Hard Country (60 page)

I’m doing the right thing and hope you’ll understand and forgive me. I’ll write you from time to time so you don’t have to worry about me. Give Matt my love and tell him I’ll be home when the war is over and we’ll all have a fine time then.

Your loving son,
CJ

In San Antonio, CJ and his fellow new recruits were thrown in with a whole passel of West Texas cowboys who’d also enlisted. The outfit was short on uniforms, so most of the troops wore their civilian duds for a while, until the quartermaster shipments arrived. Much to everyone’s dismay, the rumor that the new recruits were going south to the Big Bend Country for border patrol duty got quickly squashed by the officers and sergeants.

CJ spent his days with the other recruits on stable or barracks duty, cleaning out stalls and latrines, washing dishes and cleaning rifles, standing inspection and studying the rules of military etiquette, marching and riding in formation, and attending lectures in tactics.

Summer brought the arrival of four veteran troops of the First Texas Cavalry up from the Big Bend under the command of Major John Golding, and over the next month field and weapons training intensified. On July 26, the entire First Texas Cavalry detrained in Fort Worth with orders to guard Camp Bowie, a National Guard cantonment under construction. It was one of thirty-two National Guard and army cantonments to be built across the country.

The camp was sited on land overlooking the city about two miles west of downtown. There was a road nearby that gave easy access to the city, which contained a major rail yard, two large meatpacking plants, granaries, a horse and mule market that supplied livestock to the camp, and more than a hundred thousand citizens eager to cash in on the millions of dollars to be spent on military construction and the monthly payroll doled out to the troops.

The troopers arrived to find nothing more than a timekeeper’s shack and three thousand laborers working in the hot Texas sun unloading truckloads of lumber, gravel, tools, and raw materials. They pitched their tents and went to work guarding the camp, as roads were built, water-line trenches were dug, a rail spur was laid, telephone lines were strung, and mess halls, warehouses, latrines, and bathhouses were framed and roofed.

More troops arrived soon after, including National Guard engineers from Texas and Oklahoma and six companies of Texas Infantry. In a month, nine hundred buildings had been put up. The men had never seen anything like it. On August 23, Major General Edwin St. John Greble, a Regular Army officer who had served in the Spanish American War and in El Paso during the Mexican border crisis, arrived to assume command and announce the formation of the new Thirty-sixth Division.

As summer turned to fall, more guardsmen and draftees poured into the camp. Eight-man tents held ten to twelve soldiers; men lined up outside mess halls waiting their turn for meals that were served to two hundred and fifty troopers at a time. Some of the late arriving units were forced to practice tactics with wooden rifles, and most men trained with outdated rifles that were useless on the battlefield.

When a freezing storm blew in on a late September morning, thousands were without winter clothing and blankets. Another cold storm hit the camp in early October, leaving more than half the units without fuel wood to keep warm. Men went on sick call in droves, suffering from measles, pneumonia, and meningitis, and the hospital, the largest structure in camp, overflowed with patients.

CJ took to the training with enthusiasm and tried to keep his spirits up, although he wondered at times if the army could ever do anything right. Many of the junior officers didn’t know spit about soldiering, but a few of the sergeants were seasoned troopers, including CJ’s sergeant, a tall, easygoing Texan named John Lockhart. A veteran of the Rough Riders and the Regular Army, Lockhart knew his stuff and treated his men fairly. He had a way of getting the most out of his men without being bossy. CJ asked Lockhart if he remembered knowing Patrick Kerney from the New Mexico troop.

Lockhart said he did. “Was he kin of yours?”

“He’s an uncle on my mother’s side,” CJ lied.

Lockhart looked surprised. “He’s alive?”

“Yep.”

“I’ll be,” Lockhart said with a shake of his head. “We were in the same hospital ward at Camp Wikoff. As sick as he was, I figured him to be a goner.”

When a corporal in CJ’s platoon died of pneumonia, Lockhart recommended him for the promotion, and soon CJ sported stripes on his uniform blouse.

He’d been writing letters to Ma and squirreling them away to send before he left for France. He didn’t want her to know where he was stationed for fear she’d demand that he be sent home.

He told her about San Antonio and Fort Worth, the two biggest cities he’d ever seen, and how there were motorcars everywhere and more people on the streets than a body could count. He drew a sketch of the tanks that had been unloaded off the camp’s railroad spur and wrote that he’d never seen such marvels of destruction, with their huge tracks that ground deep ruts in the earth and the big rotating guns on both sides. He told her the cavalry boys he served with weren’t happy about being turned into foot soldiers and that several had deserted to go back to their farms and ranches.

A week after he got promoted, CJ sat on his cot in the evening and wrote another letter.

Dear Mother,

Today, a British army officer who served in the trenches in France gave a lecture to noncommissioned officers on field fortifications. I got to attend it because I am now promoted to corporal and will be going to various schools here at camp that teach noncoms and officers how to use the bayonet, proper ways to protect against poison gas, musketry training, and a lot of other soldiering skills. I don’t get to go to all the schools, but each company and regiment sends enough noncoms and officers to them so that the training can get passed on to every man in the entire division.

My sergeant, John Lockhart, says I’m sure to keep getting promoted, as many of the fellas here don’t take well to military discipline and get their rank taken away for things like insubordination or being absent without leave. He just got made a master sergeant himself.

Our camp is growing. Our colonel told us there are over 25,000 soldiers here now. We all live in tents that are laid out like villages in neat squares connected one to the other. It’s quite a sight.

The other day just about everybody stopped dead in their tracks to watch three Army Air Service biplanes fly overhead. It was something to behold, and we talked about it until lights-out.

