While we were talking we noticed a group of men come from the edge of
the woods and form into company formation, and we could hear them
answer to the roll-call. I went over and peered at them. On their
coat-collars I saw the gilt "No. 1." It was the Premier Étranger.
As the roll-call proceeded, I wondered. The sergeant was deciphering
with difficulty the names from his little _carnet_, and response after
response was, "Mort." Once in a while the answer changed to, "Mort sur
le champ d'honneur," or a brief "Tombé." There were twenty-two men in
line, not counting the sergeant and a corporal, who in rear of the
line supported himself precariously on two rifles which served him as
crutches. Two more groups appeared back of this one, and the same
proceeding was repeated. As I stood near the second group I could just
catch the responses of the survivors. "Duvivier": "Présent."--"Selonti":
"Présent."--"Boismort": "Tombé."--"Herkis": "Mort."--"Carney":
"Mort."--"MacDonald": "Présent."--"Farnsworth": "Mort sur le champ
d'honneur," responded MacDonald. Several of the men I had known,
Farnsworth among them. One officer, a second-lieutenant, commanded
the remains of the battalion. Seven hundred and fifty men, he informed
me, had gone in an hour ago, and less than two hundred came back.
[Illustration: AMERICANS IN THE FOREIGN LEGION RECEIVING NEWS FROM
HOME]
"Ah, mon ami," he told me, "c'est bien chaud dans le bois."
Quietly they turned into column of fours and disappeared in the
darkness. Their attack had failed. Owing to the protection afforded by
the trees, our aerial scouts had failed to gather definite information
of the defenses constructed in the forest, and owing also to the same
cause, our previous bombardment had been ineffective.
It was our job to remedy this. One battalion of the One Hundred and
Seventy-second was detached and placed in line with us, and at 8 P.M.
sharp the commandant's whistle sounded, echoed by that of our captain.
Quietly we lined up at the edge of the forest, shoulder to shoulder,
bayonets fixed. Quietly each corporal examined the rifles of his men,
inspected the magazines, and saw that each chamber also held a
cartridge with firing-pin down. As silently as possible we entered
between the trees and carefully kept in touch with each other. It was
dark in there, and we had moved along some little distance before our
eyes were used to the blackness. As I picked my steps I prepared
myself for the shock every man experiences at the first sound of a
volley. Twice I fell down into shell-holes and cursed my clumsiness
and that of some other fellows to my right. "The 'Dutch' must be
asleep," I thought, "or else they beat it." Hopefully, the latter!
We were approaching the farther edge of the "toothbrush bristles," and
breathlessly we halted at the edge of the little open space before us.
About eighty metres across loomed the black line of another "row of
bristles." I wondered.
The captain and second section to our right moved on and we kept in
line, still slowly and cautiously, carefully putting one foot before
the other. Suddenly from the darkness in front of us came four or five
heavy reports like the noise of a shotgun, followed by a long hiss.
Into the air streamed trails of sparks. Above our heads the hiss ended
with a sharp crack, and everything stood revealed as though it were
broad daylight.
At the first crash, the major, the captains--everybody, it seemed to
me--yelled at the same time, "En avant! Pas de charge!"--and in full
run, with fixed bayonets, we flew across the meadow. As we neared
the woods we were met by solid sheets of steel balls. Roar upon roar
came from the forest; the volleys came too fast, it shot into my mind,
to be well aimed. Then something hit me on the chest and I fell
sprawling. Barbed wire! Everybody seemed to be on the ground at once,
crawling, pushing, struggling through. My rifle was lost and I grasped
my _parabellum_. It was a German weapon, German charges, German
cartridges. This time the Germans were to get a taste of their own
medicine, I thought. Lying on my back, I wormed through the wire,
butting into the men in front of me and getting kicked in the head by
Mettayer. As I crawled I could hear the _ping_, _ping_, of balls
striking the wire, and the shrill moan as they glanced off and
continued on their flight.
Putting out my hand, I felt loose dirt, and, lying flat, peered over
the parapet. "Nobody home," I thought; and then I saw one of the
Collette brothers in the trench come running toward me and ahead of
him a burly Boche. I saw Joe make a one-handed lunge with the rifle,
and saw the bayonet show fully a foot in front of the German's chest.
Re-forming, we advanced toward the farther fringe of the little
forest. Half-way through the trees we lay down flat on our stomachs,
rifle in right hand, and slowly, very slowly, wormed our way past the
trees into the opening between us and our goal. Every man had left his
knapsack in front or else hanging on the barbed wire, and we were in
good shape for the work that lay ahead. But the sections and companies
were inextricably mixed. On one side of me crawled a lieutenant of the
One Hundred and Seventy-second, and on the other a private I had never
seen before. Still we were all in line, and when some one shouted,
"Feu de quatre cartouches!" we fired four rounds, and after the
command all crawled again a few paces nearer.
