Chapter 13

September 1, 1918

Immediately after breakfast we roll our packs and set them outside of our billets and begin cleaning them out (the billets). We move our cots out and give the floor a good sweeping and take all trash and other waste to a hole and burn it. We wait all day with rolled packs, but we fail to get moving orders as were expected. Late in the afternoon we carry our cots back into the billets and unroll our packs, as we will have to use the blankets at night.

September 2, 1918

We roll our packs again, but the moving orders do not come for us to leave. At 7 p.m. two of us fellows are sent three kilometers away to get our captain's clothing roll, getting back with it at 11 p.m., after a tiresome trip. Two English soldiers driving an ammunition wagon going our way let us put the rolls on their wagon as far as they go. The searchlights are busy searching for German 'planes that are passing over the lines to bomb, the nearby towns and ammunition dumps. The Germans drop a few bombs on the roads going over.

September 3, 1918

Our moving orders have failed to reach us yet, which we have been expecting for the last two days. We remain packed all day ready to move in case they did come. We give our billet another good cleaning and carry the cots out, but do not bring them back at night. We choose to sleep on the floor, as it seems certain that our moving orders will come within the next 24 hours. We are anxious to get out of Belgium and try our luck elsewhere.

September 4, 1918

Orders come at last for us to move from Brandhoek and go to an English camp near Proven. The trip to this camp is made on foot as there is no available transportation that can be used. We are quartered in British tents, a squad of eight men being assigned to each. I am lucky enough to get a cot from an English soldier that is moving out, a comfort the other fellows do not have. German 'planes come over at night and bomb near our camp. Anti-aircraft and machine guns put up a stiff barrage fire which makes the German make their stay a short one.

September 5, 1918

The company drills one hour in the morning and then we are excused from all duties for the rest of the day. Just before being dismissed our captain reads us an order from one of the prominent British generals, commending the regiment on being the best disciplined regiment of the division. Several of us fellows go to Proven and spend the afternoon. We watch Scotch and English troops march through headed for the front, followed by lorries filled with high explosive ammunition and with anti-aircraft guns mounted on them. These soldiers are going to relieve the remainder of our infantry that is still holding the lines. The Scotch are fearless fighters and when they march by they seem to be a happy lot. There are all kinds of rumors going around us as to where they are going, but no one has the official "dope."

September 6, 1918

In the morning the company gets a bath in a British bath house about 600 yards away. After the bath the company rolls full packs and at 2 p. m. hikes to a village six kilometers distance, where after a 30 minute wait we are loaded in cattle and horse cars. We wait for 45 minutes. We are finally on our way to "somewhere in France." We go via Dunkirk and other towns near the coast. The fellows pass the time away singing songs known by heart. After dark the train makes fast time, making only a few stops.

September 7, 1918

We reach Calais a short while after 1 a. m. where we remain about 20 minutes. Searchlights are scouring the skies for German 'planes that are coming over to bomb. We can hear the noise from their (the German 'planes) motors, and from the noise I would judge that there ought to be 10 or 12 of them coming over. Leaving Calais we go to sleep and are awakened in the morning at a small building said to be a railroad station. Here we unload and hike to the small village of Ternas, eight kilometers from St. Pol, a large town. We (the fourth platoon) pitch "pup" tents in an old Frenchman's orchards, while the rest of the company is billeted in French barns or has either pitched tents in the far end of the orchard.

September 8, 1918

The company drills one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon on the main road. I stroll about the village in the afternoon and sightsee. The people have never seen American soldiers before and they seem glad for us to come into their homes and make friends with them. The estamiments are filled at night with fellows buying beer and wine and having a general good time. The entire second battalion of the regiment is stationed in this village, and at night it keeps the French waiters busy waiting on them.

September 9, 1918

It rains all day and we are unable to drill on the roads. The rain makes the orchard muddy and several of the fellows tents wet inside. In the afternoon another fellow and I take a walk about the village to see what there is to see. It is still raining at dark and instead of going to an estamiment I go to bed. My tent mate fails to come in until late at night. He went to an estaminent and stayed until late.

September 10, 1918

It rains all day again and we are excused from formation. The orchard is getting to be a regular mud hole. Nearly half of the fellows tents are wet inside from the rain and it makes the nights uncomfortable sleeping on and under wet blankets. I stay until late at night in an estaminent. Life in the orchard is getting to be a misery. Several of the fellows are sick from exposure to the wet ground.

September 11, 1918

Again it rains all day and as usual we are excused from all formations for the day. Our tents leak and the blankets are wet from the continuous rain that has come down for the past three days. Mud is ankle deep in the orchard and a fellow going to "chow" has to wade through all of this and then wait in it in line for his time to be served "slum," the overseas soldier's "official" food. None of the men are contented in the orchard. The captain says he will try to get us a barn to stay in the rest of the time we are in Ternas.

