_42nd Division, 165th Infantry, 83rd Brigade_
He was recommended for the Distinguished Service Cross for three days’
fighting in the Château-Thierry Sector. He was mentioned for having
maintained liaison under heavy bombardment, as well as having performed
first-aid work.]
“PAID HIS WAY IN HUNS”
Our bomb thrower was twice promoted for bravery, and finally was
offered a commission in his regiment “for setting traps for Fritz when
he goes a-sniping.” A bomber is called on to do a lot of work besides
bombing, such as crawling about at night sniffing trouble, and likely
points where Huns may be blown sky high. He would like to get a quick
promotion but “at any rate,” he writes, “I can truthfully say that
I have already blotted out enough Huns to pay for my scalp, if that
business deal comes to the point of record. And it is a most cheerful
and fortifying sensation. I would like my epitaph to read ‘He paid his
way in Huns.’”
Wounds, yes, and minor disabilities, but he writes, “I don’t need my
left side to throw bombs and the Lord has spared my right side for a
special purpose. I have got more than my share of Huns as it is and I
firmly intend to get some more. Three of us, with sufficient bombs,
accounted for 46 dead Huns, 26 wounded and 22 prisoners in one single
afternoon. This was a redoubt which they surrendered, after they had
had enough.”
He was finally sent away to an Officers’ Training Camp and after six
weeks came back to the front as first lieutenant. In the meantime,
though, his regiment had been remounted and was doing patrol duty.
Patrol duty did not suit Lieutenant Z. He therefore joined the Machine
Gun Corps, and spent several months in a “Tank Menagerie.” At Messines
Ridge he led a division of the “Rhinos” into battle. The Military
Cross he won there is only small evidence to the steadfast heroism he
displayed that day.
He was well acquainted with conditions by that time. His description of
a battle at the Somme shows that:
“I was only fifteen hundred yards from our front line, and the place
taken was on an upward slope, so all was in full sight. At the given
moment, 4.45 p.m. of a lovely summer evening, up they went, ‘over the
top,’ famous Celtic regiments, all together, a long and gallant line.
Bayonets sparkling in the sun, up the slope they go! Behind me our
massed batteries are making one great crashing roar till your temples
throb and throb, and ahead of our men the very earth is heaving and
moving amidst a fog of green and black and yellow and gray smoke.
Now, No Man’s Land, so long a desert, is full of life and death and
joy and misery. White vicious balls of shrapnel puff above; or deadly
black and green ones, and below the great spouts and mushroom columns
of jet-black smoke spring up like fungoid growths here and there.
The shrill rat-tat of machine guns and the pop-pop-pop of rifles can
be heard. On the little figures run and jump, and the bayonets gleam
and sparkle, and the first line disappears into the trench ahead, and
you are left to imagine what follows. Still, No Man’s Land is well
populated. Wave after wave is speeding straight ahead. The ground
is dotted with immovable dots, and others which can crawl. A bright
magnesium star shoots up well ahead, and the batteries lift their
fire without checking. The waves all surge forward and out of sight
at last, and No Man’s Land is left to its misery. Then you see the
stretcher-bearers out there among the great grinding ‘crumps’ and the
shrapnel, calmly picking up their men, and back they come slowly. You
watch one group of five. Four bearers and a mangled something which
is alive. A monster spout and cloud springs up near. They swerve and
crouch for a few seconds and on they come. Another black death entirely
hides them from view, and you wonder. No! Here they come. So slowly and
steadily through the cloud, and you say to yourself: ‘Hurry, hurry; for
God’s sake run!’ But they don’t. They walk slowly and carefully with
their burden, straight and the shortest way. Some win home and some
do not. Other men are carrying others, and some hobble and limp and
stagger by themselves. And all the while the big shells burst and the
shrapnel sprays the ground.
“No Man’s Land is again a desert, dotted with dots of death.”