"_HE'S A HUN, BUT WE'RE AMERICANS_"
With a wild clatter a twelve-foot section of the ceiling came down.
We sat up in our bunks and waited. It occurred to me that no shell
had exploded _above_, _within_, or immediately _about_ the "hut,"
and that this interruption of our peaceful slumbers must be due to
the vibrations from our own batteries; there was consolation in the
thought. But I did not fall asleep again. Our guns were going on at a
terrific rate now. It was no ordinary shelling of enemy objectives,
no mere following of a regular schedule by which "big ones" and
"little ones" are dropped on military roads, headquarters, and
concentration-points in "Germany."
Pest, secretary in charge of the "hut," who in happier times is
physical director of the Young Men's Christian Association in Newark,
N. J., said: "Something doing. That's a barrage; wonder whether they're
coming across or whether we are going over. The first brigade is
due for relief to-day; guess the Hun knows it, and is 'speeding the
departing guest.' We'll sure have company for breakfast if our fellows
keep on stirring up the animals."
Presently the "company" arrived. First the gas-alarm was given,
and we hurried into our masks. I kept on my waterproof, so that my
friends would not see my _knees in action_! Then the shrapnel began to
spray, and high explosives felt out our guns. The throaty roar of our
seventy-fives mingled with the longer and nearly double shocks of enemy
explosions. We knew that "William" would not waste shells on us; but we
knew, too, that we were desperately near the places he was trying to
find, and that even modern military science is not _always_ exact.
There was a stern patter on the roof--spent shrapnel; a few minutes
later it came again with a sterner knocking and the sound of an
explosion directly overhead, but high. Hummel got up and opened the
door. He looked out, and then _closed the door_. Simultaneously with
the banging of the door a huge explosion took place in our back yard.
Hummel said that he saw the field go up as high as the spire of the
ruined village church. There was a mighty rush of wind and a scream of
steel; a fragment of high explosive tore out the sash of a window, and
"carried on." This particular piece of projectile passed through the
hut less than twenty-five feet from the cots.
From three o'clock in the morning until seven the shelling was heavy,
the roar of the guns was continuous. It then lessened, but for the
rest of the day and through the night there was no quiet. During the
barrage, the reason for which we learned a few hours later, our village
suffered more than usual. In one billet six men were instantly killed
and five were horribly wounded. In another billet there was a fatality,
and a French soldier was killed at the meeting of two streets as he
walked towards his home, going back on his first "leave" in two years.
We waded through the mud to our "mess" just across the street; good,
steaming hot, and well prepared it was. I went back for a "second," as
is the privilege of every man provided he waits until all have had the
first serving.
It was the first day of the month, and so while Pest fixed the packs
for the trenches, and Hummel (Rev. Mr. Hummel, of California, if you
please) completed a sink and drain which his deft hands had begun
the day before, I took account of stock, and incidentally packed
more securely on the shelves the supplies that were in quantity. The
bombardment was shaking things loose. At 10 A.M. Pest and I started
for the trenches, with the former remarking to Hummel that if things
continued so active the supply-truck would hardly get in, and that it
might be well to "shove the stuff" a bit easy to conserve what we had.
Up the road we hiked toward Germany. Our sacks held a hundred pounds of
chocolate, nuts, cigarettes, and oranges, things that the regular and
necessarily severe front-line mess could not duplicate. The oranges
came from Italy, and the chocolate was made by Americans in French or
Swiss factories taken over by the Y. M. C. A. Trench supplies are never
sold; these are "specials," gifts to those who for days at a time must
bear the body and nerve destroying ordeal of the most advanced places.
No man who has not seen the faces of the men and heard their "Thank
yous" can appreciate what these trench trips of the Red Triangle mean
to the soldiers of the Republic. Every day the secretaries go "in," and
clear in. To the last observation-post they carry the extra food, the
bit of luxury, and the strong man's word and grip of comradeship that
build fighting spirit and morale.
For a mile the going was easy, the road-bed straight away toward the
trenches; and the footing beneath five or six inches of mud was firm.
