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BEING THE NARRATIVE OF BATTERY A OF THE 101st FIELD ARTILLERY

Page 187

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sons and limbers, ration cart, a dozen horses, and six drivers were quartered in Charny, a ruined town on the Meuse, where the Regimental Supply Company was also stationed. The men lived in cellars. Charny for us was the "forward echelon". The "rear echelon" was twenty kilometers back in the Bois de Sartelles near the Baleicourt railroad. Here the rest of the drivers and horses and the heavy wagons led a stupid, muddy existence, making occasional sorties at dusk to return at daybreak if they were lucky.

                After supper on November 1 the first platoon of the firing battery left Charny, and recrossing the Meuse at Bras, took the road for Haudromont. After five kilometers through strange country in the growing dusk, they were met at the foot of a steep hill by the scouts who had gone ahead earlier in the day. The guns were driven up the hill over a very steep, rough, uncertain road which required the most skillful kind of driving. It was completely dark before both guns had been installed in place of the two French guns, and the limbers sent back. Our two pieces were laid in parallel to the two remaining French guns, and for the rest of the night the French and American gun-guards stood watch together. The men passed their first peaceful night since before Death Valley, crowded with their newly found French comrades in the fine, dry, roomy dugouts.

                The third and fourth pieces came up from Charny next night, and the last of the French firing battery departed. Their "cinquieme piece" or telephone de­ tail was the last to leave, as calls relative to the movement of the French batteries were coming through

 

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