Read "A Yankee in the Trenches" by Robert DerHolmes online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The excitement of getting away from camp and the knowledge that we were soon to get into the thick of the big game pleased most of us. We were glad to go. At least we thought so.
Two hundred of us were loaded into side-door Pullmans, forty to the car. It was a kind of sardine or Boston Elevated effect, and by the time we reached Rouen, twenty-four hours later, we had kinks in our legs and corns on our elbows. Also we were hungry, having had nothing but bully beef and biscuits. We made "char," which is trench slang for tea, in the station, and after two hours moved up the line again, this time in real coaches.