September 12, 1918

The captain succeeds in getting a barn and in spite of the rain we move to it in the morning. Our equipment gets wet in moving it, but we are glad of the opportunity to get out of the orchard. After supper we are paid by our captain in French money. We have several sick fellows in the company on account of the wet tents they have been compelled to live in.

September 13, 1918

Instead of being awakened by the bugler to find it still raining, we find the sun out and the rain gone. The company drills in the morning on an aviation field about half a kilometer from the village from 8 to 11:30 and in the afternoon from 1 to 4:30. In the morning a large part of the time is used for bayonet practice and physical exercise. In the afternoon our platoon lieutenant instructs and drills the fourth platoon in how to capture and silence a machine gun nest. The other platoons are given the same instructions and drill. A score of haystacks in the field are designated as enemy machine gun nests. We march out into the field about 500 yards from them and then start our attack, crawling on our stomachs, running and falling, using mud balls as grenades which we throw at the stack as we get in throwing distance, finishing the attack with a bayonet charge. This is repeated several times so we can learn every minor detail of the system of attack. An old Frenchman working in the field stops and stares at us when we make our "attacks" on the hay stacks. He must have thought that we were trying to carry them off form the way we stuck our bayonets in them. Major General Lewis visits us in the afternoon and watches us go through these drills.

September 14, 1918

We drill from 8 to 11:30 in the morning. In the afternoon the battalion is ordered to roll packs, but instead of leaving Ternas we hike from 1 to 4:30. We are glad when the hike is over for we are all tired out. Only the enlisted men carry packs, and officers carrying side-arms. The major rides his horse. We pass through several little villages that American soldiers are stationed in on this hike. 

September 15, 1918

We drill from 8 to 11:30 in the morning. As it is Sunday we are excused from all duties in the afternoon. Two other fellows and I get passes to visit St. Pol after dinner. We walk half on the way to this town and ride the other half in a British aviation car with several British officers in it. St. Pol is a town with a population of several thousand people. We stroll about sight-seeing and visiting the different estaminents, buying a collection of post-cards in one with the views of the town on them as souvenirs to send home. We buy some cakes at a British canteen and go into a French meat shop and buy what is claimed to be sausage, and eat this for a lunch. We return to Ternas a short while after sun-down, walking all the way from St. Pol.

September 16, 1918

We see how many hay-stacks and other objects that our lieutenant thinks suitable to use as enemy machine gun nests we can capture and destroy in the morning. We suffer one casualty in a second charge on a small beer keg, the casualty suffering from a sprained ankle. In the afternoon the entire battalion hikes with full packs. After returning from the hike we clean our files and bayonets. Four men who beat the hike and drill are drilled with full packs for two hours after supper by one of the sergeants.

September 17, 1918

All the morning is spent in washing our dirty clothes. Any hard-tack cans that can be found in the trash pile are used as pots to boil our clothes in, for by boiling them we kill our troublesome little enemies, the cooties. At first we had only one kind; but now we have the gray-back, the red, the black, and almost every color imaginable. In the afternoon we hike to St. Pol and get a bath.

September 18, 1918

We leave Ternas at 6 a.m. on the march with full packs, going back to the place where we unloaded when coming to Ternas. Reaching there we lead in another "box car special" and drive for nearly five hours, getting off at a siding near a large supply dump and hiking to Talmas, a small village six kilometers away. German prisoners are working the roads and doing other kinds of work where we unload from the train. Their cage is only a short distance from them. We are billeted in old French barns. Three of us fellows are assigned to an old chicken house for sleeping quarters.

September 19, 1918

Several of us fellows answer sick call at 8 a.m. to get our sore feet doctored. After the blisters are opened and painted with iodine, we report back to our first sergeant, and to our surprise he has one of the sergeants to hike us for 50 minutes. This is done because the C. O thinks some one has tried to beat the hour's hike the company took after breakfast. There are a few English soldiers in the village and from them we learn where we can buy straw to put under our blankets and make them more comfortable.

September 20, 1918

We drill in a large wheat field (the wheat has just been cut) in the morning from 8:30 to 11 and in the afternoon from 1 to 4. A master engineer drills us in the morning, while platoon sergeants drill their platoons in the afternoon, with the officers looking on. The soil is soft and we soon tire of drilling, but we do not stop until recall.

September 21, 1918

The company drills in the morning for an hour and we are then taken to where there are several British tanks of different sizes and the captain explains them to us. It is the first tanks that the men of the company, with the exception of the fellows that have been off to army schools, have had an opportunity to get a close view of, and we listen carefully to all the captain says about them. In the afternoon we roll full packs and march to a field beyond the one we drill on, and are inspected by the colonel of the regiment (this is a regimental inspection.)