equestrian statue of Napoleon I in the square named after him. After reaching the rest camp the soldiers were unable to get down to the town again, although they had been told that the Hotel de Ville housed a rich collection of paintings.

It was at 10 a. m. when the regiment arrived at the British Rest Camp at Cherbourg. Halt was made on a large parade ground in front of a Y. M. C. A. hut. The boys stretched themselves on the ground while search was inst.i.tuted for the area the outfit was to occupy at its second rest camp.

Rest had just been commanded a few minutes when the command to "fall-in" was sounded. Everybody hustled to their feet, shouldered the heavy pack and awaited the next order.

"About-Face" was ordered. And the regiment obeyed. "Rest" was next.

This was the first time in the history of the battery that it was necessary to shoulder packs to execute an about-face.

The camp consisted of dome-shaped, sheet-iron barracks and tented areas. After an hour's wait Battery D was a.s.signed to the 13th row of Section C of the tented area. Tents were pyramid in shape. Fourteen men were crowded into each tent that was originally intended for eight.

By laying in wheel formation, with fourteen pairs of feet meeting at the center pole, the boys rested themselves on the board floors of the tents that night. There was no room for packcarriers and other paraphanelia in the tents. Most of the soldiers deposited their excess luggage on the outside. About midnight it started to rain. There was a scurry to get the equipment in out of the rain, which also disturbed the sweet slumbers as water trickled in under the canva.s.s or else came through leaks in the roof.

Reveille sounded at 5:30 the next morning. Orders were given for packs to be rolled preparatory to moving. A move was made from Section C to row 19 of D Section of the same tented area. The remainder of the morning was set apart for Battery D to take a bath. The soldiers' bath had been a negligible quant.i.ty since leaving Camp Meade, with the exception of some few who attempted to work up a lather with salt water on the Morvada. To the boys, therefore, the prospect of a good bath was hailed with delight.

No dressing room was attached to the bathhouse that was situated at one end of the Cherbourg rest camp. Therefore the boys had to make ready for the bath in their tents. With slickers and shoes on the battery lined up and marched to the bathhouse, while the rain came down and the wind was wont to play with the flaps of the raincoats, as a battery of bare-legs was exposed to the elements.

Arrived at the bathhouse, it was discovered that the showers would accommodate eight at one time. The first squad in line went into the water sanctum, while everybody else waited their turn on the outside.

The showers consisted of three half-inch pipes suspended from the ceiling. There were three lengths of pipe, each length being perforated at two places to emit the shower of water. The perforations comprised about four holes, each hole about one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter.

The first eight who entered the bathhouse were eager to get under the showers and consequently did not glance about to inspect the equipment of the room. The eight soldiers braced themselves under the showers and yelled for the man in charge to turn on the water. Instead of being washed away by the force of the current, as the firmly braced att.i.tude of each gave evidence that such was to be the case, the opening wide of the flood-gates let four needle-like streams of water descend upon each figure.

The eight took the bath good-naturedly and as they pa.s.sed out of the bathhouse, making room for the next eight to enter, they pa.s.sed word along the end of the waiting line to the effect that it would be just as expedient to take off the slicker and stand out in the rain, that was still falling.

The same evening orders to leave the rest camp came forth. At 6 p. m.

the regiment was a.s.sembled on the parade ground and soon started its march back over the four miles, through Cherbourg, to the railroad yards of the Ouest-Etat railway, which skirted the docks.

Arrived there at 7:45 p. m., sections of French trains were a.s.sembled ready to receive the soldiers. This a.s.semblage of coaches was of infinitely greater variety than those of English owners.h.i.+p. Third cla.s.s coaches were in evidence, but of greater import were the box cars containing the inscription, "40 Hommes or 8 Chevaux."