OUR TRIP THROUGH FRANCE TO ELOYES

At three P. M. on June the eighth we rolled our packs and started on our first venture into the mysteries of France. It took us about forty-five minutes of steady hiking through hot and dusty streets to reach the depot where we were to entrain. We found a long string of second and third class coaches waiting for us. Our barrack bags and three days rations had been loaded on two box cars by a special detail sent ahead for that purpose.

We crowded into our cars and all was ready to go. A description of a French car might help one to get a better idea of our situation. The car is only about one-half as long as an American coach and it is divided into five separate compartments. Each compartment has a window and a door on each side. There is a step on the outside running the entire length of the car. It is just below the level of the floor and one can walk from one compartment to the other if he is not afraid of falling off the car. The compartment is about large enough for four persons to ride in any degree of comfort if they have cushions to sit on; but the Railway transport officer evidently thought that there would be more room if the cushions were removed. There were eight of us to each compartment.

We were scheduled to leave at three P. M. and by rushing a little we were loaded by a few minutes after that hour. We lived up to the reputation of the Sanitary Train for always being on time and pulled out of the station only three hours late. We thought at least that we were going to see some of the beautiful France we had heard about. We had not gone far when we realized that we were going to have plenty of time to look at the scenery. France must have some very strict laws against speeding for we never traveled faster than ten miles per hour and it was very seldom that we ever went that fast.

We ate our supper as soon as we were out of Le Havre. It was a very hearty meal. Each man's issue was five crackers, one-eighth of a can of "corn wooley," one-eighth of a can of tomatoes. He didn't have much variation from that during the trip.

Our next problem was, how were we going to sleep. It did not take long to solve that. Two of the boys slept in the hat racks, four slept in the seats and two slept on the floor between the seats. Part of the time we slept piled on top of each other. When we woke up in the morning we felt like we had sat up all night.

The second day we began to get our first real sight of France. We saw soldiers guarding the bridges and tunnels. Troop trains passed us all day long going to from the front carrying both French and American soldiers. We saw our first real barbed wire entanglements that day and it made us realize that we were getting near the place where the fighting was going on. The children all along the way attracted our attention by running along the track crying "biskeet" and holding out their hands. They looked queer to us. They wore a little black apron and wooden shoes. Some of the fellows threw hard tack out the window to them just to see them scramble for it.

The rest of our trip was similar to the first day. We went by the way of Rouen and Troyes and arrived in Epinal, a city on the edge of the Vosges mountains, on the evening of June the tenth. We were a very tired and hungry bunch for our rations had run low that morning and we had eaten nothing but hard tack all day.

We detrained there and marched through the town to an old military prison of Napoleon's time. We were told that we would spend the night there. There were several large buildings surrounded by a high stone wall with only one gate and that was guarded by a French soldier. There were about one hundred German prisoners in the building next to our quarters. As we were not permitted to go up town the French people thought that we were prisoners also. We were given our barrack bags that night for the first time since we left the states. We were without any funds so some of the boys who were fortunate enough to have some "Bull Durham" stored away in their barrack bags disposed of it to the French soldiers for a franc a package. It was an exchange where both parties were satisfied.

We learned that the division was billeted a few miles south and the next morning we received orders to move to Eloyes at two P. M. Trucks were furnished to haul our barrack bags and packs and we started out hiking with our company in the lead of the train. We were half way there when we saw our first aeroplanes in action along the front. There were five of them in battle formation returning from the direction of the front. We noticed that houses and lumber piles along the road were camouflaged. This began to look like the war that we had heard about. We passed through Arches, division headquarters at that time, about mess. We thought that we were at the end of our long journey and could almost taste our supper but we did not stop there. Just as we came in sight of Eloyes it began to rain. It did not rain long and the sun came out just as we were climbing the hill to our kitchen. There was a very pretty rainbow with the end of it, so it seemed, right at our kitchen. That was one time that there was something better than a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, for the cooks had supper almost ready for us. It certainly tasted good to us after our long hike.

It began raining almost immediately after supper and rained most of the night. We stood around in the rain until almost eleven P. M., while the Major de Cantonment was explaining that he had no billets for us. We were tired enough to pitch our pup tents and sleep in the streets but finally we marched about a mile out of town and were put in a barn for the night. One of the boys said he will always feel like a criminal for robbing a calf of its bed and also for carrying away about a thousand "petite crawling animals."

We marched back to town the next morning about eight A. M. and enjoyed a breakfast of bacon, hardtack and coffee. During the day the soldiers who occupied the town moved out and by five o'clock our company was located in fairly good billets.

It rained so consistently that we did not get to drill for over a week. We were issued our overseas caps and spiral leggins a few days after we arrived in Eloyes. At the same time we turned in our barrack bags and russet shoes. We were equipped for the trenches.

We began drilling by going out under some trees and practicing with our gas masks. A few days later we received litters and then our real drilling began. "Patients" would be sent out and located on the sides of the steep hills and the litter bearers were supposed to locate them and bring them safely down the almost impassable paths.

However, the boys were not worked very hard and they had plenty of time to spend with the inhabitants learning to "parlez Francais." Many of the soldiers acquired private instructors in the shape of small French boys who were only too glad to be adopted by the Americans. The typewriter in the office was a big drawing card for children. There was always a large bunch hanging around to watch "Abe" operate the machine.

We received some English army trucks here and after teaching them to "Talk American" used them as ambulances. We evacuated the sick of the division to Field Hospital 137 at Eloyes.

About the middle of June the division was ordered up to take over the sector east of us in Alsace. Lieut. Siberts took a detachment with trucks to Bussang to cover the movement, evacuating his patients to Field Hospital 139 which went into action there. This detachment was the first detachment of the Sanitary Train to operate in Alsace.