The grim gray wave of destruction from the sand dunes had rolled into
battleline and spread out over the green clothed hills and valleys of
the Island--swiftly, remorselessly, with an uncanny precision that was
marvelous.
The scouts were soaring in the clear blue skies with keen eyes searching
for the position of our guns.
As they found them, a puff of black smoke streamed downward and the
distant officer, perched high on his movable observation tower, took the
range and called it mechanically to the gunners of his battery.
Our rifles cracked in vain. The birdmen laughed and paid no attention.
We had no high-powered, high-angle guns that could touch them. Over
every section of our lines the huge vultures hung in the air and
circled.
The giant guns miles away beyond the distant hills toward Southampton
began to roar. Their first shells fell short from five to six hundred
yards.
Our boys gazed over their earthworks and watched the geysers of earth
and stone and smoke leap into the heavens and sink back in dull
crashes. The wind brought in the acid fumes of the poisonous gases.
They stood in silence, clutching their rifles and waiting for the word
to fire.
The vultures circled again and dropped more smoke balls. The invisible
gunners at their places caught the singsong call from the tower, touched
a wheel and raised the noses of their gray monsters the slightest bit.
Again the earth trembled. The air vibrated with the rush of projectiles
like the singing of telegraph wires far above the heads of the listening
men.
They struck within a hundred yards of where Vassar sat with the field
telephone at his ear awaiting General Hood’s orders--a giant shell
landed squarely in our trenches, tore a cavern in the earth sixteen feet
deep, hurling our mangled men in every direction. Within a radius of a
hundred feet no living thing could be seen when the smoke and dust had
cleared. Those who had not been killed by stone and flying fragments of
iron had been smothered to death where they stood by the deadly fumes.
Our guns answered now in deep thunder peals that shook the trenches.
For two hours without a pause the artillery of both armies sent their
mighty chorus crashing into the heavens, their missiles of death
whistling through the skies.
The fire of the enemy was incredibly accurate. Their shells struck our
trenches with unerring certainty--and where one struck there was nothing
left but an ugly crater in the ground. They simply annihilated every
object in their track and left a mass of blackened dust and pulp.
Gun after gun of our batteries were silenced.
The vultures were still soaring aloft calling the range of each
concealed battery as the fight revealed its place.
The battle had opened at dawn. By ten o’clock fifty pieces of our
artillery had been reduced to junk and one-third of our trenches
pulverized into shapeless masses of dust, broken stone and gaping
caverns.
Apparently our heavy gun fire had made no impression on the enemy. Their
long range pieces were hurling death with a steady clock-like regularity
that was appalling. Our army was being ground to dust without a chance
to strike their hidden foe. We had never possessed an aviation corps of
any serviceable strength. The year before the nucleus of one had been
authorized by Congress. This little group of efficient men had followed
the fleet into the Pacific and the remaining dozen had been left to die
in our tragic meeting with the armada.
General Hood possessed but two aeroplanes. It was madness to send them
up against two hundred of the enemy. By an accident to his machinery a
taube had fallen within our lines. The men had been captured, their
uniforms taken, and delivered to General Hood. The machinery of the
hostile aeroplane was promptly repaired, our blond sky pilot forced
himself into the greenish-gray suit and stood by waiting for the chance
to rise in a cloud of smoke and take his chance among the enemy as a
spy.
At noon a wave of fog slowly crept in from sea and the guns had died
away. As the mist rolled over the battlefield Hood stood beside the
courier of the skies.
“Up with you now, boy, in this fog bank. Mix with the enemy and take
your chances. Stay until the firing is resumed and give me the position
of their guns. I must know whether we have reached them with our
shells.”
The birdman saluted and swung the taube into the clouds. He circled
toward the sea and disappeared in the mists.
It was three o’clock in the afternoon before he landed far in the rear
of our lines and made his way by automobile to headquarters.
Hood sprang from his desk and rushed to meet him.
“Well?”
“Got over their lines all right, sir,” the scout answered. “Watched our
shells for an hour. Not one of them fell closer than half a mile short
of their batteries.”
The General pressed his hand in silence.
