THIAUCOURT AT ANY COST
SHOCK troops are all that the name itself implies. They are the troops
sent forward, in human waves, to receive and break the first shock of
contact with the enemy lines. Invariably a large number of them are
doomed to death or injury, and the men themselves know it. But the very
knowledge seems to drive them forward with greater fury, and the clash,
therefore, is one of carnage for one or both sides.
These were the shock troops that were going over with the dawn against
the entrenched Germans—if they still remained entrenched after the
terrible fire to which they had been subjected for hours by the massed
American artillery, augmented by the world-known French 75’s.
Even through the rolling smoke screen the light was becoming stronger,
and Tom, Ollie and Harper, plodding ahead rapidly with their comrades,
knew that soon it would be full dawn, that the screen would be lifted,
and behind a barrage of fire that still would precede them for a short
distance, the infantry would come to position to launch its close-range
avalanche of rifle and machine gun bullets upon the enemy.
It was just as they were beginning to quicken the pace that Tom heard a
grunt and a gasp, followed by a muttered word or two, and looking down
upon his left side saw Ollie, almost up to his neck in a huge hole dug
by one of the shells with which the Boche had made futile effort to stop
the American fire.
Tom on one side and George Harper on the other, they managed to haul
Ollie out, but the sudden drop had jarred him to the point of nausea and
for several yards, as they double-quicked it to catch up with their
line, they virtually carried their chum along, each of them holding to
one of his arms.
Looking skyward Tom made another discovery. It was as though great
flocks of giant birds peopled the air. Aeroplanes of every capacity and
description and in various formations were maneuvering over their heads
and beyond them.
Watching them as he trotted along, Tom saw from time to time a smaller
scout plane separate itself from its group and dart forward and out of
sight over the enemy lines. Presently it would return, sometimes to
remain with its squadron, at others to continue back to some signalling
point in the rear, from which it relayed the facts of the German’s
position or movements.
Massive battle and bombing planes plowed along, their powerful motors
beating a tremendous bass throb as their big propellers churned the air.
Here and there, too, were anchored observation baloons, the observers in
them, equipped with parachutes for a long jump to safety at any time,
sitting at telephone instruments connected with the various
headquarters.
On the land and in the sky the battle was on—the history-making battle
of the St. Mihiel salient!
Once a German aero battle fleet that a few months before would have been
considered the most formidable fighting unit that ever took the air,
sailed forward as if to engage the American gunners and pilots in a
struggle; but either their courage failed them or better judgment
prevailed, for there was a quick signal from the leader of the group,
and with greater speed than they had approached they turned and fled
toward their own lines.
“Fritz isn’t feeling very well this morning,” the irrepressible “Buck”
Granger shouted, and a merry shout arose from the men who were within
hearing of the remark.
And, indeed, it seemed to be the truth. Fritz was getting some of his
own medicine, and apparently he considered it a rather bitter dose.
The smoke ahead began to dissipate itself in the brisk early morning
breeze, and the men had their first realization that the firing behind
them had almost ceased.
In subdued voices the officers were now counselling their men to use all
reasonable precaution; and indeed the orders were necessary, for the
lads, now this far upon their errand of victory, were ready to plunge
ahead, regardless of all hazards.
And then in another instant the whole thing was on. Tom did not hear the
order given. As he thought the thing over afterward, he wondered if any
actual order had been uttered. It was a matter of doubt, not only with
himself, but with many other of the men. But after all that was a matter
of only secondary moment.
They were in—those men in the first wave of shock companies—and now they
were racing like mad toward where the enemy lay waiting.
They were within fifty yards of the wood which was their immediate
objective when they suddenly were made aware that it was a veritable
wasp’s nest of hidden machine guns. With disconcerting unison they began
to spit their bullets at the American lines, and the men, trained to
just such a contingency, fell flat upon their stomachs with such
alacrity that none could tell which or how many had been killed or
wounded by this first defense of the hidden Huns.
The machine guns continued their murderous sput-sput-sput, but the range
was over the heads of the men as they stealthily edged forward, now in
scattered, zig-zag line.
Tom saw George Harper train his gun upon the thick foliage of a near
tree, and, almost on the instant that he fired, a huge German came
toppling through the branches and to the ground.
