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

Page 234

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many days before we could actually grasp the fact that we were home again.

                Our first quarters at Camp Devens were not luxurious. Tents, much like those at Brest, with folding canvas cots, served as billets for our first two days in camp. As an earnest, however, of what was coming, we messed in a wooden barrack, steamheated and lit by electricity, a marvel of ease and comfort, we thought.

                Disgustedly we learned that we must pass through cootie baths and have our clothes sterilized before occupying wooden barracks. It seemed unnecessary to us, for the battery was 100 per cent, cootie-less when it left Brest. Resignedly we said, "C'est la guerre," and passed into the baths. Our clothes were bundled up in our blankets and shot into steam ovens, while we rushed past a line of medical officers, hurried through a lukewarm shower, and then, clad in long wrappers, waited for our clothes to be taken from the steam ovens. At last they came out. What a sight! Blouses that had gone in newly pressed and unwrinkled, came forth a mass of folds and creases, while the "Medico" in charge of the ovens joined his two assistant apostles in cheerfully assuring us that the creases couldn't be ironed out. Nice man.

                That night the first lot of passes were given out, and the fortunates rushed out of Devens, bound for seventy-two hours at home, their ardor slightly dampened by the fantastic appearance of their uniforms.

                When they returned, they found the Battery busily doing nothing and comfortably lodged in wooden barracks, accommodations of a splendor we never

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