Page:History of the 305th field artillery (IA historyof305thfi01camp).pdf/56

38 scarred by the months of our labor. It hadn't been intended, for that matter, that they should be. The plan bad been to bave the range masquerade as an actual battle terrain. About the target areas, however, many acres had been cleared, and with a few thrills.

The conflagration happened on a sharp December afternoon. Considering the labor, the hunger, the investigations that accompanied and followed it, it would be an affectation of conservatism to speak of the thing as a mere fire.

Brushwood mysteriously caught at the far end, sprang to the woods, and, a spreading column of flames and smoke before a half gale, swept towards our mushroom city. Practically the entire regiment worked the latter part of the afternoon and half the night getting the flames under control and some toiled for an indefinite period trying to fix the blame. That was never done, but for months shadows hung over suspected spots, and Colonel Doyle's lips were often severe.

Yet the accident wasn't without benefit. Those who surveyed the charred areas pronounced the range about cleared for action.

Horses still lacked. The range was some miles from camp. To get our guns there with a shadow of dignity or comfort we would need horses. While we lacked such vital transport, indeed, we could not look upon ourselves as a real Field Artillery regiment.

There had been rumors. There always are about everything, but early in December an amazingly real order came to send details to the remount depot. On December 10th eighty-seven horses were brought up and quartered in our stables.

They didn't appeal to us as at all what we would have chosen for our own stalls. They fell into two classes—cavalry and artillery, that is, individual mounts and draft