trench with hands held high, and to march toward our line. I assured
the poor devils we wouldn't hurt them. They thought there was a
division of us, more or less, and I don't know how much confidence
they put in my assurance. Anyhow, as they scrambled over the parapet,
I counted six of them prisoners to the three of us. Haeffle and
Saint-Hilaire escorted them back and also took word to the second
sergeant to let the section crawl, one after the other, up this trench
to where I was.
One by one the men came on, crawling in single file, and I put them to
work, carefully and noiselessly reversing the parapet. This German
trench was very deep, with niches cut into the bank at intervals of
one metre, permitting the men to lie down comfortably.
It was then that I happened to feel of my belt. One of the straps had
been cut clean through and my wallet, which had held two hundred and
sixty-five francs, had been neatly removed. Some one of my men, who
had risked his life for mine with a self-devotion that could scarcely
be surpassed, had felt that his need was greater than mine. Whoever he
was, I bear him no grudge. Poor chap, if he lived he needed the
money--and that day he surely did me a good turn. Besides, he was a
member of the Legion.
I placed sentries, took care to find a good place for myself, and was
just dropping off to sleep as Haeffle and Saint-Hilaire returned and
communicated to me the captain's compliments and the assurance of a
"_citation_."
I composed myself to sleep and dropped off quite content.
VI
It seemed but a few minutes when I was awakened by Collette and
Marcel, who offered me a steaming cup of coffee, half a loaf of bread,
and some Swiss cheese. This food had been brought from the rear while
I was lying asleep. My appetite was splendid, and when Sergeant
Malvoisin offered me a drink of rum in a canteen that he took off a
dead German, I accepted gratefully. Just then the _agent de
liaison_ appeared, with the order to assemble the section, and in
single file, second section at thirty-metre interval, to return the
way we had come.
It was almost daylight and things were visible at two to three metres.
The bombardment had died down and the quiet was hardly disturbed by
occasional shots. Our captain marched ahead of the second section,
swinging a cane and contentedly puffing on his pipe. Nearly everybody
was smoking. As we marched along we noticed that new trenches had been
dug during the night, from sixty to a hundred metres in the rear of
the position we had held, and these trenches were filled by the
Twenty-ninth Chasseurs Regiment, which replaced us.
Very cunningly these trenches were arranged. They were deep and
narrow, fully seven feet deep and barely a yard wide. At every
favorable point, on every little rise in the ground, a salient had
been constructed, projecting out from the main trench ten to fifteen
metres, protected by heavy logs, corrugated steel sheets, and two to
three feet of dirt. Each side of the salients bristled with machine
guns. Any attack upon this position would be bound to fail, owing to
the intense volume of fire that could be brought to bear upon the
flanks of the enemy.
To make assurance doubly sure, the Engineer Corps had dug rows of
cup-shaped bowls, two feet in diameter, two feet deep, leaving but a
narrow wedge of dirt between each two; and in the center of each bowl
was placed a six-pointed twisted steel "porcupine." This instrument,
no matter how placed, always presents a sharp point right at you. Five
rows of these man-traps I counted, separated by a thin wall of dirt,
not strong enough to maintain the weight of a man, so that any one who
attempted to rush past would be thrown against the "porcupine" and be
spitted like a pigeon. As an additional precaution a mass of barbed
wire lay in rolls, ready to be placed in front of this _ouvrage_, to
make it safe against any surprise.
We marched along, talking and chatting, discussing this and that,
without a care in the world. Every one hoped we were going to the rear
to recuperate and enjoy a good square meal and a good night's rest.
Seeger wanted a good wash, he said. He was rather dirty, and so was I.
My puttees dangled in pieces round my calves. It seems I had torn them
going through the German wire the day before. I told Haeffle to keep
his eyes open for a good pair on some dead man. He said he would.
