HOLDING THE LINE
"On to Berlin," was the cry of the whole Yank army. And the boys were
impatient of every delay that kept them from their goal. They all felt
like the colored private from Alabama who was asked to join a French
class: "No, I don' want to study French. I want to study German."
After the hisses had died down some one asked, "Why is it you want to
study German rather than French?"
"I'se goin' to Berlin."
Then the hisses gave way to cheers.
It was that same spirit which caused Corporal Cole, of the Marines, to
say: "The marines do not know such a word as 'retreat.'" That was the
spirit which brought the curt reply from Col. Whittlesey when the
Huns asked his "Lost Battalion" to surrender.
The American army was a victorious army. It had never been defeated.
It had faith in its ideals. Those ideals were neither selfish nor
arrogant. It wore no boastful "Gott mit uns" on its belt. It desired
only the opportunity of striking low that nation which dared to
dictate terms to the Almighty as well as to men. It braved three
thousand miles of submarine peril to meet such an enemy.
Even an invincible army has to breathe and eat and sleep. They can
hold their breath long enough to adjust a gas mask, but the mask tells
us that even in gas they must be enabled to breathe. In the heat of
the chase when the Hun is the hare, they can forget for a time that
they are hungry, but the field kitchen testifies to the fact that
hunger undermines courage and that an efficient army must be a
well-fed army.
To see men curled up in muddy shell-holes with the sky for canopy,
peacefully sleeping, while cannon are booming on every side and shells
whining overhead, is sufficient evidence that sleep is not a myth
invented by the Gods of Rest.
While the spirit of the boys was willing to go right through to
Berlin, their flesh asserted its weakness. Their first dash over the
top was invincible, and we were told that in ten hours they swept
forward to their goal sixty hours ahead of schedule. There they dug in
and for four days _held the line_ in the face of a murderous and
desperate German fire.
During those four awful days I saw no sign of "yellow," but everywhere
relentless courage.
"Hello, Mr. Y-Man, don't you want to see a fellow that has three holes
through him and still going strong?"
"You don't really mean it, do you? Show him to me. I want to look into
the eyes of such a man." They led me over to a bunch of soldiers who
had just come out of the line and there in the center of an admiring
crowd was my man, happy as a lark. His three wounds--one in the left
breast, one in the thigh, and a scalp wound--had been dressed, and
while these wounds had glorified him in the eyes of his comrades, _he_
was ready to _forget_ them.
Even though a hundred shells exploding near by miss you, and you
become convinced that Fritz does not really have your name and
address, yet each explosion registers its shock on the nerve centers.
If this be long-continued, the nerves give way and you find yourself a
shell-shock patient, tagged and on your way to one of the quiet back
areas where you can forget the war and get a grip upon yourself again.
Holding the line in open warfare costs a heavy toll in human life, but
here again our boys showed their invincible spirit. Not once did I see
a Yankee that showed any eagerness to get away from the line. The
mortally wounded accepted the sacrifice they had been called upon to
make without bemoaning fate, and remained cheerful to the end. Of
course when a man was "_facing West_" he longed for the loved faces
and the heaven of home. We who had our own "little heaven" back in the
homeland knew and instinctively read those sacred thoughts and prayers
and gave just the hand-pressure of deep sympathy.
To have _spoken_ of home at such a time would have been to tear the
heart already breaking, with a deep anguish that would interfere with
their possibility of recovery. So the cheery word of hope and faith
was given, and any final message quietly taken and faithfully and
sacredly fulfilled.
The wounded men whom we met coming out of the line who were not
"facing West" were with one accord hopeful of speedy recovery, not
that they might "save their own skin" and get back home alive, but
that they might get back into the fight and help to put forever out
of commission that devilish military machine that had threatened the
democratic freedom of the world.
Then again there were the boys who had miraculously escaped being
wounded, and after days in the very bowels of hell, which no pen can
picture and no tongue recite, had been released from the line and were
working their way back to the food kitchens, the water carts, and the
rest of the camps. One such doughboy, I met near Montfâucon, about
midway between the front line and an artillery ridge where our 75's
were coughing shells in rapid succession upon the entrenched foe. His
water canteen had long been empty and the nourishment of his hard tack
and "corn willie"[2] forgotten. His lips were parched with thirst and
bleeding from cracks, the result of long-continued gun fire. His body
was wearied by the heavy strain, his cheeks were gaunt from hunger
and his eyes circled for want of rest. His whole bearing was of one
who had passed through suffering untold, and yet there was no word of
bitterness or complaint. His gratitude for a sup of water from my
canteen was richer to me than the plaudits of multitudes, and the fine
courage with which he worked his painful way back to rest and
refreshment caused my heart to yearn after him with a tenderness which
he can never know.
