CHAPTER XII

BEFORE CANTIGNY

It is strange how sleep can come at the front in surroundings not unlike
the interior of a boiler factory, but it does. I heard of no man who
slept in the cellars beneath the ruins of Serevilliers that night being
disturbed by the pounding of the shells and the jar of the ground, both
of which were ever present through our dormant senses. Stranger still
was the fact that at midnight when the shelling almost ceased, for small
intervals, almost every sleeper there present was aroused by the sudden
silence. When the shelling was resumed, sleep returned.

"When I get back on the farm outside of Chicago," said one officer, "I
don't believe I will be able to sleep unless I get somebody to stand
under my window and shake a thunder sheet all night."

It is also remarkable how the tired human, under such conditions, can
turn off the switch on an energetic imagination and resign himself
completely to fate. In those cellars that night, every man knew that one
direct hit of a "two ten" German shell on his particular cellar wall,
would mean taps for everybody in the cave. Such a possibility demands
consideration in the slowest moving minds.

Mentalities and morale of varying calibre cogitate upon this matter at
varying lengths, but I doubt in the end if there is much difference in
the conclusion arrived at. Such reflections produce the inevitable
decision that if one particular shell is coming into your particular
abode, there is nothing you can do to keep it out, so "What the hell!"
You might just as well go to sleep and forget it because if it gets you,
you most probably will never know anything about it anyway. I believe
such is the philosophy of the shelled.

It must have been three o'clock in the morning when a sputtering motor
cycle came to a stop in the shelter of our cellar door and a gas guard
standing there exchanged words with some one. It ended in the sound of
hobnails on the stone steps as the despatch rider descended, lighting
his way with the yellow shaft from an electric pocket lamp.

"What is it?" inquired the Major, awakening and rolling over on his
side.

"Just come from regimental headquarters," said the messenger. "I'm
carrying orders on to the next town. Adjutant gave me this letter to
deliver to you, sir. The Adjutant's compliments, sir, and apologies for
waking you, but he said the mail just arrived and the envelope looked
important and he thought you might like to get