The company marched round the hill we descended so swiftly yesterday
and, describing a semicircle, entered again the _Schützengraben
Spandau_ and marched back in the direction we had come from. The
trench, however, presented a different appearance. The bad places had
been repaired, the loose dirt had been shoveled out, and the dead had
disappeared. On the east side of the trench an extremely high parapet
had been built. In this parapet even loopholes appeared--rather
funny-looking loopholes, I thought; and when I looked closer, I saw
that they were framed in by boots! I reached my hand into several of
them as we walked along, and touched the limbs of dead men. The
engineer, it seems, in need of material, had placed the dead Germans
on top of the ground, feet flush with the inside of the ditch, leaving
from six to seven inches between two bodies, and laying another body
crosswise on top of the two, spanning the gap between them. Then they
had shoveled the dirt on top of them, thus killing two birds with one
stone.
The discovery created a riot of excitement among the men. Curses
intermingled with laughter came from ahead of us. Everybody was
tickled by the ingenuity of our _génie_. "They are marvelous!" we
thought. Dowd's face showed consternation, yet he could not help
smiling. Little King was pale around the mouth, yet his lips were
twisted in a grin. It was horribly amusing.
Every two hundred metres we passed groups of soldiers of the one
Hundred and Seventieth Regiment on duty in the trench. The front line,
they told us, was twelve hundred metres farther east, and this trench
formed the second line for their regiment. We entered the third-line
trench of the Germans, from which they ran yesterday to surrender, and
continued marching in the same direction--always east. Here we had a
chance to investigate the erstwhile German habitations.
Exactly forty paces apart doorways opened into the dirt bank, and from
each of them fourteen steps descended at about forty-five degrees into
a cellar-like room. The stairs were built of wood and the sides of the
stairways and the chambers below were lined with one-inch pine boards.
These domiciles must have been quite comfortable and safe, but now
they were choked with bodies. As we continued our leisurely way, we
met some of our trench-cleaners and they recited their experiences
with gusto. The Germans, they told us, pointing down into the
charnel-houses, refused to come and give up, and even fired at them
when summoned to surrender. "Then what did you do?" I asked. "Very
simple," answered one. "We stood on the top of the ground right above
the door and hurled grenade after grenade through the doorway until
all noise gradually ceased down below. Then we went to the next hole
and did the same thing. It wasn't at all dangerous," he added, "and
very effective."
We moved but slowly along the trench, and every once in a while there
was a halt while some of the men investigated promising "prospects,"
where the holes packed with dead Germans held out some promise of
loot. Owing to the order of march, the first company was the last one
in line, and my section at the very end. The head of the column was
the fourth company, then the third, the second; and then we. By the
time my section came to any hole holding out hopes of souvenirs, there
was nothing left for us. Yet I did find a German officer with a new
pair of leg-bands, and, hastily unwinding them, I discarded my own and
put on the new ones. As I bound them on I noticed the name on the
tag--"Hindenburg." I suppose the name stands for quality with the
Boches.
We left the trench and swung into another communication trench, going
to the left, still in an easterly direction, straight on toward the
Butte de Souain. That point we knew was still in the hands of the
Germans, and very quickly they welcomed us. Shells came shrieking
down--one hundred and five millimetres, one hundred and fifty, two
hundred and ten, and two hundred and fifty. It's very easy to tell
when you are close to them, even though you can't see a thing. When a
big shell passes high, it sounds like a white-hot piece of iron
suddenly doused in cold water; but when it gets close, the _sw-i-ish_
suddenly rises in a high crescendo, a shriek punctuated by a horrible
roar. The uniformity of movement as the men ducked was beautiful!--and
they all did it. One moment there was a line of gray helmets bobbing
up and down the trenches as the line plodded on; and the next instant
one could see only a line of black canvas close to the ground, as
every man ducked and shifted his shoulder-sack over his neck. My sack
had been blown to pieces when I was buried, and I felt uncomfortably
handicapped with only my _musette_ for protection against steel
splinters.
About a mile from where we entered this _boyau_, we came to a
temporary halt, then went on once more. The fourth company had come to
a halt, and we squeezed past them as we marched along. Every man of
them had his shovel out and had commenced digging a niche for himself.
We passed the fourth company, then the third, then the second, and
finally the first, second, and third sections of our own company. Just
beyond, we ourselves came to a halt and, lining up one man per metre,
started to organize the trench for defensive purposes. From the other
side of a slight ridge, east of us, and about six hundred metres away,
came the sound of machine guns. Between us and the ridge the Germans
were executing a very lively _feu de barrage_, a screen of fire,
prohibiting any idea of sending reinforcements over to the front line.
