Hellfire Boys: The Birth of the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service and the Race for the World's Deadliest Weapons by Theo Emery

Author:Theo Emery
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: WWII, war, history
ISBN: 9780316264112
Publisher: Little, Brown
Published: 2017-11-14T05:00:00+00:00

PART III

RETORT

Chapter Twelve

First Gas and Flame

Three cheers for the old “Gas and Flame”

Rip ’er up for the old “Gas and Flame”

We’ll smell phosgene and mustard forever

We are Vets of the old “Gas and Flame.”

—Robert B. MacMullin

Company E, First Gas Regiment

November 11, 1924

July was the slow month for the boys of Company B. Endless drilling filled hot, dull days and somnolent afternoons. Higgie’s farmhouse billet was a comfortable roost, the best in the village, and the company had the abandoned town to themselves. Nine miles from the fighting at Château-Thierry, they could hear the guns booming at the lines. Instead of setting projectors, they went for swims in the Marne. The men were bored and restless, but headquarters had ordered them to stay put. During the pause in the regiment’s action, headquarters reorganized, moving Companies A and C to First Battalion, while shifting Companies B and D to Second Battalion and billeting them next to each other in Mont-Ménard and Rougeville. The battalion headquarters claimed spacious buildings nearby in Saâcy for its offices. When shells fell too close for comfort, the headquarters moved to nearby Le Ferté.

Tom Jabine led Higgie’s platoon in drills, repeating the same tasks that the regiment had performed so many times. The two had become fast friends. The night after Jabine got his commission, the two men talked late into the night. “He is a swell fellow,” Higgie wrote in his diary.

Company B had become a tight-knit band after many months together on the line. Jabine was well liked among the men: at an evening retreat, Higgie and the other Company B boys had given him three cheers for his promotion to second lieutenant. Jabine worried that he would miss the camaraderie of the sergeant’s mess hall; fraternization between ranks was frowned on, and he worried that his friendships would fray.

Jabine also became friends with another officer, Lieutenant Joseph Hanlon, who had transferred from Company A. A chemist who had also attended Columbia University, Hanlon had introduced himself to Jabine in June. “He is one of our best—a hell of a nice fellow,” Jabine wrote to his brother. Back in June, Hanlon had bunked with the chaplain Addison; they, too, had become friends.

When Jabine went to Paris on leave, he felt lonely even though the streets teemed with soldiers and sailors; he wished he had someone to see the sights with. “I never knew what it meant to be lonesome since I joined the army till I had this job wished on me!” he wrote home. After he returned to camp, Jabine drilled his men hard. He knew they hated it—it was stale and repetitive and they wanted to be at the front. But he needed to learn to lead, while the men needed something to occupy themselves. Higgie never complained. In one week, he got three letters from Irene, his sweetheart back in the States. He wrote letters, played catch, took expeditions into Le Ferté, and swam almost every day. One poker game in the billet lasted all day.

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