“Number one,” Harper muttered, with set jaw. But another sharp-shooter
had picked him out, and he had hardly said the words when a bullet
flattened itself against his helmet with such force as to drive it down
over his eyes.
A sergeant crawled past where Tom and Ollie were scraping their way
forward. “I want three men to go with me to get that nearest machine gun
nest,” he whispered, “you two come along.”
As Tom and Ollie followed as cautiously as they could, they realized
that the third man was their old friend, “Buck” Granger. “A little
action at last,” he grumbled, good-naturedly, as he wiped from his eye a
chunk of dirt that had been thrown up by a bullet which plowed into the
ground less than a foot ahead of him. “This is the real stuff.”
The sergeant warned them to be careful not to raise their voices. They
were making their way through a patch of tall weeds and grass, and the
object was to move as rapidly as possible, and yet with every caution,
so that they might overtake the nest without themselves being
discovered.
Further to the left of them some of their own men already had risen
again and were rushing toward the wood. This particular gun was trained
upon them, and Tom gritted his teeth in silent resolution of revenge as
he saw it send forth its hail of bullets, mowing down three Americans,
painfully if not mortally wounded.
They were within fifteen yards of the spot when the tallest of the four
Germans visible discovered them approaching. He muttered some gutteral
sound of warning to his companions, but it was his last word, for the
sergeant picked him off with a clean shot through the heart.
[Illustration: Ollie Hurled a Grenade Directly Into the Group That
Remained.]
Hardly had the sergeant’s rifle spoken when Ollie, with the strength and
aim he had gained on many a long throw straight from second base to the
home plate in many a hard-fought baseball game, hurled a grenade
directly into the group that remained. As the smoke cleared, Tom was at
the gun, swung it about and turned it full upon a clump of bushes from
which another batch of Boches were attempting to stop or stem the
irresistible tide of American oncomers.
They attempted to surrender, but as through a trumpet Tom heard the
shouted order of a major, “On, on! No quarter!” And with what had been
their own weapon a few moments before, another half dozen of the enemy
went to their Judgment.
Far ahead of them German guns were hurling shells at the point where the
fight was becoming thickest, but for the time their range was
sufficiently short to be inflicting more damage upon their own troops
than upon the Americans. The battle was now becoming hotter with each
moment, for while the first wave of shock troops was going forward with
unconquerable valor, the Germans who were on the very rear of a vast
retreating host were stubbornly contesting each foot of the way,
marveling at the bravery of their opponents, not realizing that the
avalanche of men throwing themselves upon them were fighting, not
because they had been ordered or compelled to, but because they had
before them every instant of the time the ideal of liberty and freedom
which brought the United States into the conflict.
With a detonation that threw Tom and several other of the men flat upon
the ground, a tremendous German shell exploded just ahead of them. It
sent a great cloud of earth and rock into the air, and before they could
arise a big tree, that had been completely uprooted by the projectile
fell directly toward them. The others rolled out of the way, but Tom was
not quick enough. One of the large branches pinned both his legs to the
ground.
As he tugged in vain to get his freedom, George Harper crawled over to
him. “Lay still for a moment,” he instructed his friend, “I think I can
get you out.”
With bullets whistling and singing all about them, with now and then a
shell screaming its death message almost into the pit where Tom lay an
impatient prisoner, the two lads worked frantically, but to little
avail. Although his legs lay in a slight depression, which left him free
of the weight of the huge tree, he was nevertheless held fast, and at
last Tom began to urge Harper to abandon him there until others came
along.
“I’ll dig you out,” his friend replied, at the same time poising his
bayonetted rifle for the job of scooping out enough earth to permit Tom
to slip his legs out of the trap.
Harper was in that position when suddenly his eye caught something in
the fallen tree which made him swerve suddenly. “You beast!” he cried,
and with all the gathered force of his strong body he flung his rifle,
as a primitive savage would a spear, into the nearby branches.
Tom, looking at that instant, saw the bayonet sink to the hilt in a
brutal-looking German who at that instant was bringing up his gun to
fire upon them. With one agonized grunt he crumbled, and then lay still;
and Harper, averting his head, recovered his weapon.