Attached for rations to my section were the commandant of the
battalion, a captain, and three sergeants of the État-Major. Two of
the sergeants were at the trench telephone, and I could hear them
report the news to the officers. "The Germans," they reported, "are
penned in on three sides and are prevented from retreating by our
artillery." Twice they had tried to pierce our line between them and
the Butte de Souain, and twice they were driven back. Good news for
us!
At 10 A.M. we sent three men from each section to the rear for the
soup. At about eleven they reappeared with steaming _marmites_ of
soup, stew, and coffee, and buckets of wine. The food was very good,
and disappeared to the last morsel.
After we had eaten, the captain granted me permission to walk along
the ditch back to the fourth company. The trench being too crowded for
comfort, I walked alongside to the second company, and searched for my
friend Sergeant Velte. Finally I found him lying in a shell-hole, side
by side with his adjutant and Sergeant Morin. All three were dead,
torn to pieces by one shell shortly after we had passed them in the
morning. At the third company they reported that Second Lieutenant
Sweeny had been shot through the chest by a lost ball that morning.
Hard luck for Sweeny![2] The poor devil had just been nominated
_sous-lieutenant_ at the request of the French Embassy in Washington,
and when he was attached as supernumerary to the third company we all
had hopes that he would have a chance to prove his merit.
[2] Lieutenant Sweeny has returned to America.
In the fourth company also the losses were severe. The part of the
trench occupied by the three companies was directly enfiladed by the
German batteries on the Butte de Souain, and every little while a
shell would fall square into the ditch and take toll from the
occupants. Our company was fully a thousand metres nearer to these
batteries, but the trenches we occupied presented a three-quarters
face to the fire, and consequently were ever so much harder to hit.
Even then, when I got back I found four men _hors de combat_ in
the fourth section. In my section two niches were demolished without
any one being hit.
Time dragged slowly until four in the afternoon, when we had soup
again. Many of the men built little fires and with the _Erbsenwurst_
they had found on dead Germans prepared a very palatable soup by way
of extra rations.
At four o'clock sentries were posted and everybody fell asleep. A
steady rain was falling, and to keep dry we hooked one edge of our
tent-sheet on the ground above the niche and placed dirt on top of it
to hold. Then we pushed cartridges through the button-holes of the
tent, pinning them into the side of the trench and forming a good
cover for the occupant of the hole. Thus we rested until the new day
broke, bringing a clear sky and sunshine. This day, the 27th,--the
third of the battle,--passed without mishap to my section. We spent
our time eating and sleeping, mildly distracted by an intermittent
bombardment.
VII
Another night spent in the same cramped quarters! We were getting
weary of inactivity, and it was rather hard work to keep the men in
the ditch. They sneaked off singly and in pairs, always heading back
to the German dugouts, all bent on turning things upside down in the
hope of finding something of value to carry as a keepsake.
Haeffle came back once with three automatic pistols but no cartridges.
From another trip he returned with an officer's helmet, and the third
time he brought triumphantly back a string three feet long of dried
sausages. Haeffle always did have a healthy appetite and it transpired
that on the way back he had eaten a dozen sausages, more or less. The
dried meat had made him thirsty and he had drunk half a canteen of
water on top of it. The result was, he swelled up like a poisoned pup,
and for a time he was surely a sick man.
Zinn found two shiny German bayonets, a long thin one and one short
and heavy, and swore he'd carry them for a year if he had to. Zinn
hailed from Battle Creek and wanted to use them as brush-knives on
camping trips in the Michigan woods; but alas, in the sequel they got
too heavy and were dropped along the road. One man found a German pipe
with a three-foot soft-rubber stem, which he intended sending to his
brother as a souvenir. Man and pipe are buried on the slopes of the
Butte de Souain. He died that same evening.