Several times we halted to fire, aiming at the sheets of flame
spurting toward us. Over the Germans floated several parachute
magnesium rockets, sent up by our own men, giving a vivid light and
enabling us to shoot with fair accuracy. I think now that the German
fire was too high. Anyway, I did not notice any one in my immediate
vicinity getting hit. Though our progress was slow, we finally arrived
at the main wire entanglement.
All corporals in the French army carry wire-nippers, and it was our
corporal's business to open a way through the entanglement. Several
men to my right, I could see one,--he looked like Mettayer,--lying
flat on his back and, nippers in hand, snipping away at the wire
overhead, while all of us behind kept up a murderous and constant fire
at the enemy. Mingled with the roar of the rifles came the stuttering
rattle of the machine guns, at moments drowned by the crash of
hand-grenades. Our grenadiers had rather poor success with their
missiles, however, most of them hitting trees in front of the trench.
The lieutenant on my left had four grenades. I could see him plainly.
With one in his hand, he crawled close to the wire, rolled on his
back, rested an instant with arms extended, both hands grasping the
grenade, then suddenly he doubled forward and back and sent the bomb
flying over his head. For two--three seconds,--it seemed longer at the
time,--we listened, and then came the roar of the explosion. He smiled
and nodded to me, and again went through the same manoeuvre.
In the mean time I kept my _parabellum_ going. I had nine magazines
loaded with dum-dum balls I had taken from some dead Germans, and I
distributed the balls impartially between three _créneaux_ in front of
me. On my right, men were surging through several breaks in the wire.
Swiftly I rolled over and over toward the free lane and went through
with a rush. The combat had degenerated into a hand-grenade affair.
Our grenadiers crawled alongside the parapet and every so often tossed
one of their missiles into it, while the others, shooting over their
heads, potted the Germans as they ran to rear.
Suddenly the fusillade ceased, and with a crash, it seemed, silence
and darkness descended upon us. The sudden cessation of the terrific
rifle firing and of the constant rattling of the machine guns struck
one like a blow. Sergeant Altoffer brought me some information about
one of my men, and almost angrily I asked him not to shout! "I'm not
deaf yet," I assured him. "Mon vieux," he raged, "it's you who are
shouting!"
I realized my fault and apologized and in return accepted a drink of
wine from his canteen.
Finding the captain, we received the order to assemble the men and
maintain the trench, and after much searching I found a few men of the
section. The little scrap had cost the first section three more men.
Soubiron, Dowd, and Zinn were wounded and sent to the rear. The One
Hundred and Seventy-second sent a patrol toward the farthest, the
last, bristle of the toothbrush, with the order to reconnoiter
thoroughly. An hour passed and they had not returned. Twenty minutes
more went by and still no patrol. Rather curious, we thought. No
rifle-shots had come from that direction nor any noise such as would
be heard during a combat with the bayonet. The commandant's patience
gave way and our captain received the order to send another patrol. He
picked me and I chose King, Delpeuch, and Birchler. All three had
automatics, King a _parabellum_, Delpeuch and Birchler, Brownings.
They left their rifles, bayonets, and cartridge-boxes behind and in
Indian file followed me at a full run in an oblique direction past the
front of the company and, when halfway across the clearing, following
my example, fell flat on the ground. We rested awhile to regain our
wind and then began to slide on our stomachs at right angles to our
first course.
We were extremely careful to remain silent. Every little branch and
twig we moved carefully out of our way; with one hand extended we felt
of the ground before us as we hitched ourselves along. So silent was
our progress that several times I felt in doubt about any one being
behind me and rested motionless until I felt the touch of Delpeuch's
hand upon my foot. After what seemed twenty minutes, we again changed
direction, this time straight toward the trees looming close to us. We
arrived abreast of the first row of trees, and, lying still as death,
listened for sounds of the enemy. All was absolutely quiet; only the
branches rustled overhead in a light breeze. A long time we lay there
but heard no sound. We began to feel somewhat creepy, and I was
tempted to pull my pistol and let nine shots rip into the damnable
stillness before us. However, I refrained, and, touching my neighbor,
started crawling along the edge of the wood. Extreme care was
necessary, owing to the numberless branches littering the ground. The
sweat was rolling down my face.
Again we listened, and again we were baffled by that silence. I was
angry then and started to crawl between the trees. A tiny sound of
metal scratching upon metal and I almost sank into the ground! Quickly
I felt reassured. It was my helmet touching a strand of barbed wire.
Still no sound!
Boldly we rose and, standing behind trees, scanned the darkness. Over
to our right we saw a glimmer of light, and, walking this time,
putting one foot carefully before the other, we moved in that
direction. When opposite we halted and--I swore. From the supposed
trench of the enemy came the hoarse sound of an apparently drunken man
singing the _chanson_ "La Riviera." Another voice offered a toast
to "La Légion."