They’ve been back a couple of times since then and it’s a marvel to see what those pilots can do in the air, flying upside down and twisting the airplane in the sky.

I’ll close now as I am very weary. We’ve been digging makeshift trenches to practice what it’s like to go to war in Europe. A big trench is being built outside of camp a ways that will be as much like the real McCoy as they can make it. But until it’s finished, we dig for a spell and then practice how to use hand and rifle grenades, do target shooting—I’m expert at that—and build trench fortifications. Drilling and hard marches round out the day.

This is letter number five. I’ll bundle them up and send them to you before I leave for France. I hope you’re proud about my promotion, and don’t worry about me as I am fine.

Tell that little button Matt I miss him.

Your loving son,
CJ

Feeling a touch homesick, he sealed the letter in an envelope and put it with the others. He hadn’t written that he was just out of the hospital after a bad case of the measles and that one of his tent mates, Private Buddy Nice from Big Spring, had died from it. That would just worry her to tears when she got the letter.

Several of the men had already turned in and were snoring in their sleep. Two others were cleaning their rifles. Another trooper, Sammy Longbow, a Cherokee Indian, was sharpening the Bowie knife that he valued more than any weapon the army could issue to him.

CJ checked the tent stove, banked the fire, and stepped into the cold November night to round up the rest of his squad before lights-out sounded. He’d taken a shine to army life and was starting to think it just might suit him to make a career of it.

67

F
rom winter to the late spring of 1918, CJ worried that he would be left out of the action. Since December, the First Division had been in the trenches with the French, and four more outfits, including two National Guard divisions, had joined the fighting. No one seemed to know when the Thirty-sixth would get overseas orders, and all the officers were tight-lipped about it, but in early June a flurry of paperwork and new orders signaled the division would soon be under way to the Port of New York for embarkation to Europe.

Supplies and equipment were inventoried and supplemented; all soldiers underwent physical exams; mechanized tanks, trucks, and field pieces were inspected and repaired as needed; and daily roll calls were held to limit desertions. A note from one man in CJ’s regiment was found on his cot saying he’d be back after he helped his widowed mother on the farm.

Although the impending departure was supposed to be kept secret, the boys were allowed to write home about it, and soon family members were pouring into Fort Worth to see their sons, brothers, and husbands off to war. Passes were granted to men whose loved ones were in town. CJ stayed in camp with the other soldiers who had no kin visiting, and they kept their spirits up in the evenings by writing letters and playing cards until lights-out.

Tapped for promotion to sergeant, CJ received orders to leave early for New York. On July 3 he wrote a quick note to Ma.

Dear Mother,

Tomorrow I leave for France ahead of the division with a small detachment of men and officers who have been promoted and ordered to attend school in France. I am now a sergeant and will be receiving instruction to become a proficient noncommissioned officer.

I’m including some pay I’ve saved up over the last year, about six months’ worth. If you need it that’s okay by me, or you can save it for me. But take some and get Matt a present from me. Tell that little rascal I miss him.

You’ll get this in a parcel I’ll wrap up that has all the letters I’ve written to you over the last year. I hope when you read them you’ll forgive me for worrying you these many months, but I didn’t want you trying to take me out of the army for being underage.

I’ve just written Pa to tell him where I’m going. I figure he has a right to know.

I’ll write you again from France and tell you about all the sights I see.

Your loving son,
CJ (Sgt.)

On the early evening of July 4, CJ boarded a train in Fort Worth with a detachment of soldiers including John Lockhart, recently commissioned a second lieutenant, who also had orders to attend school in France. They sat together in a coach car staring out at the rolling hills of the North Texas plains.

“Tell me true, CJ,” Lockhart said, “how old are you?”

“Just now nineteen,” CJ lied.

“I figured you to be about that,” Lockhart said with a smile. “You’re the youngest sergeant in the division. Did you know that?”

“No, sir.”

“You’re gonna be scared when you go to war. Every man is, no matter how many times they do it.”

“I reckon that’s right,” CJ said.

“Sergeants can’t show it, though,” Lockhart counseled. “It throws the boys under him into a panic and gets a lot of men needlessly killed.”

“I sure don’t want to falter.”

“You won’t. Use your noggin. Think things through. Don’t rush unless you’ve got to scamper because of the situation, and don’t give stupid orders.”

“What if I get stupid orders?” CJ asked.

“For certain you will,” Lockhart answered, leaving it at that.

In the gathering darkness the train entered the thick forests of East Texas. The two men smoked in comfortable silence as the trees turned to countless shadows dancing against the windows.

* * *

D
uring the next four days they crossed rivers, including the wide Mississippi, cut through deep forests, passed by rich farmlands with tidy farmhouses, rolled through small towns, and traversed big cities where smokestacks billowed grime and soot into the air. From the train they saw St. Louis, Chicago, and Cleveland. Often they were greeted by flag-waving, cheering crowds lining the tracks in the towns and cities.

On infrequent breaks when they were allowed to stop and stretch their legs, CJ tried hard not to look like a country bumpkin, but sometimes his jaw dropped in amazement at the sight of an enormous stream-driven tractor in a farmer’s field or the dozens and dozens of city tenements with folks living stacked up one on top of the other.

Arriving at Camp Merritt in Hoboken, New Jersey, the detachment received orders canceling their early departure and went to work readying for the division’s arrival. Across the bay, New York City rose like some futuristic world beyond CJ’s imagination. He promised himself to come back and visit it someday.

As the main body of the division began to arrive, men and equipment poured off the trains coming from the south, west, and north, depending on how the different regiments were routed. The outfits were assembled, squared away, and ferried almost immediately across the bay to a camp to prepare for embarkation.

On his last night before boarding for departure, CJ wrote to Ma.