''And they thought we wouldn't fight'', Floyd Phillips Gibbons [hot novels to read .TXT] 📗
- Author: Floyd Phillips Gibbons
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Large mirrors, circled with wreaths of gilded leaves, adorn both end walls, and beneath one of them remains an ornate fireplace and mantelpiece of bologna coloured marble, surmounted with a gilt cock of wondrous design. Beneath the other mirror madame has placed her buffet, on which the boy who explores the dusty caves below places the cobwebbed bottles of red wine for the last cork pulling. Large gold chandeliers, dangling with glass prisms, are suspended from high ceiling and flood the room with light, against which the inner shutters of the tall windows must be shut because of danger from the sky.
There is colour in that room. The Roman conquerors would have found it interesting. If former armed occupants of the old town could have paraded in their ancient habiliments through the room like a procession from the martial past, they would have found much for their attention in this scene of the martial present. American khaki seems to predominate, although at several tables are Canadian officers in uniforms of the same colour but of different tailoring.
The tables are flecked with all varieties of French uniforms, from scarlet pants with solitary black stripes down the leg, to tunics of horizon blue. In one corner there are two turbaned Algerians with heads bent close over their black coffee, and one horn of the hall rack shows a red fez with a gold crescent on the crown.
Consider the company. That freckle-faced youth with the fluffed reddish hair of a bandmaster is a French aviator, and among the row of decorations on his dark blue coat is one that he received by reason of a well known adventure over the German lines, which cannot be mentioned here. That American colonel whose short grey hair blends into the white wall behind him is a former member of the United States war college and one of the most important factors in the legislation that shaped the present military status of his country. That other Frenchman with the unusual gold shoulder straps is not a member of the French army. He is a naval officer, and the daring with which he carried his mapping chart along exposed portions of the line at Verdun and evolved the mathematical data on which the French fired their guns against the German waves has been the pride of both the navy and the army.
Over there is a young captain who this time last year was a "shavetail" second in command at a small post along the line of communications in Chihuahua. Next to him sits a tall dark youngster wearing with pride his first Sam Browne belt and "U. S. R." on his collar. He carted human wreckage to the hospitals on the French front for two years before Uncle Sam decided to end the war. There's another one not long from the "Point," booted and spurred and moulded to his uniform. He speaks with a twang of old Virginia on every syllable and they say his family—but that has nothing to do with the fact that he is aid to a major general and is in these parts on a mission.
There are three American women in the room. One who is interested in Y. M. C. A. work and a number of newspapers, wears a feminine adaptation of the uniform and holds court at the head of a table of five officers. Another, Mrs. Robert R. McCormick, who is engaged in the extension of the canteen work of a Paris organisation, is sitting at our table and she is willing to wager her husband anything from half a dozen gloves to a big donation check that Germany will be ready for any kind of peace before an American offensive in the spring.
The interests of the other American woman are negative. She professes no concern in the fact that war correspondents' life insurances are cancelled, but she repeats to me that a dead correspondent is of no use to his paper, and I reply that if madame puts yet another one of her courses on the board, one correspondent will die with a fork in his hand instead of a pencil.
The diners are leaving. Each opening of the salon door brings in a gust of dampness that makes the tablecloths flap. Rain coats swish and rustle in the entry. Rain is falling in sheets in the black courtyard. The moon is gone.
A merry party trails down the stone gallery skirting the quadrangle. Their hobnailed soles and steel plated heels ring on the stone flags. The arches echo back their song:
A warrior bold
Sang merrily his lay, etc. etc. etc.
My love is young and fair.
My love has golden hair,
So what care I
Though death be nigh, etc. etc. etc."
With frequent passages where a dearth of words reduce the selection to musical but meaningless ta-de-ta-tas, the voices melt into the blackness and the rain.
"Great times to be alive," I say to the wife. "This place is saturated with romance. I don't have to be back to the post until to-morrow night. Where will we go? They are singing 'Carmen' in the old opera house on the square. What do you say?"
"There's a Charlie Chaplin on the programme next to the hotel," the wife replies.
Romance was slapped with a custard pie.
CHAPTER VI "FRONTWARD HO!"When the artillery training had proceeded to such a point that the French instructors were congratulating our officers upon their proficiency, the rumours spread through the post that the brigade had been ordered to go to the front—that we were to be the first American soldiers to actually go into the line and face the Germans.
The news was received with joy. The men were keen to try out their newly acquired abilities upon the enemy. Harness was polished until it shone. Brass equipment gleamed until you could almost see your face in it. The men groomed the horses until the animals got pains from it. Enlisted men sojourning in the Guard House for petty offences, despatched their guards with scrawled pleadings that the sentences be changed to fines so that they could accompany the outfits to the front.