At the usual time, 4 P.M., we had soup, and immediately after came the
order to get ready. Looking over the trench, we watched the fourth
company form in the open back of the ditch and, marching past us in an
oblique direction, disappear round a spur of wooded hill. The third
company followed at four hundred metres' distance, then the second,
and as they passed out of sight around the hill, we jumped out and,
forming in line, sections at thirty-metre intervals, each company four
hundred metres in the rear of the one ahead, we followed, _arme à la
bretelle_.
We were quite unobserved by the enemy, and marched the length of the
hill for three fourths of a kilometre, keeping just below the crest.
Above us sailed four big French battle-planes and some small aero
scouts, on the lookout for enemy aircraft. For a while it seemed as if
we should not be discovered, and the command was given to lie down.
From where we lay we could observe clearly the ensuing scrap in the
air, and it was worth watching. Several German planes had approached
close to our lines, but were discovered by the swift-flying scouts.
Immediately the little fellows returned with the news to the big
planes, and we watched the monster biplanes mount to the combat. In
a wide circle they swung, climbing, climbing higher and higher, and
then headed in a beeline straight toward the German _tauben_. As
they approached within range of each other, we saw little clouds
appear close to the German planes, some in front, some over them,
and others behind; and then, after an interval, the report of the
thirty-two-millimetre guns mounted on our battle-planes floated down
to us, immediately followed like an echo by the crack of the bursting
shell. Long before the Germans could get within effective range for
their machine guns, they were peppered by our planes and ignominiously
forced to beat a retreat. One "albatross" seemed to be hit. He
staggered from one side to the other, then dipped forward, and,
standing straight on his nose, dropped like a stone out of sight
behind the forest crowning the hill.
Again we moved on, and shortly arrived at the southern spur of the
hill. Here the company made a quarter turn to the left, and in the
same formation began the ascent of the hill. The second company was
just disappearing into the scrubby pine forest on top. We entered
also, continued on to the top, and halted just below the crest. The
captain called the officers and sergeants and, following him, we
crawled on our stomachs up to the highest point and looked over.
Never shall I forget the panorama that spread before us! The four thin
ranks of the second company seemed to stagger drunkenly through a sea
of green fire and smoke. One moment gaps showed in the lines, only to
be closed again as the rear files spurted. Undoubtedly they ran at top
speed, but to us watchers they seemed to crawl, and at times almost to
stop. Mixed in with the dark green of the grass covering the valley
were rows of lighter color, telling of the men who fell in that mad
sprint. The continuous bombardment sounded like a giant drum beating
an incredibly swift _rata-plan_. Along the whole length of our hill
this curtain of shells was dropping, leveling the forest and seemingly
beating off the very face of the hill itself, clean down to the bottom
of the valley. Owing to the proximity of our troops to the enemy's
batteries we received hardly any support from our own big guns, and
the rôle of the combatants was entirely reversed. The Germans had
their innings then and full well they worked.
As the company descended into the valley the pace became slower, and
at the beginning of the opposite slope they halted and faced back.
Owing to the height of the Butte de Souain, they were safe, and they
considered that it was their turn to act as spectators.
As our captain rose we followed and took our places in front of our
sections. Again I impressed upon the minds of my men the importance of
following in a straight line and as close behind one another as
possible. "Arme à la main!" came the order, and slowly we moved to the
crest and then immediately broke into a dog-trot. Instantly we were
enveloped in flames and smoke. Hell kissed us welcome! Closely I
watched the captain for the sign to increase our speed. I could have
run a mile in record time, but he plugged steadily along, one, two,
three, four, one, two, three, four, at a tempo of a hundred and eighty
steps per minute, three to the second,--the regulation tempo. Inwardly
I cursed his insistence upon having things _réglementaires_.
As I looked at the middle of his back, longing for him to hurry, I
caught sight, on my right, of a shell exploding directly in the center
of the third section. Out of the tail of my eye I saw the upper part
of Corporal Keraudy's body rise slowly into the air. The legs had
disappeared, and with arms outstretched the trunk sank down upon the
corpse of Varma, the Hindu, who had marched behind him. Instinctively,
I almost stopped in my tracks--Keraudy was a friend of mine--but at
the instant Corporal Mettayer, running behind me, bumped into my back,
and shoved me again into life and action.
