THE LITTLE WOODEN CROSS
After remaining in rest billets for eight days, we received the
unwelcome tidings that the next morning we would "go in" to "take
over." At six in the morning our march started and, after a long march
down the dusty road, we again arrived at reserve billets.
I was No. I in the leading set of 4's. The man on my left was named
"Pete Walling," a cheery sort of fellow. He laughed and joked all the
way on the march, buoyed up my drooping spirits. I could not figure
out anything attractive in again occupying the front line, but Pete
did not seem to mind, said it was all in a lifetime. My left heel was
blistered from the rubbing of my heavy marching boot. Pete noticed
that I was limping and offered to carry my rifle, but by this time I
had learned the ethics of the march in the British Army and
courteously refused his offer.
We had gotten half-way through the communication trench, Pete in my
immediate rear. He had his hand on my shoulder, as men in a
communication trench have to keep in touch with each Other. We had
just climbed over a bashed-in part of the trench when in our rear a
man tripped over a loose signal wire, and let out an oath. As usual,
Pete rushed to his help. To reach the fallen man, he had to cross this
bashed-in part. A bullet cracked in the air and I ducked. Then a moan
from the rear. My heart stood still. I went back and Pete was lying on
the ground; by the aid of my flashlight, I saw that he had his hand
pressed to his right breast. The fingers were covered with blood. I
flashed the light on his face, and in its glow a grayish-blue color
was stealing over his countenance. Pete looked up at me and said:
"Well, Yank, they've done me in. I can feel myself going West." His
voice was getting fainter and I had to kneel down to get the words.
Then he gave me a message to write home to his mother and his
sweetheart, and I, like a great big boob, cried like a baby. I was
losing my first friend of the trenches.
Word was passed to the rear for a stretcher. He died before it
arrived. Two of us put the body on the stretcher and carried it to the
nearest first-aid post, where the doctor took an official record of
Pete's name, number, rank, and regiment from his identity disk, this
to be used in the Casualty Lists and notification to his family.
We left Pete there, but it broke our hearts to do so. The doctor
informed us that we could bury him the next morning. That afternoon,
five of the boys of our section, myself included, went to the little
ruined village in the rear and from the deserted gardens of the French
chateaux gathered grass and flowers. From these we made a wreath.
While the boys were making this wreath, I sat under a shot-scarred
apple tree and carved out the following verses on a little wooden
shield which we nailed on Pete's cross.
True to Us God; true to Britain,
Doing his duty to the last,
Just one more name to be written
On the Roll of Honor of heroes passed.
Passed to their God, enshrined in glory,
Entering life of eternal rest,
One more chapter in England's story
Of her sons doing their best.
Rest, you soldier, mate so true,
Never forgotten by us below;
Know that we are thinking of you,
Ere to our rest we are bidden to go.
Next morning the whole section went over to say good-bye to Pete, and
laid him away to rest.
After each one had a look at the face of the dead, a Corporal of the
R. A. M. C. sewed up the remains in a blanket. Then placing two heavy
ropes across the stretcher (to be used in lowering the body into the
grave), we lifted Pete onto the stretcher, and reverently covered him
with a large Union Jack, the flag he had died for.
The Chaplain led the way, then came the officers of the section,
followed by two of the men carrying a wreath. Immediately after came
poor Pete on the flag-draped stretcher, carried by four soldiers. I
was one of the four. Behind the stretcher, in fours, came the
remainder of the section.
To get to the cemetery, we had to pass through the little
shell-destroyed village, where troops were hurrying to and fro.
As the funeral procession passed, these troops came to the
"attention," and smartly saluted the dead.
Poor Pete was receiving the only salute a Private is entitled to
"somewhere in France."
Now and again a shell from the German lines would go whistling over
the village to burst in our artillery lines in the rear.
When we reached the cemetery, we halted in front of an open grave, and
laid the stretcher beside it. Forming a hollow square around the
opening of the grave, the Chaplain read the burial service.
German machine-gun bullets were "cracking" in the air above us, but
Pete didn't mind, and neither did we.
When the body was lowered into the grave, the flag having been
removed, we clicked our heels together, and came to the salute.
I left before the grave was filled in. I could not bear to see the
dirt thrown on the blanket-covered face of my comrade. On the Western
Front there are no coffins, and you are lucky to get a blanket to
protect you from the wet and the worms. Several of the section stayed
and decorated the grave with white stones.
That night, in the light of a lonely candle in the machine-gunner's
dugout of the front-line trench, I wrote two letters. One to Pete's
mother, the other to his sweetheart. While doing this I cursed the
Prussian war-god with all my heart, and I think that St. Peter noted
same.
The machine gunners in the dugout were laughing and joking. To them,
Pete was unknown. Pretty soon, in the warmth of their merriment, my
blues disappeared. One soon forgets on the Western Front.