“Somebody would have to do something about it. Who was always doing
something or other about something? Battling Bobo and his Red Cross
band!
“To dash into the streets of St. Souplet would not help much because
the dash would end in a patter of lead and a bouquet of whiz-bangs
that would leave nothing but a shell hole where ambulances an instant
before had been. Nevertheless young Captain Bobo and his men ‘had’
to get there. The Captain called together his Red Cross band, which
that day numbered only thirty-five huskies, the others being absent on
other work or ill. Captain Bobo explained the situation and asked the
thirty-five how many of them would care to volunteer to go into St.
Souplet with him—to go up to our front line trenches in the broad light
of day and beyond, on into the buildings of a town still thoroughly
held by the Germans. Pause a moment, reader, and guess how many of the
thirty-five Red Crossers volunteered.... Reader, you’re a wonder: you
guessed the exact number the very first time!
“And so the thirty-five started forward with Captain Bobo, scooting
along in their ambulances parallel to the fighting lines for a little
distance and then making a dash across lots to a grove which stood at
an advanced spot where, up to that time, no American soldier had set
his foot. And while an amazed American Army looked on, the little band
made the woods and disappeared among the trees while hell cracked all
around them.
“Providence and Steve Bobo were with them. In the heart of the little
clump of trees they found an old road which ran through a ravine to the
nearest back alleys of St. Souplet. When they had come to a place where
the old road climbed out of the ravine preparatory to entering the
town, Captain Bobo jumped off the leading ambulance, gave his followers
the high sign, and again gathered them about him for final directions.
And Bobo and his band left their ambulances in the protecting ravine
and began to crawl on their bellies across the last of the fields and
into the town.
“They followed by preference the backdoor route when they had wormed
across the last field and straightened up to find themselves in St.
Souplet. Even so it was necessary at times to make a dash for it across
open streets, a dash that must be completed before the astonished
German gentry at far ends of the streets could begin to pepper the
thoroughfare with the machine gun bullets. Always, however, Battling
Bobo and his band beat the bullets to it.
“In the black cellars of the village they rooted around. Old women lay
huddled in the underground gloom; one of them, a very old lady, had
been shot through both thighs three days before and, quite unattended,
lay cowering in her cellar until Captain Bobo dragged her forth and
carried her back to where his ambulances lay hidden. There were old
men, little children, young girls for whom the horror of their nights
of hiding in the Boche infested village had a terror greater even than
gas and the shriek of shells. One by one Bobo and his men carried
the sufferers into back yards, through the winding alleys, back of
protecting buildings, and so to the wooded ravine, where the ambulances
were filled with the stricken villagers of St. Souplet and the bundles
of scant belongings which they hugged to their trembling bosoms. Then
the dash back through the grove and across the sunlit No Man’s Land
to final safety—not final for the Red Cross band, for as soon as they
had carried their first load of refugees behind the American lines they
turned around and did it all over again, and again, and again. For four
hours at one stretch they worked like beavers to save the villagers of
St. Souplet, then organized a second series of trips and put in eight
hours more darting to and from the town or squirming into its alleys
and cellars. And Battling Bobo and his band got the villagers finally
to safety without the loss of a Red Cross man, despite the fact that
the ‘Jerries’ were systematically shelling the village from the first
moment the Red Cross rescuers entered it until the last villager had
been saved.”
There were forty-seven Red Cross men in Bobo’s band. To this day the
Captain is trying to find out why only twenty of them were cited for
exceptional heroism.
“EH! MON, ’TWAS GRAND!”
A Braw Hieland Laddie’s Impressions of What Happened When “We Were Over
the Top Like a Lot of Dogs Let Loose”
The powerful British thrust along the Somme will take its place in
history as one of the striking instances of sheer courage fighting
against frightful odds and winning out. In that “push” there were
hundreds of thrilling individual adventures, but it is impossible to
give each man his due, so splendid was the concerted action. But a
representative of the London _Telegraph_ talked in a hospital with
a Scotsman wounded at Pozieres, and this excerpt from the published
article throws an illuminating gleam over the whole battle front, and
one feels that Scotty was but the mouthpiece burring out the spirit of
his fellows as they plunged forward:
“Eh, mon, it was hell, but it was grand. We’ve got a move on at last,
and are paying the Huns out. For over a week our guns have been letting
rip at them. Talk about the German guns in the early days of the war,
they are not in it now. I was in the retreat from Mons, so I reckon
I’ve seen some of the fighting.
“I got my packet Friday night,” he added, referring to his wounds.
“We were pushed up to our front line trenches early Friday morning.
Long before daybreak the guns were at it worse than ever. The noise
fair drove some fellows daft, but the worst of all was waiting in the
trenches for the order to charge. When that came we were over the top
like a lot of dogs let loose. The ground was churned up for miles, and
the front of the German trenches simply smashed to bits. We got there
under cover of smoke, and fairly rolled in. I shall never forget the
sight. The Germans were lying heaped up in all directions, and those
who were alive showed no fight, but appeared to have gone ‘clean potty.’
“Further on we got into the supports, which had received a terrific
smashing about, and it was there we had the scrap. At the last moment
it seemed the Germans had rushed a crowd of chaps in, and they had
hidden themselves in shell holes and were taking pot-shots at us. We
rushed them with the bayonet and bombs, and some of them put up a good
fight. I had one fellow in front of me, and felt myself a ‘goner,’ for
I tumbled over some wire, when one of our chaps got his bayonet into
him. The next second a German ‘outed’ my chum. ‘Never fear, Jock,’ he
said, ‘you did the same trick for me once.’ That chap’s left a wife and
six bairns away up north,” added the Scot.
Asked how he received his wounds, the Scot became somewhat bashful.
“Oh, one of the Huns got in at me,” he replied. Another wounded hero,
however, took up the narrative. “He fair tumbled into a hole where
there was half a dozen of ’em hiding,” said the second man. “Jock comes
of a fighting race, and he gave the Huns a bit for hiding.”
[Illustration:
© _Western Newspaper Union._