At "Dead Man's Curve," a bad spot which bends out from behind a great
ammunition-dump and passes between batteries on into another ruined
village, we took a short cut across the field. The mud at the bend was
red, and the road was filled with blood; an empty supply-wagon had
been caught there earlier in the morning. The two men on the driver's
seat and all of the mules had been killed. For five hundred yards we
continued across the shell-ploughed field; now and then we were forced
to turn out of the direct path to avoid shell-holes close together;
several times I found as many as three small craters with rim touching
rim.
The firing continued heavy, and the moaning missiles passed one another
high above our heads. There were explosions half a mile away, and the
surface of the earth was churned with fury; but no shells dropped
near. We entered the communication-trench at the far edge of the great
military road that at this particular point parallels the first line of
fifteen miles. It runs directly in front of the last heavy batteries,
and to a height of twenty feet is carefully camouflaged with branches
and painted canvas. The camouflage does not disguise the location of
the road itself; but it does hide the movements of troops, munitions,
and supplies from the enemy observers, who here look down upon our
lines from a famous mountain which towers nine hundred feet above our
position.
The morning was cloudy; mist was in the air, and a little later it
began to snow. We caught glimpses now and then of another ruined
village, the battalion headquarters (a kilometer from the head of the
communicating trench), where we reported before going on to the most
advanced positions. Presently we met a lieutenant coming out. He was
smiling, and without being asked for information told us that the enemy
had come over in force with shock troops after shelling the lines
for twelve hundred meters on either side of the eight-hundred-meter
front which bore the full weight of the infantry attack. He gave us no
details; but, as he hurried on, he assured us that "the boys brought
away the bacon."
We reported to the major on reaching headquarters, and learned from him
that the company we had planned to serve that morning had been very
"busy"; that it was digging itself out, reopening the trenches after
the intense bombardment, clearing away the dead, looking after the
wounded; and that he would prefer to have these supplies taken into
Company K, where things were in better order. He spoke with pardonable
pride when he informed us that already the men at the most advanced
listening-posts had been served with food and red-hot coffee. We began
to understand the heavy firing of the morning. Our guns had been
supporting the infantry, and German guns had been trying to silence
them.
A sergeant, covered with blood but happy, had just made his report
for Company I. He accompanied us until our paths, or rather trenches,
separated. He was going back to the "busy" portion of the front.
His story was interesting, to say the least. During the preparatory
bombardment which preceded the raid he was buried in a dugout. When
the barrage lifted for the raiders to come across, he dug frantically
toward the faint light that came through a tiny opening in the
shattered roof. Suddenly two hand-grenades were hurled through his
little window of hope. Both exploded, but the sergeant miraculously
escaped. Indeed, the grenades helped him out! He despatched the
thrower, and leaped into the heart of the counter-attack. How fierce
that counter-attack was may be judged from the fact that every
commissioned officer of his company was killed or wounded before it was
crowned with triumph.
The Germans were forced into our supporting barrage, and were virtually
annihilated. It was a demoralized remnant indeed that reached German
lines to make a report far different from what had been anticipated.
But our losses were not light. Our first infantry captain to die in
action was killed that morning at the head of his men. Five out of the
six lieutenants "up" at the time were wounded, and the sixth followed
his gallant captain. The sergeant spoke slowly when he recounted the
losses, but he was jubilant when he recalled the perfect support
given by the artillery. We knew and he knew that the first great test
had come, and that Americans had not been found wanting in courage,
initiative, or skill.
Presently we reached company headquarters as the major had directed us,
and heard at length the story of the morning. With a guide we now went
on. Hip-boots did little good, for the "chicken-ladder" trench floor
had been badly smashed by the shelling. Often we sank to our hips. The
boys were mighty glad to get the candy and fruit. The Italian oranges
were our leaders! A soft-voiced Southern lieutenant gave us additional
details, and told us how the gallant French on our right came down and
dropped in behind us at a distance of five hundred yards. There in the
open they lay, a reserve against the possible breaking through of the
enemy. No Man's Land looked strangely peaceful through our parapet, and
the German barbed wire a hundred and seventy yards away was more like
loganberry trellises in Oregon than part of a war machine in France.
The company had lost only one man during the shelling, and it had not
suffered in the raid.
