Page:History of the 305th field artillery (IA historyof305thfi01camp).pdf/86

68 On Tuesday whispers slipped apparently from nothing. On Wednesday the Supply Company awakened to a new activity. From it escaped the significant news that we would get harness at once. Nothing more was to be unpacked. All that we had taken out was to be put back again in the cases.

"But," we objected, trying to stick to logic, "they wouldn't have stripped us this way. We can't go without men, and you can't take green men and train them on an ocean voyage.

Can't you, though? We were to find out about that. For on Thursday the officer in charge of arriving casuals conferred with us. From him we learned that trainloads of men from the West had been gathered at Camp Devens, and would come to us at once. We grasped at every comfort. If these replacements were from the West they'd probably know something about horses.

Selected officers and non-commissioned officers were awakened at 2 o'clock on the morning of the 19th. The trains were about to arrive.

There was a chill in the air. A mist, pearl-colored about the lamps, veiled the dreary similarity of the barracks.

The trains crawled in with a stealth harmonious with the secrecy of all these movements. The throbbing of the locomotives was discreet as if the mist sought to muille it.

Out of the cars they poured, sleepy-eyed, struggling ineptly with barrack bags, not at all voluble as soldiers in groups usually are. Our old men lined them up with a gentleness designed to destroy their attitude of strangers, bashful and apprehensive. We counted them again and again to be sure we were getting all we were entitled to. We marched them off in groups through the fog. The fog seemed friendly to them, for at that time they were with-