FACING THE ENEMY
"Go to it, old scout! That's what we're here for."
Such was Corporal Whitcomb's grave remark to Private Flynn when out of
the squad of eight expert marksmen stationed in a rocky pit to help
protect a certain new havoc-wreaking, shrapnel-shooting field-piece,
three were chosen to first go out and stop any attempt of the enemy to
pot-shot the artillerymen who were working the gun very much to the hurt
of the German trenches three hundred yards away.
A little rocky hill held by the American troops new in action gave a
protection to the position of the wonderful gun that shelled the enemy
trenches disastrously beyond and successfully prevented the setting up
of German heavy ordnance in the vast plain in the rear.
It was, therefore, impossible to try to smash the new gun by shells; it
was well-nigh suicidal to attempt to charge the position, and,
therefore, it became a matter of sharpshooting, of night raids and of
dropping bombs from German planes very high overhead.
But the enemy were soon to learn that in the matter of marksmanship
their best was greatly outclassed, and also that to escape injury from
high-powered, .30-caliber bullets sent into the air their warplanes had
to seek a very considerable elevation from which the dropping of bombs
was an uncertain thing. Moreover, there were powerful French-American
airplanes not far behind the American trenches, and they had come out
and up to meet these German planes, downing two of them.
Meanwhile, from its pit, successfully bomb-proofed and camouflaged, the
new gun barked every few minutes, throwing out no smoke to disclose its
position. From the hilltop there was an occasional rattle of machine
guns and the crack of rifles, another squad of snipers, under Corporal
Lang, being there on duty, backed also by a platoon of United States
Regulars. And on the other side of the hill, Herbert learned, there was
another pit that contained another one of the terrible new guns,
similarly guarded by Billy Phillips' squad and more Regulars.
That first twenty-four hours had been "a corker," as Roy Flynn put it.
There had been something doing every minute from the time the platoon
had left the French training camp where Uncle Sam's infantry was getting
the fine points from French officers relative to modern trench warfare.
At nightfall the platoon had entered six auto trucks, called by the
British "lorries," and had proceeded with a French guide toward the
front, though going where few knew, and in fact the exact destination
had been disclosed only to lieutenant Loring and Sergeants Barry and
Small.
It had been very dark and rainy. The road, at first smooth, had
glistened like a mirror; the occasional lights from road lamps and
windows, closer together in the villages, had thrown a luster quite
uncanny over everything. Then the lights had become less frequent, the
road suddenly rougher, even rutty, the speed had grown less and they
were always floundering along, or sometimes stuck in the mud.
There had seemed to be little else in that part of the world but mud,
mud, mud! Yet the boys had been compelled to get out of the cars but
little, even to ease the weight when stalled, for the motors were
powerful and the trucks generally put up to give the best of service.
Herbert and some of his squad had ridden with Lieutenant Loring and the
guide in the first lorry and they had forged somewhat in advance of the
other cars, being stuck in the mud but seldom, and had plowed through
puddles, holes and miry hollows with a certainty that was admirable.
Considering the number in the car and Roy's presence and the fact that
the men had all slept well before starting, there had been little said;
often they had covered miles without a word being uttered.
Once two long, boxed-in autos, going very slowly, had been met. The
officer guide had ordered a stop to exchange a few words with the
chauffeur of the cars, but dimly seen by the occupants of the lorry.
When the guide had commanded the advance again he had said something, in
a low voice in French, to the lieutenant. Loring had leaned over toward
Barry and Whitcomb and whispered the one word: "Wounded."
On and on and on they had traveled. Down into a valley, creeping across
a narrow, low bridge of stone; then slowly up and up for a time; on the
level once more, evidently following the side of a ridge, as the
horizon on one side between a blank space of black earth and the gray
sky seemed higher than the car. And then, from over to the left,
startlingly sudden to every one of those hardy young Americans, had come
the sound of firing, the crack and crackle of firearms, followed
presently by the tearing, resonant fusillading of a machine-gun that, at
a distance, reminds one of the rapid rolling of a barrel down hill over
stony ground.
Again the guide had made a remark which Loring once more translated. "He
says that's what he likes to hear. Do you? Well, I fancy we shall hear
quite enough of it."
And then, half a mile farther on, during which time all had distinctly
discerned the not very distant boom of cannon and once again the nearer
firing of many guns, the French officer halted the car, waited until the
others had come up and then informed Loring that from this on, for
nearly a mile, they must proceed silently on foot.
The command had been issued; a rough formation had been made there in
the rain and the muddy road; the men had been given extra loads of
provisions to carry besides their army kits, and they had gone forward,
not a sound being uttered. After a time rear sentries had received them,
others had been passed, one facetious Irishman saying aloud to the
lieutenant:
"This is worse than the East Side in a raid in the gamblin' houses,
bedad! An' the weather ain't so bad in the dear ould U. S., even in
March, but nivver ye moind! Jest go git thim Huns, me lad. Jest go git
'em! I wisht they'd be comin' my way now an' thin."
Poor fellow! They learned afterward that he had been transferred to the
trenches later and that the "Huns" had come his way. No doubt many of
the enemy had been sorry for it and others had not gone back, but
neither had he. The first little American burying ground at the bottom
of the ridge was as far as he and some of his fellows got. The platoon
to which they had belonged still held the trench, though against odds.
At night, the darker the better, is the time when there is an exchange
of troops in the trenches, when fresh contingents take the places of
those too long tried by the terrible strain of standing guard against
the enemy's surprises, drives, raids, gas attacks, barrages, bombing and
shell fire.
So the coming of the snipers' platoon had been altogether favorable, not
the hardiest of the enemy daring to risk chances of going against the
little hill at a time when all the advantage would be on the side of its
defenders, even though the Germans on this sector outnumbered the
Americans two to one.
