The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1918-07-24
HOW OUR BOYS
GO INTO BATTLE
{ New York Tines


The New York Times correspondent
spent the afternoon and evening today
in the region Of Villers- Cotterets
Forest on the heels of Mangin's vic
torious army. The cover, from which
burst thunderbolts upon the unsus-
pecting boches two days ago, was
| like an antheap in busy movement
and multifarious activity.
| will try to give an idea of the
scene by a narrative of its impress
sion on Franco American troops
moving up TO the battlefield, an i'm
preston gathered from my own expe-
rience and from talks with many SOL
dirs Of both nations.
The sum total represents a days
march to modern battle. Imagine
you form part of a unit just ordered
into the line. After a long night
trip of broken, jolting sleep on the
straw-covered floor Of a cattle truck
yon detrain at tiny depot. of which
somewhere in France" If you are
lucky there will be coffee in the sta
ton canteen. More likely you MUNICH
| biscuit or sandwich and get drink
of water from your own bottle
In the misty twilight that precedes
the French dawn you pile yourself
and your equipment into a big square
canton, whose canvas cover is camou-
tagged with patches of green and
brown. With hundred or more of
/ comrades you sleep some, waking
now and then to curse as a bigger
bump than usual disturbs you About
Is o'clock there may be a halt for the
| field kitchens to hurry out substan-
| tial breakfast of cocoa, stew and
bread, or just coffee and bread if you
have been brought up to French de-
jeuner.
After that the journey is con-
tinual night mare of dust and heat
/ So dense is the cloud that you can
hardly distinguish more than one OF
two of the long line of camions in
front of you. You jog along at some
five miles an hour until noon, when
there is another halt for dinner and
perhaps half hours rest in dusty
meadow by the roadside.
In the afternoon there is more
dust and worse heat. You think you
have reached the acme of discom-
fort, but you are mistaken, for about
o'clock the cannon enters road
that runs like narrow canon thru
a forest dark and dense as an Afri-
can Jungle. The heat by now is
sitting, and the dust fog almost i'm
penetrable.
Through it you see dimly ambu-
lances fit past or camions rumbling
ponderously, like you own, some
empty, others bearing wounded, mo-
tionless in morphine's lethargy. on
stretchers arranged crosswise. There
are high-powered staff cars, also,
and weary, plodding infantry or cav
airy trotting on sweating horses. A
line of prisoners passes, meagre and
| detected, and mule teams, whose
steeds and drivers alone seem to
have energy to show bad temper to-
ward every one.
Now and then at cross road there
is a tieup, quickly disentangled by a
curt Frenchman, who does not ges-
ture as one expects Frenchmen to do,
or by big Irishman, whose instruc-
tions are snapped in vivid Anglo
Saxon.
The First Sound of Guns
Suddenly you are startled, or not,
according to the degree of your ex-
perience, by a terrific burst of sound,
seemingly right above your head. The
first shock passed, you realize that
| it is only a big gun addressing the
Boche ten miles away and not an ain
bomb or a German shell as for the
moment you imagined.
At last you reach the outskirts of
a jungle, and leap gladly down from
the cannon for the evening meal. The
rest of the trip is likely to be afoot,
unless the unit is urgently needed il.
the firing line, and for hours more
you trudge along. 1t is cooler now, and
the dust is less thick than in the
forest. Some one starts a chorus and
you 60 forward more cheerfully.
All the while the roar of guns
| grows louder, but you don't worry
much. The Boche is needing all his
guns to meet our advance, some one
has said, and, better still, you have
heard that little gas is being used in
this open fighting.
You pass the night in little wood,
and this time sleep soundly, I'M
troubled by the incessant cannonade
If the unit is to Ego in" immediate
!, ly, you are awakened while it is still
dark for a hurried meal before the
assembly for the final march to the
battle positions. You feel more cheer
full after eating as you swing for
ward in the cool twilight, and your
very nervousness is mixed with a
strange thrill of exhilaration. You
know you will do your utmost, and
your comrades beside you likewise
The rest is in the hands of the god of
battles.