Where a division is merely holding the line, there being no aggressive
action on either side, except night-raiding parties, men can stand it
for a longer period. Under such circumstances a company would stay in
the front line for ten days, part being on guard while the others were
sleeping. At the end of the ten days they would be relieved by a fresh
company and return to a rest camp in the rear. The boys hardly
considered it _rest_, as there was constant drilling, besides camp
duties and activities of many kinds.
Out in No Man's Land we had our "listening" and "observation" posts.
These posts are set as near the enemy line as possible. It is very
hazardous work, and requires steady nerves and clear heads. Each squad
in a post remains for forty-eight hours, and each man of the squad is
on actual guard for four hours at a time.
Where men are _on the line in aggressive warfare_, the action is so
intense that they cannot stand up under long-continued fighting. In
the Argonne fight our Ohio division was on the front line for five
days after going "over the top." Then they were relieved by a fresh
division, which took their places under cover of the night.
As our boys came out I stood all night with another "Y" man on a
German narrow-gauge railroad crossing, giving a smoke or a piece of
chocolate to each man as he passed. The enthusiastic expressions of
the great majority bore ample testimony to their keen appreciation.
"You're a life-saver," is the way they put it.
Now let me give you a glimpse of the fine courage and noble manhood of
the boys who were actually facing the foe in the front line. I have
been with them in many positions and under varied circumstances even
up to within three hundred yards of the Boche line. First a great
word--_A Yank never feared his enemy._
The most horrible stories of Hunnish brutality and barbarity only
served to intensify the Yanks' desire to strike that enemy low. One of
our splendid fellows, a private of the 102nd Infantry, came frequently
into our station at Rimaucourt where I was a hut secretary during the
first month of my stay in France. I felt instinctively that he had a
story which he might tell, although he had the noncommittal way of an
officer on the Intelligence Staff. Through several days of quiet
fellowship the story came out.
It was during the time when the Boche were smashing their way toward
Paris. It takes more courage to face a foe when he is on the
aggressive than when he is being _held_ or _driven back_. Our hero's
company was meeting an attack. He had previously lost a brother,
victim of a Boche bullet. The spirit of vengeance had stealthily
entered his very soul, and secretly he had vowed to avenge that
brother's death with as great a toll of enemy lives as possible, if
the opportunity came to him.
No man ever knows what he will do under fire until the test comes, but
be it said to their glory, our boys never failed when the crucial hour
came. (They were soldiers not of training but of character.) Quietly,
with unflinching courage, our boys awaited the onslaught. Finally when
the command to fire was given our friend selected his men--no random
fire for him. One by one he saw his victims drop until he had
accounted definitely for six. The next man was a towering Prussian
Guard. A lightning debate flashed through his mind and stayed
momentarily his trigger finger. Was a swift and merciful bullet
sufficient revenge, or should he wait and give his foe that which he
so much feared, the cold steel? The momentary hesitation ended the
debate, for the Guard was almost upon him. Quickly he prepared for the
shock, and, parrying the Hun's first thrust, he gave him the upward
stroke with the butt of his gun; but the Hun kept coming, and he
quickly brought his gun down--his second stroke cutting the head with
the blade of his bayonet. The Prussian reeled but was not finished,
and as he came again our friend pricked him in the left breast with
the point of his bayonet in an over-hand thrust of his rifle. Still he
had failed to give his foe a lethal stroke, and as he recoiled for a
final encounter he resolved to give him the full benefit of a body
thrust and drove his bayonet home, the blade breaking as the foe
crashed to the ground.
There is a sequel to this story which we must never forget. Whatever
may have been the undaunted heroism of our boys when in action, each
one of them not only "had a heart" but also a conscience. And while
_war_, which is _worse_ than Sherman's "hell," suspends for the time
the heart appeal and stifles the conscience, the reaction is almost
invariably the same.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] "Corn willie" was corned beef carried in small tin cans and eaten
cold when on the march.