“All right. It’s as I thought. You’re a brave boy, my son. You’re marked
for promotion for this day’s work.”
There was nothing to be done but move his lines five miles back to the
second trenches. They were being pounded into pulp without a chance to
strike back.
We had exhausted half our stock of shells without scoring a hit. Our
losses in men and guns had been frightful. The tragic feature of the day
was the loss of trained artillerymen whose places could not be filled.
It takes three years to train the man behind the gun.
By daylight the retreat of five miles had been effected. The ground in
front was more favorable here for long range work. From captive balloons
the position of the batteries could be located. We hoped that some of
them could be reached and put out of action. If so, we would give them a
taste of cold steel.
All night the great guns growled in the distance while our shattered
lines retreated and reformed in the second intrenchments.
At dawn the vultures signalled the retreat and the green-gray wave of
Death rolled forward with incredible swiftness.
By noon their greatest guns, each drawn by fifty magnificent horses, had
been brought up and were sweeping into position along the low hills that
would form their new battleline.
Our commander made up his mind to pot at least one of those guns. He
planted a battery of heavy artillery to sweep the road that curved
gracefully over these hills. A clump of trees concealed its presence
from the circling scouts.
The moment the huge siege gun swept into view--its fifty horses plunging
forward with steady leaps, their sides a lather of white foam--our
battery roared a salvo and four shells sang in chorus. The gunners
lifted their glasses and watched. Every shell struck within dead range
of the long line of plunging horses. A cloud of smoke and dust rose high
on the crest of the hill and when it lifted the tangled mass of torn and
mangled horses and men blocked the way. A second salvo landed squarely
in the wreck and blew the tangled mass into fragments--the glasses could
no longer find a moving object.
The vultures circled above the hidden battery, their signals flashed and
then from five different points behind the hills the shells began to
shriek. In thirty minutes they were silenced and torn to bits. But two
men were left alive to reach headquarters with the brave story.
The second battle began in earnest at three o’clock in the afternoon.
The pitiful story was repeated. With remorseless accuracy their guns
tore our men to pieces. They held their own just half a mile beyond the
range of our artillery.
All night our men clung blindly to their position and at the dawn of the
third day the enemy’s infantry in solid formation, their bayonets
flashing, moved swiftly and silently into line for their first charge.
A hundred machine guns were concentrated to relieve them. They formed at
their leisure in plain view of our ragged trenches. Our field artillery
got their range and began to pour a storm of shrapnel on their ranks.
They closed up the gaps with clock-like precision and moved forward at
double quick. Round after round of our artillery failed to stop them.
The ranks closed automatically. They were cheering now--the breeze
wafted their cries across the little valley that separated them from our
trenches:
“For God and Emperor!”
When the ranks in front fell, the mass behind rushed over their bodies
and shouted again:
“For God and Emperor!”
Our machine guns were mowing them down as wheat falls beneath the teeth
of a hundred singing harvest machines on the prairies of Minnesota.
When the first division had been wiped out the second came rushing over
their bodies as if they had been denied their just honors in losing the
privilege of dying. The second wave of green reached the earth of our
trenches before the last man fell and still a third wave was moving
across the valley. Their shouts rang a mighty chorus now in the ears of
our crouching men:
“For God and Emperor!”
Our fire was held until the third wave was within a hundred yards. The
low words of quick command from charging officers could be distinctly
heard as their waving swords flashed in the sunlight.
Vassar watched the thrilling scene with a smile of admiration. He saw
their flag now for the first time--a huge scarlet field of silk, in its
center an imperial crown wrought in threads of gold.
The Federated Monarchs of Europe had taken the red emblem of the
Socialists to proclaim the common cause of royal blood against the mob,
and on it set the seal of imperial power.
The cheering, rushing wave rolled within fifty yards and then from every
trench poured a sheet of blinding flame. So terrific was the shock, the
whole division seemed to drop to their knees at the same moment. Those
who had not fallen staggered as if drunk and turned in blind circles as
if groping their way in the darkness. In five minutes the last man of
the third host had fallen and the slopes of the hill below were piled
with the dead, the wounded and dying.