The gun pits and their accompanying dugouts, with pole and earth-covered
shelters begun by the French and greatly improved by Uncle Sam's boys,
were both crude and comfortable, the drainage on the hillside being far
better than that of most trenches, especially those in low ground. There
was mud, of course, though not so deep as if the rain water had been
allowed merely to seep away. Then, too, the U. S. Regulars, under cover
of night, had cut numerous poles from the young forest and on these had
laid boards sent over the route of frequent supplies.
Handing copies of maps to each of the sergeants and corporals, Loring
had detailed the squads to the positions they now occupied. With
dispatches introducing him he went with the first squad, Whitcomb's men,
to the first gun pit, sending the others on, with their dispatches,
where he was soon to join them.
Into the north side gun pit, then, had marched Herbert's squad; they
were put under the immediate command of Lieutenant Jackson, U. S. A.,
middle-aged, firm and as nearly silent as possible, and they at once had
been assigned to quarters, told to rest and to eat. Loring had said a
few words to Herbert, shaken his hand and gone away.
After some hours Lieutenant Jackson came to Herbert; the latter noticed
that he had not been sent for and that the officer seemed to be, while
enforcing discipline, a thoroughly democratic fellow, aware of the
conditions of war, yet displaying that comradeship which must spring up
between men of sense in times of danger and of stress.
"Your boys, I am told, are all fine shots. Have they practised shooting
at night?"
"Yes; much," Herb answered. "They have been taught to see their sights
against the sky and quickly, without altering position of eye and
barrel, keeping the cheek against the stock all the while, to put the
muzzle end on the object to be hit and press the trigger. We hold both
eyes open, as always, when shooting, but especially at night, thus
seeing the object the more clearly. Nine times out of ten we can hit a
black mark as big as a man a hundred yards, or over. It depends, of
course, upon how dark it is."
"See here, my boy, I'm going to leave the placing of your men, the
selection of them for duty and the care of them, to you, the general
rules of our camp here to be followed. You will fall into these quickly
and you had better keep your young men as much to themselves as
possible, fraternizing, of course, when off duty. My men, being
regulars, are apt to regard you young chaps with small respect for their
soldierly qualities. I will, however, issue orders for a contrary
attitude; I myself feel very different; young chaps are the coming
winners of this war, there's no mistake."
"Now you can see what we're up against," he went on. "The Germans out
there, or as the French call them, the 'Boches,' can get at us in no
other way than by raids and sniping. We have driven off two raids and we
have lost three men by sniping--three good men, too. Now, it's up to you
to see to it that these snipers get sniped; to lay for 'em and get 'em
as they come. It'll be hunting men who are hunting you, and the best
hunter and shot wins. Dangerous business, my boy. Somehow I think that
you personally are equal to it, even though you've never yet been under
fire and you may get nervous. But are your men equal to it? It's not
like a charge or phalanx firing, nor company action. I've been there; in
the Philippines and at Santiago. Private then. Your boys have all got to
have their nerve with them, as well as their skill. I hope they have not
made a mistake in sending you here before you were tried under fire. We
shall see. But I suppose one place to get used to it is as good as
another.
"There is this about the situation also: You not only have to beat the
Hun snipers' shooting, but you've got to see them first. It's pretty
certain you can't always do that.
"And here's another feature: You've got to be good runners, for if
you're hunting for snipers, night or day, you may suddenly run into a
bunch of raiders. In some cases, too, you may be placed so as to hold
these fellows off a bit until you can get word to us. You see there are
many situations possible and there will be still more that you can't
think of; circumstances totally unforeseen and sometimes mighty hard to
comprehend in a hurry. Just the other day we had one.
"The gun boys were giving her a cleaning up--they keep her pretty nice,
you see, just like a fire company does its engine; take a real pride in
it. Well, they were working away, or five of them were--four were
sleeping. My men were mostly loafing and sleeping, too, and some were on
guard and lookout, one fellow at the listening point. I was making out
reports and accounts--there's too much of that. There wasn't a gun to be
heard for miles; all quiet, except for the big guns over on the French
sector, ten miles away, that you heard a while ago.
"Then, all of a sudden the men at post called out: 'Airplane high up!
French machine coming back from the Boche line! They're shooting at
her!'
"We heard several guns go off over in their trenches, but as she kept on
we didn't think any more about her. It's a common enough sight and I had
gone back to my papers and the boys to their duties.
"And then, it didn't seem to me to be five minutes before the awfullest
kick-up of dust and rocks I ever saw, or hope to see, upset the whole
bunch of us--it was right on the outside of the pit, though we've got it
pretty well smoothed over now. It blinded one of my men permanently,
poor chap; sent him back yesterday. And it laid another up for a bit;
struck in the back with a big flying stone. Blew all my papers so far
I've never been able to find half of them. You see this is war!
"That was no French plane; it was a Hun. He had painted his blamed
machine so it looked like a Frenchman; mebbe it was a captured one in
the first place, and then, when he got well over our lines, he turned
and shut off his engine and dived right down over our pit. Did it so
quick nobody got on to him to shoot at him until he had dropped his bomb
and if that had hit our shelter top it would have got every one of us
and upset the gun.
"But they got him beyond just as he was going over their trenches; our
gun men had luckily just slipped a shell in and the corporal jumped and
sighted and let Mr. Birdman have it just once, and, by jingo, it got
him! Busted twenty feet to one side of him, turned him clear over and
dumped him on the ground; smashed the machine all up, of course. What it
did to the man you can guess.
"Oh, this is war, my boy! Real war! As I said, I haven't been able to
find half of those reports yet."