Carelessly we made our way through the barbed wire, crawling under and
stepping over the strands, jumped over a ditch and looked down into
what seemed to be an underground palace. There they were--the six men
of the One Hundred and Seventy-second--three of them lying stiff and
stark on benches, utterly drunk. Two were standing up disputing, and
the singer sat in an armchair, holding a long-stemmed glass in his
hand. Close by him were several unopened bottles of champagne upon the
table. Many empty bottles littered the floor. The singer welcomed us
with a shout and an open hand, to which we, however, did not
immediately respond. The heartbreaking work while approaching this
place rankled in our mind. The sergeant and corporal were too drunk to
be of any help, while two of the men were crying, locked in each
others' arms. Another was asleep, and our friend the singer absolutely
refused to budge. So, after I had stowed two bottles inside my shirt
(an example punctiliously followed by the others), we returned.
Leaving Birchler at the wire, I placed King in the middle of the
clearing and Delpeuch near the edge of the wood held by us, and then
reported. The captain passed the word along to the major, and on the
instant we were ordered to fall in, and in column of two marched over
to the abandoned trench, following the line marked by my men.
As we entered and disposed ourselves therein, I noticed all the
officers, one after the other, disappear in the palace. Another patrol
was sent out by our company, and, after ranging the country in our
front, it returned safely. That night it happened to be the second
company's turn to mount outposts, and we could see six groups of men,
one corporal and five men in each, march out into the night, and
somewhere, each in some favorable spot, they placed themselves at a
distance of about one hundred metres away, to watch, while we slept
the sleep of the just.
VIII
Day came, and with it the _corvée_ carrying hot coffee and bread.
After breakfast another _corvée_ was sent after picks and shovels, and
the men were set to work remodeling the trench, shifting the parapet
to the other side, building little outpost trenches and setting barbed
wire. The latter job was done in a wonderfully short time, thanks to
German thoroughness, since for the stakes to which the wire is tied
the Boches had substituted soft iron rods, three quarters of an inch
thick, twisted five times in the shape of a great corkscrew. This
screw twisted into the ground exactly like a cork-puller into a cork.
The straight part of the rod, being twisted upon itself down and up
again every ten inches, formed six or seven small round loops in a
height of about five feet. Into these eyes the barbed wire was laid
and solidly secured with short lengths of tying wire. First cutting
the tying wire, we lifted the barbed wire out of the eyes, shoved a
small stick through one and, turning the rod with the leverage of the
stick, unscrewed it out of the ground and then reversing the process
screwed it in again. The advantage of this rod is obvious. When a
shell falls amidst this wire protection, the rods are bent and
twisted, but unless broken off short they always support the wire, and
even after a severe bombardment present a serious obstacle to the
assaulters. In such cases wooden posts are blown to smithereens by the
shells, and when broken off let the wire fall flat to the ground.
As I was walking up and down, watching the work, I noticed a large
box, resting bottom up, in a deep hole opening from the trench.
Dragging the box out and turning it over, I experienced a sudden
flutter of the heart. There, before my astonished eyes, resting upon a
little platform of boards, stood a neat little centrifugal pump
painted green and on the base of it in raised iron letters I read the
words "Byron Jackson, San Francisco." I felt queer at the stomach for
an instant. San Francisco! my home town! Before my eyes passed
pictures of Market Street and the "Park." In fancy I was one of the
Sunday crowd at the Cliff House. How could this pump have got so far
from home? Many times I had passed the very place where it was made.
How, I wonder, did the Boche get this pump? Before the war or through
Holland? A California-built pump to clean water out of German
trenches, in France! It was astonishing! With something like reverence
I put the pump back again and, going to my place in the trench, dug
out one of my bottles of champagne and stood treat to the crowd.
Somehow, I felt almost happy.
As I continued my rounds I came upon a man sitting on the edge of the
ditch surrounded by naked branches, busy cutting them into two-foot
lengths and tying them together in the shape of a "cross." I asked him
how many he was making, and he told me that he expected to work all
day to supply the crosses needed along one battalion front. French and
German were treated alike, he assured me. There was absolutely no
difference in the size of the crosses.
As we worked, soup arrived, and when that was disposed of, the men
rested for some hours. We were absolutely unmolested except by our
officers.
But at one o'clock that night we were again assembled in marching rig,
each man carrying an extra pick or shovel, and we marched along
parallel with our trench to the summit of the butte. There we
installed ourselves in the main line out of which the Germans were
driven by the One Hundred and Seventy-second. Things came easy now.
There was no work of any kind to be done, and quickly we found some
dry wood, built small fires and with the material found in dugouts
brewed some really delightful beverages. Mine was a mixture of wine
and water out of Haeffle's canteen, judiciously blended with
chocolate.