With one special purpose in view, I made application to General March for an assignment to Battery A of the Sixth Field Artillery. I received the appointment. The Sixth was the first regiment of the brigade and A was the first battery of the regiment. I knew that we would march out in that order, that Battery A would entrain first, detrain first, go in the line first, and I hoped to be present at the firing of the first American shot in the war.
We pulled out of the post on schedule time early in the morning, two days later. Officers and men had been up and dressed since midnight. Ten minutes after their arising, blankets had been rolled and all personal equipment packed ready for departure with the exception of mess kits.
While the stable police details fed the horses, the rest of us "leaned up against" steak, hot biscuits, syrup and hot coffee. The cook had been on the job all night and his efforts touched the right spot. It seemed as if it was the coldest hour of the night and the hot "chow" acted as a primer on the sleepy human machines.
In the darkness, the animals were packed into the gun carriages and caissons down in the gun park, and it was 4 A. M. on the dot when the captain's whistle sounded and we moved off the reserve. As we rattled over the railroad crossing and took the road, the men made facetious good-byes to the scene of their six weeks' training.
Soldiers like movement—we were on the move. Every one's spirits were up and the animals were frisky and high-stepping in the brisk air. Chains rattled as some of the lead pairs mussed up the traces and were brought back into alignment by the drivers. The cannoneers, muffled in great coats, hung on the caisson seats and chided the drivers.
We were off. Where we were going, seemed to make no difference. Rumours could never be depended upon, so none of us knew our destination, but all of us hoped that we were going into action. Every man in the battery felt that the schooling was over and that the battery, if given a chance, could prove that it needed no further training.
At the same time, some of the men expressed the fear that we were on our way to some other training camp for some post-graduate course in firing or maybe for the purpose of instructing other less advanced batteries. The final consensus of opinion was, however, that "beefing" about our prospects wouldn't change them, and that anything was better than staying in the same place forever.
Two miles from the post the road crossed the railroad tracks. The crossing bore a name as everything else did in that land of poetical nomenclature. There was only one house there. It was an old grey stone cottage, its walls covered with vines, and its garden full of shrubbery. It was occupied by three persons, the old crossing-tender, his wife—and one other. That other was Jeanne. Jeanne was their daughter.
We had seen her many times as she opened the crossing gates for traffic on the road. She was about sixteen years old. Her ankles were encased in thick grey woollen hose of her own knitting and, where they emerged from her heavy wooden shoes, it looked as if every move in her clumsy footgear might break them off.
As we approached the crossing, Gallagher, who rode one of the lead pair on piece No. 2, began to give vent to his fine Irish tenor. Gallagher was singing:
On Moonlight bay,
You could hear the voices ringing,
They seemed to say,
'You have stolen my heart
Now, don't go away,'
As we kissed and said good-bye
On Moonlight bay."
It would almost have seemed that there was need of some explanation for Gallagher's musical demonstration on this cold, dark morning, but none was demanded. Gallagher apparently knew what he was doing.
His pair of lead horses were walking in much too orderly a fashion for the occasion. Apparently the occasion demanded a little greater show of dash and spirit. Gallagher sunk his spurs into the flanks of his mount and punched its mate in the ribs with the heavy handle of his riding crop.
The leads lunged forward against their collars. The sudden plunge was accompanied by a jangle of chains as the traces tightened. The gun carriage jolted and the cannoneers swore at the unnecessary bouncing.
"Easy, Zigg-Zigg, whoa, Fini." Gallagher pulled on the lines as he shouted in a calculated pitch the French names of his horses. And then the reason for Gallagher's conduct developed.
A pair of wooden shutters on a first floor window of the gate-tender's cottage opened outward. In the window was a lamp. The yellow rays from it shone upward and revealed a tumbled mass of long black hair, black eyes that gleamed, red cheeks and red lips. Then a sweet voice said:
"Gude-bye, Meeky."
"Orry wore, Jeen," replied Gallagher.
"Après la guerre, Meeky," said Jeanne.
"Orry wore, Jeen," repeated Gallagher.
"Oh, Jeanie, dear, please call me 'Meeky,'" sang out one of the men, astride one of the wheel pair of the same gun.
The window had closed, but before the light disappeared, black eyes flashed hate at the jester, and Gallagher, himself, two horses ahead, turned in the saddle and told the taunter to shut his mouth, observing at the same time that "some guys didn't know a decent girl when they saw one."
We rode on. Soon, on the left, the sun came
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