THE THUNDER OF MARS
NEVER has there been such a sudden and simultaneous crashing outburst of
artillery of every conceivable kind and calibre as ripped the darkness
and the silence at two-thirty o’clock on the morning of September 12th
on the southern side of the St. Mihiel salient.
For the five minutes preceding the appointed time every officer of the
staff and line had stood gazing at his wrist watch, counting off the
seconds, knowing what was coming, waiting for it, wishing for it, and
yet withal unprepared for the terrible shock which seemed to make the
very earth rock and roar.
With such an uninterrupted banging and booming and screeching and
swishing as never before had been heard upon the face of the earth,
thousands upon thousands of guns, massed side by side along a line
twelve miles long, were belching forth as in one thunderous voice a new
and world wide Declaration of Independence.
America, come to another continent to avenge mankind and save humanity
and civilization, was pouring the wrath of the universe into the Hun
lines and defenses.
Under the terrific shock of the thing men fell upon their faces in the
trenches, their hands to their ears in a vain effort to shut out the
screaming, nerve-racking death-cry of the cannon. The attempts were
futile. Never for an instant did the guns pause; never was there the
slightest break in their awful rhythm.
Men in the trenches whose duty still lay before them, marveled at the
strength and endurance, the proficiency and the tenacity of those other
men, far behind the lines, who were feeding, feeding, feeding shells
into the maw of this tremendous array of artillery.
A veritable cloud of projectiles—death-dealing, trench-destroying
shells—were being hurled over the heads of the infantrymen into the
long-held defenses of the Boche.
And then, as if that was not enough for men to endure, just before they
were to throw their own lives into the battle, the German guns began to
reply.
They had no range, for the attack was a complete surprise. Had they been
less self-complacent they might have realized that for days before, when
an invincible fleet of aeroplanes of every description had kept their
own air observers from flying over this area, something of great
significance was under way.
But if they sensed it, their efforts to learn were of no avail, and so
when the awful thunder of shelling began, they could only guess where
the infantry and tanks were massed, which inevitably would follow in the
wake of the artillery carnage.
So, when they opened up, terrifically, too, it is true, but with nothing
like the force of the assault directed against them, it was with a
sweeping shelling much like the playing of a searchlight over an area.
It was not a barrage; it was more like the blind, helpless and
hysterical hitting back of one who knows not where his opponent is.
Nevertheless shells fell dangerously near; and once a big one landed
directly in the second line trenches, less than a hundred yards below
where Company C was stationed. Its toll of death was appalling. A dozen
men were blown to atoms. Rocks that had been part of the trench
formation were thrown in all directions, dealing death and injury as
surely as the explosive itself.
The inadvertent first cry of a dozen injured men was enough to shake the
nerves of the strongest; for after all in warfare, it is not so much the
risking, or even the giving, of one’s life, as it is the agonized
suffering of others dying that makes a man quake, and for the moment
falter.
Tom leaned over toward Harper and tried to shout something in his ear,
but the effort was as useless as though the one had been dumb and the
other deaf. It was absolutely impossible to make the human voice heard.
When an officer wished to issue some brief order, it was only by signs
that he could make himself understood.
Hour after hour it continued without the slightest halt.
Tom Walton began to wonder how much longer it would continue—how much
longer such an earth-shaking onslaught _could_ continue. Men who have
gone through it know that the strain of such a thing, the absolutely
inactive and helpless waiting, is the worst mental torture of all
warfare, and far worse than rushing forth into battle which may mean
almost certain death.
For a time thought seems to be suspended, and there is nothing but the
frightful burst of explosions, during which one cannot think. And then
comes a period of dulled senses—dulled to the present, and taking one
into the past.
It is not like the mental sensations of a drowning man, in which the
entire past life flashes before the mind in a clear but lightning-like
panorama; but rather one takes up separate events, finds himself
analyzing them for causes, motives; and, try to shake himself together
as he will, cannot for the time rid himself of the melancholy
fascination of it.
So it was with Tom Walton—perhaps also with Ollie Ogden and George
Harper.
Men were not cowards who broke down and wept during that awful night.
They were not afraid of bodily injury or death. It was the terrible
strain upon nerves already strung taut with preparation for, and in
anticipation of, the battle which they must fight and win. The very
restraint which for the time curbed the fulfillment of their
determination was the severest sort of sap upon their vitality.
Tom wondered at his own impersonal and disinterested detachment as he
stood watching a man of his own company wringing his hands, unable to
repress his feelings, the tears rolling down his cheeks. He had known
the fellow intimately for months. Twice he had seen him risk his life to
aid a comrade. He gazed at him now, but his own feelings were calloused
to the other’s misery.
His own thoughts, strangely enough, were not of the present nor of the
task so near at hand, but of his school days. And of all the incidents
that crossed his mind, one stood out with particular insistence. It was
shortly before he had entered Brighton, and when his mother, dear soul,
was skimping herself of everything she could (as he knew now) to give
him the education which she realized would be his asset later.
The day stood out before his distorted mind now as a great blot upon his
whole career. He shuddered as he thought of it, and yet he could not
turn his mind to other things. He reviewed it again and again.
He had started for school as usual that morning, but on his way had met
companions. They, too, were pupils in the same school, but it was the
late springtime of the year, and they were going to try the old swimming
hole. At first Tom refused to join them, but finally the temptation
became too great.