The weather was delightful and we spent the afternoon lying in sunny
spots, shifting once in a while out of the encroaching shade into the
warm rays. We had no idea where the Germans were,--somewhere in front,
of course, but just how far or how near mattered little to us. Anyway,
the One Hundred and Seventy-second were fully forty metres nearer to
them than we were, and we could see and hear the first-line troops
picking and shoveling their way into the ground.
Little King was, as usual, making the round of the company, trying to
find some one to build a fire and get water if he, King, would furnish
the chocolate. He found no takers and soon he laid himself down,
muttering about the laziness of the outfit.
Just as we were dozing deliciously, an agonized yell brought every
soldier to his feet. Rushing toward the cry, I found a man sitting on
the ground, holding his leg below the knee with both hands and moaning
as he rocked back and forth. "Je suis blessé! Je suis blessé!"
Brushing his hands aside I examined his limb. There was no blood. I
took off the leg-band, rolled up his trousers, and discovered no sign
of a wound. I asked the man again where the wound was, and he passed
his hand over a small red spot on his shin. Just then another man
picked up a small piece of shell, and then the explanation dawned upon
me. The Germans were shooting at our planes straight above us; a bit
of shell had come down and hit our sleeper on the shin-bone. Amid a
gale of laughter he limped away to a more sympathetic audience.
Several more pieces of iron fell near us. Some fragments were no
joking matter, being the entire rear end of three-inch shells
weighing, I should think, fully seven pounds.
At 4 P.M. the soup _corvée_ arrived. Besides the usual soup we had
roast mutton, one small slice per man, and a mixture of white beans,
rice, and string beans. There was coffee, and one cup of wine per man,
and, best of all, tobacco. As we munched our food our attention was
attracted to the sky above by an intense cannonade directed against
several of our aeroplanes sailing east. As we looked, more and more of
our war-birds appeared. Whipping out my glasses, I counted fifty-two
machines. Another man counted sixty. Haeffle had it a hundred. The
official report next day stated fifty-nine. They were flying very high
and in very open formation, winging due east. The shells were breaking
ahead of them and between them. The heaven was studded with hundreds
upon hundreds of beautiful little round grayish clouds, each one the
nimbus of a bursting shell. With my prismatics glued to my eyes I
watched closely for one falling bird. Though it seemed incredible at
the moment, not one faltered or turned back. Due east they steered,
into the red painted sky. For several minutes after they had sailed
out of my sight I could still hear the roar of the guns. Only one
machine, the official report said, was shot down, and that one fell on
the return trip.
Just before night fell, we all set to work cutting pine branches, and
with the tips prepared soft beds for ourselves. Sentries were placed,
one man per section, and we laid ourselves down to sleep. The night
passed quietly; again the day started with the usual hot coffee and
bread. Soup and stew at 10 A.M., and the same again at 4 P.M. One more
quiet night and again the following day. We were becoming somewhat
restless with the monotony but were cheered by the captain. That
night, he told us, we should return to Suippes and there we should
re-form the regiment and rest. The programme sounded good, but I felt
very doubtful, so many times we had heard the same tale and so many
times we had been disappointed. Each day the _corvées_ had brought
the same news from the kitchen. At least twenty times different
telephonists and _agents de liaison_ had brought the familiar
story. The soup _corvées_ assured us that the drivers of the rolling
kitchens had orders to hitch up and pull out toward Souain and
Suippes. The telephonists had listened to the order transmitted over
the wires. The _agents de liaison_ had overheard the commandant
telling other officers that he had received marching orders and, "_Ma
foi_! each time each one was wrong!" So after all, I was not much
disappointed when the order came to unmake the sacks.
We stayed that night and all that day, and when the order to march the
following evening came, all of us were surprised, including the
captain. I was with the One Hundred and Seventy-second at the time,
having some fun with a little Belgian. I had come upon him in the dark
and had watched him in growing wonder at his actions. There the little
fellow was, stamping up and down, every so often stopping, shaking
clenched fists in the air, and spouting curses. I asked him what was
the matter. "Rien, mon sergent," he replied. "Je m'excite." "Pourquoi?"
I demanded. "Ah," he told me, "look,"--pointing out toward the German
line,--"out there lies my friend, dead, with three pounds of my
chocolate in his _musette_, and when I'm good and mad, I'm going out
to get it!" I hope he got it!
That night at seven o'clock we left the hill, marched through Souain
four miles to Suippes and sixteen miles farther on, at Saint-Hilaire,
we camped. A total of twenty-six miles.
At Suippes the regiment passed in parade march before some officer of
the État-Major, and we were counted:--eight hundred and fifty-two in
the entire regiment, out of thirty-two hundred who entered the attack
on the 25th of September.
THE END
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