Elko independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 1915-current, 1917-11-27
AMERICAN SOLDIERS
IN THE TRENCHES

When our American troops started
for the front we fed them every four
hours for forty-eight hours. They
came In cold and tired and thirsty. We
had six hundred loaves Of bread for
them, twelve cases OF Jam with TWEEN.
ty'four cans in case. and three hun.
dred pounds OF coffee. We had two
cheeses, weighing one hundred and
eighty pounds each. We took a loca-
ton on the Quai. set up stoves, a
boiler and served real American cof-
fee. We gave the coffee away. For
sandwiches we charged twenty-five
centimes. They cost US thirty five
centimes. | went thirty.six hours on
four slices Of bread and a coffee.
Then | started of with the men
artillery, they were. We left at p. m.
on Friday. Twenty-Five of us were
in box car with bale OF hay. When
the wire came of the hay we needed
a gas mask for the dust that shook
out. There wasn't room for all to
sleep. We were saddlers, shoers, me-
chanics. the ninth section of a bat
terry.
We woke to a foggy morning. The
men thought they were on the way to
Paris. But we had come to the city
OF ---, in a corner OF France. We
took the guns of the wagon, and
marched seventeen kilometers to the
town Of -. We slept that night in
billetted there before us, and by
morning l had a ring Of white welts
around my ankle from lice. We lived
there for three days with those visit.
ors that didn't appear on the roll call.
And for nine days We never took our
clothes on
The boys were advised to slip off
their revolvers. We rented a kitchen
as storeroom for the guns. In rent.
ing that kitchen wore out my twenty
two words OF French, but we got the
kitchen and we slept there in the room
with the guns. We stayed FIVE days
in the place with the main horse line
of the battery. The horses had large
appetites and ate up caissons and any
other leather stun. One man came in
and reported with his overcoat in rags.
He said he was sorry. but his horse
had got hungry in the night
| thought | would go further up, so
got a horse. He was thin. give you
that for background, so you will be
sympathetic to my next. The orders
were to ride bareback, and had TO
ride him bareback razorback. For the
next two days ate my meals standing
up.
Then went to the brigade com.
mander. and he let me go to the front.
We came to the first village this side
OF the border. II was full up OF men
billeted. | said | was tired enough to
give seven francs for a bed. An old
woman gave me room in a house
with the end blown off. She was care.
taker. The family had fed. She
seemed to feel this way about 1t:
I'm about at the end of the line, any.
how. and I'll stay by the stuff"
Two colonels walked me up to the
dugouts. and that was where l parted
friendship with my long overcoat. It
slapped mud every step.
Thirty men were in the dugout in
fetid air. The Germans were one hun.
drcd yards away. In between looked
like lot of country anywhere. Shells
were coming in casually, landing in
field about one hundred yards away.
When we came back along the COM
munication trench we found the cell.
ing OF II (what we call the sleeper in
a mine) shot through with a shell.
Then | went to find our battery. Out
along an old Roman road we came to
farmhouse located where wise
farmer would place II. The house was
in ruins. All through this section men
had been buried where they fell, bat.
teries were dug in on the hillside, and
soldiers were billetcd in the ruins OF
villages. The fields around the farm.
house were shell pitted. The Germans
threw in one more shell at the house
and killed two cooks and an assistant
Somewhere along the road battery
was dug in on the roadside. You saw
gun pits and then nine foot dugouts
and then more gun pits. There was
chickenwire with grass tied in for
camOuflage, a wooded hill. and maze
OF barb wire. went into the mess
kitchen for American soldiers. got the
loan of mess kit, and had prunes,
potatoes. meat. and bread. slept on
the mountain side in my half of n pup
tent. with my head cupped in trench
shovel. We went to bed at six fifteen.