To the Last Man - Jeff Shaara [209]
He stared out the window of the car, saw people shuffling along wrapped in thick bundles of clothing, the brutality of winter pressing down on the city. He fought the reminder, what the winter meant to the soldiers, the men flowing into the lines along the American sector without sufficient protection against the brutal cold. It was the worst winter anyone could remember, and Pershing had begged the quartermaster’s office in Washington for suitable clothing, coats and leggings, yet another urgent request seemingly tossed into some basket, to be ignored by someone with better things to do. If the cold was not enough of a challenge, the troops were marching mostly on foot, since very little motor transportation had been made available. It was another source of Pershing’s fury; no one in Washington taking seriously his requests for trucks. We are the world’s largest producer of motor vehicles, he thought, and they insist that the trucks should be kept at the training centers. Those people can use horse-drawn carriages, for God’s sake. Here, we have men marching in a war zone with frozen feet along icy roads, because some damned colonel in Louisiana can’t be inconvenienced.
It had become almost routine now, so many of his army’s needs going unmet, ignored by the various offices in Washington, a theater of the comically absurd. But through his frustration, the effects of his staff’s extraordinary efforts in France were bringing results. Slowly, the ports were becoming more efficient, and the pipeline of supply was beginning to flow with more regularity. Much of it was due to a radical change that had swept across the waters of the Atlantic. The horrific effects of the U-boat war had been blunted by the increasing use of convoys, large groups of transport ships traveling together, swarmed about by antisubmarine destroyers and gunships. For the first time since Wilson had declared war, the rate of sinkings inflicted by the German submarines had actually dropped, and dropped significantly. Though the flow of troops was far slower than he and the Allies had hoped, the men were coming, and as the training camps in the States continued to turn out soldiers who had at least rudimentary training, those numbers would only rise. Clemenceau’s lack of concern that the Americans be given any real preparation was an annoyance, but it would not affect the system Pershing had put in place. He knew that regardless of what the British and the French demanded or expected, as each American division was sent into line, they would be prepared for whatever they would face. And every day, there were more of them.
TASKER BLISS HAD FINALLY STEPPED DOWN AS CHIEF OF STAFF, BUT instead of settling quietly into retirement, he had requested assignment to Europe, and now he was serving as a delegate, a nonvoting member of the Supreme War Council, to represent the interests of the American government. Pershing respected the man, but had received so little cooperation from Bliss’ offices in Washington that he had few expectations Bliss would accomplish anything of substance. His new role carried no authority, and Bliss’ sole responsibility was