Page:History of the 305th field artillery (IA historyof305thfi01camp).pdf/192

170 wasn't exceptional. Going into billets for a battery is always much the same problem, much the same mad struga gle for a solution. And, when it's reached, the solution is always about the same. Yet invariably out of the confusion emerges a sort of order and comfort. Eventually we became more than ever like a great traveling circus whose discipline automatically repairs the mistakes of a poor advance man. And that isn't intended as any reflection on our billeting officers and non-commissioned officers. They, as a rule, had too much to do, and they were restricted to too small an area by the advance agents of the division.

Some towns had a better welcome for infantry than for artillery, but that fact didn't seem always to be appreciated. Besides billets for officers and men, the artillery needed ground suitable for extensive picket lines and gun parks, and no matter how suitable the ground you couldn't establish either near the front without overhead cover.

Organizations, whether they arrived in the afternoon or during the dark hours, ran into much the same conditions in those billets north of Coulommiers. The billeting officers couldn't be all over the district, so the non-commissioned aides, as a rule faced the battery commanders alone.

One always experienced a quick sympathy for these unfortunates. Invariably they glowed with a naive pride. They always produced careful lists, showing the billets available, and the number of men that could be housed in each. A battery commander going into billets, however, is only interested at first in two things.

"The picket line and the gun park!” he cries as be meets his man.

Perhaps the glowing advance agent has let the Battery slip past these vital points, and it may be necessary to turn the entire column around by sections in a narrow street. Battery commanders never take to that kindly, nor do