He joined them in their truancy, and they started for what they planned
to be a rollicking day. On their way they invaded an apple orchard and
pulled branch after branch of the blossoms that, left to grow, would
have become ripe and useful fruit. Tom’s mother hardly would have
believed that he would deliberately stay away from school, much less go
swimming at that season when she had warned him that illness inevitably
would be the result. But he had done both. And on their way home one of
the lads, who had a sling-shot, had killed a chirping robin. It was
probably that last act of heartlessness that showed Tom the exact
character of the companions he had chosen for his day of deception.
That night he had had a chill, and for days his mother had nursed him
through a sickness for which she could not account. And he had never
told her. A feeling of revulsion and shame overcame him. For the time he
even forgot the thousands of shells that were being hurled over his
head. He wondered if in this battle he would be killed. A great longing
came over him to see his mother, and in the old spirit of boyhood
confidence to tell her the whole story. Yes, if he should live, he would
tell her at the first opportunity. He did not want anyone else to have
the chance to tell her first.
And with the good resolution came mental relief. He seemed to come back
to himself again, and looking about him began to speculate as to what
sort of thoughts were passing through the minds of the men about him.
From one to another he looked, wondering what confessions, if any, they
would make if they could.
But in such an inferno as that neither introspection nor retrospection
can last very long, and it was the nearby explosion of a heavy German
shell, sending a shower of steel and rock fragments into the trench,
that brought Tom Walton to a keen realization of the present. A piece of
metal plate nearly circular in shape, fully three inches in diameter,
and most peculiarly scrolled by the forces that had blown it from the
shell, fell directly at his feet. He picked it up, examined it for a
moment, and then dropped it into his blouse pocket as a souvenir of his
first night under such a cannonading.
A lieutenant tapped him on the shoulder, and he swung around as though
shot. The officer smiled grimly an instant and thrust before Tom a sheet
of paper on which was a brief instruction which could not be given
verbally because of the din:
“We go over in forty-five minutes. Be ready when the artillery lets up.”
Tom nodded and the lieutenant passed to Ollie and George Harper, and so
on from man to man along the entire section of trench occupied by
Company C.
In forty-five minutes! The time was getting close. Well, anything was
better than remaining there motionless under such a strain, not knowing
at what moment a Boche shell might come thundering into their shallow
stopping place to spread sudden death and mortal injury.
Men began tightening and adjusting their equipment, examining their
rifles, cartridge belts and small arms.
A Salvation Army man came down the trench lugging a great can of
steaming coffee. The boys of Company C greeted him with cheers which
their lips formed but their voices could not make heard; and as they
took cautious quaffs of the hot beverage it seemed to soothe ragged
nerves and give them new vigor.
Tom looked at his wrist watch and compared it with Harper’s. They were
exactly the same time. But half an hour now remained.
That instant marked another move in the game, too. In little groups men
climbed out of the trench and went forward. Tom knew instinctively that
they were the dare-devil wire-cutters—that the American artillery,
adjusted like clockwork, had moved forward and these men were going out
to cut away any entanglements that it had not smashed and entirely
destroyed.
In this conflict war had become an exact science, and the men going out
knew that except for an occasional German shell that might fall in their
vicinity they were working behind an invincible screen of steel and
fire.
There flashed across Tom Walton’s mind the picture of General Pershing
as he had seen him on the preceding day in conference with the officers
who were to direct and carry out the gigantic project which he and the
other great commanders had formulated; and in the recollection Tom found
new confidence and determination. Whatever indecision may have possessed
him fell away; it was as though he suddenly had been shorn of shackles
which weighted him down; he breathed in deeply of the powder-tainted
air, and his only sensation was that of a great and noble strength of
purpose.
Tom examined his watch again. But ten minutes more!
Suddenly, almost with as great a shock as it had begun, the firing
ceased. If the expression can be made, the tremendous silence that fell
upon the area came like a crash. For the men had become gradually tuned
up to the dreadful uproar, and to have it abruptly break off set their
heads ringing.
“Get ready, boys!” Captain McCallum’s perfectly controlled voice spoke
out down the trench, and the lads could hear other captains giving like
orders to their own men.
And then the artillery began again, but it was more subdued than before.
Tom looked upward and realized that the first streaks of dawn were
stretching out across the sky.
He was immediately aware of something else, also. The smoke screen was
being laid down!
This was the final of the preliminary moves to their “going over.”
It began only a few yards out from the trench line and gradually moved
off toward where the enemy had been undergoing such terrific punishment.
Lieutenant Gaston was alternating his attention upon the smoke screen
and his watch. Tom looked at his own timepiece. It was 5.25 on the
morning of September 12, 1918, four years to a day since the Germans had
established the St. Mihiel salient!
Men were readjusting their steel helmets or tugging impatiently at
uniform and equipment.
Captain McCallum raised his right arm and the men as best they could in
their cramped quarters came to attention.
“Thiaucourt!” the commander shouted.
A great cheer came from every throat. It was taken up and echoed by
companies on their right and on their left.
The captain again raised his right hand. His eyes were on his watch. The
second hand was ticking round to 5.30.
The men stood with outstretched hands grasping the wall of the trench in
front of them to leap up and out.
Abruptly the captain’s hand fell. “Let’s go.”
And with a wild shout of exultation men of that company, and men of
other companies on either side, miles up and down the trench, were up
and over, in pursuit of the smoke screen—and the Hun.
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