It was nearing one o'clock when, returning, we reached the place where
our friend the sergeant had left us. Pest looked down the trench toward
headquarters, and then down the front line toward the low ground where
we had originally planned to go, and where the boys were "busy." Surely
things were cleaned up now, and they would be hungry for a bit of
chocolate and a strong word. I followed him toward the left, but not
without forebodings. There was plenty of noise in front of us, and I
was sure that the enemy would not co-operate with the engineers who
were restoring our trenches, by refraining from shelling them. The
"little ones," three-inch high explosives, were falling not far away;
but we were well covered. We crossed the low ground where the boys had
suffered so seriously from the gas attack three days before, and then
entered the woods, whose tree-trunks bore many new wounds.
At the far edge of the woods our progress was completely blocked.
Working parties filled the space. All about were the marks of the
bloody struggle. Not all the dead had been carried back, but the
wounded were either out or had been started toward the rear. There were
yet bodies in the barbed wire, hanging like ghastly scarecrows.
We emptied our sacks, and right about faced. The firing was steadily
increasing, and we hurried our steps. When we came to the place
where we had entered the woods, we found our way barred again. Two
stretcher parties were resting under the cover of the little ruined
forest. One carried the remains of the second lieutenant, who had been
killed by a trench mortar; the other bore a wounded German prisoner,
a fine-looking, husky Bavarian whose legs had been fearfully mangled.
The carriers were worn out; it had been a "busy" morning for them, too.
They were within a hundred yards of the point where it was necessary to
leave the trench and take to the open. The trench had been so shattered
by the shelling that a stretcher could not be carried through it. The
light had been growing steadily better, and it was very apparent that
German observers, at this point less than two hundred yards away,
would quickly spot a party taking to the open. But there was nothing
else to do. Pest volunteered to lend a hand, and together we carried
the wounded prisoner to the point where with assistance we lifted him
to the parapet.
The two stretcher parties now started down across the low ground in
the open, their burdens shoulder-high, not only for greater ease in
carrying, but to give the "kultured" gentlemen across the way a square
and open look. The going was heavy. After carrying for perhaps three
hundred yards the four of us who had lifted the burden at the parapet
were relieved. Pest and I now increased our speed in the direction of
battalion headquarters, which were in plain view and not more than a
kilometer away as the bird flies.
Suddenly hell opened. A barrage was put down upon the field. I can
hear to-day as distinctly as I heard it then the close-up crash of
German guns, and almost simultaneously with that the cry of the officer
in charge of the stretcher, "Scatter!" Then all about us the shells
dropped and broke. I suppose that the barrage lasted ten minutes,
hardly more, but it was a kind of eternity. It seemed to my terrified
eyes that no foot of ground about us was left untouched. That night an
observer in our line, on his way back after being relieved, stopped
long enough to say that more than two hundred shells fell within a
radius of fifty yards from the centre of our party.
I sprawled upon my face, and rolled over into a very shallow
shell-hole. At my right, and not ten feet away, suddenly a man was
lifted into the air; five feet he seemed to go up. He turned over, and
came down with a flop into a shell-hole filled with water. Aside from
the shock and bruises he was uninjured. The "three-inch" had gone in,
by his side and at an angle, almost under him. But in the open and in
soft ground high explosives are not particularly dangerous unless they
score direct hits. They penetrate so far before they explode that they
are largely smothered; and, while they kick up a great commotion, their
bark is worse than their bite.
Fortunately for our little party, this barrage had no shrapnel mixed
with it; had there been shrapnel, the story would be of another sort.
But I was so profoundly frightened that I made no distinction between
high explosives and shrapnel.
I found myself trying to hide behind a rock no larger than a baby's
fist. I envied the white dog, which wheeled about on his hind legs,
barking angrily in a dozen directions at once, trying to cover each new
explosion. I envied not his bark, but his potential speed, and called
him a fool for not using it.
And then I heard some one say,--or perhaps it was my own heart
speaking,--"Run for it!" and faster than I ever left the scratch on a
cinder path, in the days when I was credited with 10 1-5 seconds for
the hundred-yard dash, I got away. As I ran, I thought of two things.
