You may not think this a story of heroism; but if it does not fall into
that class we do not know where to place it. There is no attacking a
plane in mid-air and sending it crashing to earth; no leaping into
trench and gathering a score or so of prisoners with the tilt of a
bayonet; no running to stand on a parapet and hurl hand grenades
against a rain of bullets; nothing to set your blood into a gallop to
grip you and make you take off your hat to the man about whom Private
Jesse A. Whaley, Co. K, 310th Inf., A. E. F., is writing. And this is
what Whaley wrote as it appeared in the New York _Sunday Times_:
“It is dark, the ground is damp and cold. There are men stirring about
cleaning their rifles and there is a queer look on their faces. One
private is sitting huddled in the trench; he is cold, he is hungry
with that gnawing feeling in his stomach which comes from lack of
food for many hours. He moves restlessly, thousands of things pass
through his mind; home, loved ones. Suddenly a whistle sounds at our
right and there is a rushing of men. There is but a second’s wait; it
is the signal for the fight. It is now midnight, the men move to and
fro, they disappear. When we come upon them again they are all lined
up waiting for the barrage to start just outside of the wood. Does it
seem possible that these men are the same who just a few minutes ago
were sitting in the trench back in the wood? The barrage starts and
the scene is lit with the strangest light our eyes ever saw. There is
a roar in our cars, and suddenly all is dark with a blackness the eye
cannot pierce. A flare breaks in the sky, lighting the strange scene
which lies before us. To our right lies a valley in which are many more
men. We see flashes of rifles, and now and again a flare shoots up,
disclosing a clump of bushes which means almost certain death to those
who approach it.”