We were out of the woods then, and running down the bare slope of the
hill. A puff of smoke, red-hot, smote me in the face, and at the same
moment intense pain shot up my jaw. I did not think I was hit
seriously, since I was able to run all right. Some one in the second
section intoned the regimental march, "Allons, Giron." Others took it
up; and there in that scene of death and hell, this song portraying
the lusts and vices of the Légion Étrangère became a very pæan of
enthusiasm and courage.
Glancing to the right, I saw that we were getting too close to the
second section, so I gave the signal for a left oblique. We bore away
from them until once again at our thirty paces' distance. All at once
my feet tangled up in something and I almost fell. It was long grass!
Just then it seemed to grow upon my mind that we were down in the
valley and out of range of the enemy. Then I glanced ahead, and not
over a hundred metres away I saw the second company lying in the grass
and watching us coming. As we neared, they shouted little pleasantries
at us and congratulated us upon our speed.
"Why this unseemly haste?" one wants to know.
"You go to the devil!" answers Haeffle.
"Merci, mon ami!" retorts the first; "I have just come through his
back kitchen."
Counting my section, I missed Dubois, Saint-Hilaire, and Schneli.
Collette, Joe told me, was left on the hill.
The company had lost two sergeants, one corporal, and thirteen men,
coming down that short stretch! We mustered but forty-five men, all
told. One, Sergeant Terisien, had for four months commanded my
section, the "American Section," but was transferred to the fourth
section. From where we rested we could see him slowly descending the
hill, bareheaded and with his right hand clasping his left shoulder.
He had been severely wounded in the head, and his left arm was nearly
torn off at the shoulder. Poor devil! He was a good comrade and a good
soldier. Just before the war broke out he had finished his third
enlistment in the Legion, and was in line for a discharge and pension
when he died.
Looking up the awful slope we had just descended, we could see the
bodies of our comrades, torn and mangled and again and again kicked up
into the air by the shells. For two days and nights the hellish hail
continued to beat upon that blood-soaked slope, until we finally
captured the Butte de Souain and forced an entire regiment of Saxons
to the left of the butte to capitulate.
Again we assembled in column of fours, and this time began the climb
uphill. Just then I happened to think of the blow I had received under
the jaw, and feeling of the spot, discovered a slight wound under my
left jaw-bone. Handing my rifle to a man, I pressed slightly upon the
sore spot and pulled a steel splinter out of the wound. A very thin,
long sliver of steel it was, half the diameter of a dime and not more
than a dime's thickness, but an inch and a half long. The metal was
still hot to the touch. The scratch continued bleeding freely, and I
did not bandage it at the time because I felt sure of needing my
emergency dressing farther along.
Up near the crest of the hill we halted in an angle of the woods and
lay down alongside the One Hundred and Seventy-second Regiment of
infantry. They had made the attack in this direction on the
twenty-fifth, but had been severely checked at this point. Infantry
and machine-gun fire sounded very close, and lost bullets by the
hundreds flicked through the branches overhead. The One Hundred and
Seventy-second informed us that a battalion of the Premier Étranger
had entered the forest and was at that moment storming a position to
our immediate left. Through the trees showed lights, brighter than
day, cast from hundreds of German magnesium candles shot into the air.
Our officers were grouped with those of the other regiment, and after
a very long conference they separated, each to his command. Our
captain called the officers and subalterns of the company together,
and in terse sentences explained to us our positions and the object of
the coming assault. It was to be a purely local affair, it seemed, and
the point was the clearing of the enemy from the hill we were on. On a
map drawn to scale he pointed out the lay of the land.
It looked to me like a hard proposition. Imagine to yourself a
toothbrush about a mile long and three eighths to one half mile wide.
The back is formed by the summit of the hill, densely wooded, and the
bristles are represented by four little ridges rising from the valley
we had just crossed, each one crowned with strips of forest and
uniting with the main ridges at right angles. Between each two lines
of bristles are open spaces, from one hundred to one hundred and fifty
metres wide. We of the second regiment were to deliver the assault
parallel with the bristles and stretching from the crest down to the
valley.
The other column was to make a demonstration from our left, running a
general course at right angles to ours. The time set was eight o'clock
at night.