Page:The history and achievements of the Fort Sheridan officers' training camps.djvu/394

 392 THE FORT SHERIDAN ASSOCIATION

All candidates agreed that nothing could beat the three entertainments given and the applause and enthusiasm throughout repaid the extra effort and time given.

The final week in the trenches — the third in the series — began on the twelfth week. The instructors desired during this week to teach the following lessons:

1 . Camouflage of Trenches. — The student officers camouflaged the important sections of the trenches, the machine gun emplacements, battery supports. Part of it w^as a w^ork of art.

2. Organization of the Position. — This included posting of sentinels; relief of sentinels; posting of observers; relief of observers; posting of w^atches; relief of watches; giving the alarm in case of troop attack or a gas attack and other matters relating to interior life of the trenches.

3. Providing against night attacks by patrols in No Man's Land.

4. Construction of barbed wire entanglements.

5. Communication betw^een the different parts of Trench System by chains of runners and communication with the artillery support by means of rockets, etc. Drill in the placing and firing of flares.

6. Drill in offensive and defensive attacks and general maneuvers by day and night.

The week went off fine. The three months' work of instruction, training and organization were beginning to tell. There was confidence, earnestness and rapid movement. Underlying it all was the constant pressure of the fact that probably the next trial out in the trenches would be in far away France.

The movements in the trenches and in the attacks went off like clock work. The night was illumined by constant setting off of flares, the sharp cracking of rifles and the whirr and crack of the bursting rockets, while the boom of the heavy guns carried far distant and kept the North Shore awake through a large part of the night and brought hundreds from all sections who witnessed the night movements from the central road.

The "Reveille ' said, "Tuesday night's sham battle w^as the most inter- esting and spectacular held at Fort Sheridan. Seven companies under com- mand of Major H. R. Smalley attacked the trenches, defended by eleven com- panies under command of Major C. A. Bach. The attack came in waves, twenty minutes apart, running from the East to the West Sectors.

All commands were given by rockets and signal fires. Thirteen trench mortars firing aerial bombs simulated exploding shells over the trenches and No Man's Land. Star shells, flares, rockets and "Bengal" lights kept up a constant illumination and the booming of rockets and rifles in the hands of 2,000 fighting men made the work most realistic yet attempted."

During the week one of the officers took some friends to dinner at a neighborhood hotel. This hotel had prospered largely during the Camps and had always been particularly gracious to the men at Fort Sheridan.

The proprietor's humor seemed to be way off. He called the officer aside and told him that the big guns woke up some of his nervous guests in the middle of the night and that there were a lot of complaints from people who came out there to be quiet.

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