Obviously the Boche had been an enemy sharp-shooter hidden in the upper
branches of the tree, and until that moment had remained stunned by the
force of the fall precipitated by a shell from his own lines.
Harper set to work instantly to dig Tom out, but it was not an easy job.
As he lay there, virtually helpless, gazing up at the sky and at the
scores of aeroplanes dashing, dodging, cruising about, he gave a gasp of
astonishment which also attracted his friend’s attention.
With consummate daring a Boche pilot had dodged the apparently
impenetrable American air defenses, and, with half a dozen planes
pursuing and attacking him, was making straight toward a big anchored
observation baloon that hung motionless in the air a little to the north
of where the first wave of shock troops thus far had progressed.
The tremendous pounding of the motors rose even above the din of big and
little guns. From every point Allied planes were sweeping down upon the
Hun machine, but before they could overtake him he had fired an
incendiary bullet at the baloon with unerring aim.
As it burst into a mass of flames that were lurid, even in the now broad
daylight, the two men who had been occupying it as observers jumped out.
There was nothing else for them to do, and probably it was not their
first parachute descent from a great height. Nevertheless Tom gave an
involuntary gasp at the apparent cool courage of the men as they leaped
into space, and, for a distance of fully a hundred feet, shot down with
tremendous speed toward the earth until their parachutes opened up.
They landed upon the opposite side of the wood, and the men who had
watched them never learned whether they escaped in safety or were killed
in the inferno into which they landed.
In five minutes more Tom was free. The fight by that time had forged
steadily ahead, and beyond the delay of stopping to ease the dying
moments of one brave fellow with a last gulp of water, they rushed
forward to join the others of their platoon.
As they passed through the wood, which stretched longitudinally for a
considerable distance, but was comparatively shallow in depth, they saw
scores of Germans and not a few of their own men, most of them dead,
others mortally wounded and dying, others temporarily incapacitated but
not so seriously hurt, trying to staunch their own wounds and hobble
back to first aid stations.
It was a sight that struck to the very heart of the lads, but looking
backward for an instant they saw the second wave of indomitable men
approaching, and scattered through the occasional breaches in their
lines they saw that emblem of tender care and mercy, the Red Cross.
Where the Germans previously had dug in, just behind the line of the
wood, was now a havoc of wreck and ruin, the whole earth thereabouts
having been churned and plowed and furrowed by the terrific artillery
fire which the Americans had poured in preliminary to the advance.
From where they had swung round the eastern end of the miniature forest,
hundreds of tanks were now bobbing up and down like great, clumsy,
fire-spitting beetles, as they lumbered across this chaos of mounds and
gullies, paving the way for the renewed infantry attack that would open
with the arrival of the second wave of shock troops.
Actual fighting had been going on little more than an hour, and yet the
Americans had progressed more than a mile beyond where the first German
line had been encountered, had taken what the Boche had regarded as an
almost impregnable wood, peopled as it was with sharp-shooters and
hundreds of machine gun nests, and by the sheer courage and
determination of their attack had struck fear to the heart of the Hun.
Losses had been heavy, but they were slight as compared with the
casualties of the Germans. It had been a fearful ordeal, and the attack
really had but just begun. The men were begrimed, powder-stained and
most of them crusted with mud. But they were as invincible now as when
they started—and more anxious to continue.
Major Sweeney, his own left hand roughly bound in a handkerchief
betokening a wound of some sort, dashed up for a hurried word as he
passed along the line.
“Brave work!” he shouted. “You are doing no less than was expected of
you, but much remains yet to be done. Make good use of your short
breathing spell. The next half mile ought to be comparatively easy but
beyond that it will be more difficult. No one of us, however, can have
doubt of the result. Civilization never will forget what sacrifices you
are making for it today. We must not weaken for a moment now.
“The enemy already is upon the verge of an utter rout. We must make it
complete. He will stop a little further on to marshal his forces and
make a desperate and determined stand. So far as possible we must
prevent him from succeeding in that aim. We must keep him moving so fast
that he will be unable again to reorganize his forces for effective
resistance.
“All reports indicate that we are obtaining our objectives at every
point along the line. Upon you men devolves the responsibility of taking
Thiaucourt—Thiaucourt at all costs.”
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