Our Army at the Front Author:Heywood Broun Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER in THE FIRST DIVISION LANDS THEY saw the gray troop-ships steaming majestically into the middle distance from the gray of the open sea, with the litt... more »le convoy fleet alongside. It was a gray morning, and at first the ships were hardly more than nebulous patches of a deeper tone than sea and sky. As they neared the port, and took on outline, the watchers increased, and took on internationalism. The Americans, who had come to see this consequential landing, some in uniform and some civilians, had arrived in the very early morning, before the inhabitants of the little seaport town were up and about, let alone aware of what an event was that day to put them into the history books. But it never takes a French civilian long to discover that something is afoot—what with three years of big happenings to sharpen his wits and keep him on the lookout. At the front of the quay were Americans two deep, straining to make out the incoming ships, on tiptoe to count their number, breathless to shout a welcome to the first "Old Glory" to be let loose to the harbor winds. Forming rapidly behind the Americans were French men, French women, and French children, indifferent to affairs, kitchens, or schools, chatter- ing that "Mais surement, c' sont les Americains —regardez, regardez! . . ." Ignominiously in the rear, but watching too, were the German prisoners who worked, in theory at least, at transferring rails from inconvenient places to convenient ones for the loading of coaster steamers. They said little enough, having learned that a respectful hearing was not to be their lot for a while. But they moved fewer rails than ever, and nobody bothered to speed them up. The great ships came in slowly. Before long, the watchers could see lines of dull yellow banding the gray hulk...« less