The charges ceased.
The big guns in the distance beyond the hills broke forth again in a
savage chorus, continuous and infernal in its incredible power.
Vassar listened with new interest. There was a deep bass voice now in
this artillery oratorio that had not been heard before. The monster guns
were booming for the first time. The effects of their explosions were
appalling. They spoke between the roar of the smaller guns as if the
basso were answering the cry of a chorus of superhuman singers. A single
shot from one of these guns rang with the volume of a salvo of ordinary
artillery. Their shells weighed two thousand pounds--two thousand pounds
of dynamite.
Vassar heard one of them coming toward the crest of the hill that was
red with heroic blood. It came through the air with the uncanny roar of
an express train. The sound rose until the heavens quivered with the
howl of a cyclone.
And then came the crash squarely in the center of our trenches! An
explosion followed that rocked the earth and sent a great billowing
cloud of smoke and dust high over the treetops into the skies. Fragments
of the débris were hurled half a mile in every direction. No living
thing was left to tell the story within a hundred yards of the spot. A
breach had been made in the trenches through which a regiment might have
charged as over an open field. For eighteen hours this terrific hail of
huge projectiles continued without pause. The dull thunder was incessant
and its vibration shook the world in tremors as from an earthquake.
With grim persistence our men still clung to what was left of their
trenches until the night of the second day.
Hood sullenly ordered the retreat to his last line of entrenchments
resting on Babylon. The discovery of the movement lead to a fierce rear
guard action with the pursuing cavalry of the enemy. Their great field
searchlights now swept the heavens and flooded every open space with
deadly glare.
The attacking cavalry fell into ambush carefully prepared and were
annihilated. They didn’t repeat the attack. But our guns had no sooner
limbered up and withdrawn from their position when a squadron of the
new steel cavalry, guided by the searchlights, charged at full speed
seventy miles an hour down the turnpike straight into our retreating
infantry. An armored automobile, spitting a storm of lead from its
machine guns, plunged headlong into a regiment of volunteers, worn and
half-starved and ready to fall for the lack of sleep. The huge wheels
rolled over prostrate men like a great juggernaut, hurling others into
the fields and dashing them among the limbs of trees.
The monster stopped at last choked by the mangled bodies caught in its
machinery. A hundred desperate men swarmed over its sides and in a
fierce hand to hand fight captured the car and killed its crew.
Again and again through the night of this terrible retreat these tactics
were repeated. Not one of the six machines that charged our lines ever
returned to tell the story. Not one that charged failed to pile the dead
in heaps along the white shining turnpike.
The Holland house was inside the third line. Vassar hurried forward to
beg Virginia to return with the girls and the older people to New York.
They refused to stir.
“What’s the use, sir?” Holland snapped. “We’re as safe here as anywhere.
If Hood can’t hold this railroad junction--it’s all over. The wildest
reports come in hourly from New York. The looting and outrages surpass
belief--”
“Your house has been raided?” Vassar asked.
“I’ve just heard that every house on both Stuyvesant Square and Gramercy
Park has been smashed and wrecked. The soldiers have been looting
private dwellings at their leisure--while mobs of thieves and cutthroats
join in the sport.”
There was no help for it then.
He whispered a hurried good-bye to Virginia, kissed Zonia and Marya and
rushed for his horse.
The first gray streaks of dawn were already tinging the eastern sky. The
invading army had followed with amazing rapidity. Whole regiments armed
with machine guns had been hurled forward by automobile transports. Hood
had destroyed the railroad as he retreated. The advancing hosts didn’t
need it. The hardened veterans who marched, with quick swinging gait,
smoking their pipes and singing, could make thirty miles a day and be
ready for a fight at the end of their march. They meant to rush our
trenches today and make quick work of it. They were not going to waste
any more big shells which might be needed elsewhere.
The wind was blowing directly in the faces of our men for the first time
since the landing had been made. They wondered if the wild stories we
had heard of the use of poisonous gases and liquid fire in the great war
were true. We had begun to scout these tales as press work of the
various governments. The day was destined to bring a rude awakening.