The mess line
be left behind when it came to killing Huns. Absurd dream! He stalked into our midst with a new confidence. He destroyed friendships. He threatened reputations.
The morning report and the sick book were complicated by the fact that each organization had men in two or three places. The firing battery, for instance was at the position. The drivers and extra cannoneers were at the echelon several miles away. Communication between the two was seldom good. A few men would be at the observatory, at a pirate piece, with the infantry, or on detail at battalion headquarters. Yet reports on these men must be consolidated and at regimental headquarters at the usual hour.
There were reams of extra paper work. The war diary became a bogey. If, the men asked, they had to have anything of the sort, why not do away with all the other reports. For the war diary brought everything together, positions, men, animals, casualties, rations, forage, ammunition. At the front where we had less time than we had ever had repetition haunted us. The information on that little war diary blank had to be collected from many sources, and the batteries had to have their figures together by five in the morning, for battalion headquarters wanted them by six, and regimental headquarters insisted