First, I breathed a prayer of thankfulness for the additional five
thousand of war-risk life-insurance that I had taken out just before
leaving New York; and then I remembered the ancient tale of the colored
brother who heard the bullet twice, once when it passed him and once
again when he passed it! And I did my best to emulate the hero of the
tale. Two men reached headquarters before I did, but they were younger
men and unimpeded by trench coats.
I followed Pest into the presence of the major,--we ran a dead
heat!--and heard his report. The major smiled, a trifle anxiously, told
us of the _comparative_ safety we had really enjoyed because of the
soft ground and high explosives, and then inquired, "Did the carriers
stay with the prisoner?" Pest replied, "I am not sure, sir; I did not
look around, but I am inclined to think that he is out there alone."
Some one felt it in order to remark that if the Hun wanted to kill his
own wounded, he ought to be given the privilege of doing so "without
mussing up any good Americans"; and then the major said: "Yes, _he's a
Hun, but we're Americans. Go back and get him._"
I am writing these lines more than five thousand miles from
the candle-lighted room in the bomb-shelter of that battalion
headquarters; but, as I write them, I cross the sea, and stand again by
the side of the rough table where I stood that March afternoon when the
major startled me out of my terror into soberness and quiet with his
"Yes, he's a Hun, but we're Americans. Go back and get him." I believe
that I am better for trying to give the German the benefit of the
doubt; for _half_ thinking that, after all, he may not have recognized
the nature of the party crossing the open field. But the major waived
the whole question of German "frightfulness," and leaped at once
into the heart of American traditions of war and America's military
idealism. He saw only a prisoner, wounded and under fire, and--he knew
his duty.
And before we continue this story let us halt for a moment with the
"major." I saw him only once and under tense and extreme circumstances.
His battalion had just come through a baptism of fire that will not
be forgotten when the story of America's part in the great war is
told. I do not know how he looked in a dress uniform or when he was
clean-shaven; I have no conception of what his carriage was in a
drawing-room; and I am uninformed as to his church affiliation--if he
had any. But he acted like a soldier that afternoon and talked like
a Christian. I am sure that he was every inch a soldier, too; for
he fought through the Spanish-American war, and was a major in the
Philippine constabulary. He enlisted in the British army; but, when
the Stars and Stripes came to stand by the side of the Union Jack,
he _moved over_, and was commissioned a major in the national army.
I intended to write him a letter after I returned; but now that will
be unnecessary, for to-day at the top of a column I read, "American
colonel killed in action," and below, "Lieutenant-Colonel Richard H.
Griffiths; commanding a battalion of infantry, has been killed by
shell-fire in Picardy. He emerged from a dugout just as a German shell
arrived and exploded directly in front of him." And now he stands at
attention before the Commander whose orders, whether he thought of it
in that way or not, he so completely obeyed.[1]
As the major spoke, he turned to a lieutenant, and said, "Get those
carriers, and send them back." Pest and I followed the lieutenant into
the open. The lieutenant inquired of Pest the location of the prisoner;
and the man from Newark replied, "_I'll show you._" It was at this
point that the writer made a speech. The speech was brief, but logical
and unanswerable. I told Mr. Pest that he had no business to go back.
True, the barrage had lifted, but the Germans had another one where
the first one came from, and they might decide to spare it! Then, too,
he--Pest--had done not only his full duty, but more. To go back would
be to expose himself needlessly and also to run the risk of having the
trenches closed to the Y. M. C. A. "What will the army over here say if
it gets the idea that you Y. M. C. A. fellows are sticking your heads
above parapets and rambling around in open fields? How long will it
stand for the Y. M. C. A. man's assuming a rôle that does not belong to
him? Granted that you did the only thing you could do by helping with
that prisoner when you ran into the immediate need, this return trip is
another proposition."
I laid hands on my friend; but he started up the road for the open
field, showing the way to the lieutenant, and with a heavy heart I
followed another officer to indicate the carriers who must go out to
help bring in the wounded man. Pest had made no reply to my speech, and
I knew that my _logic_ was sound; but that didn't satisfy my heart,
with Pest out there. And Pest's heart would not have been satisfied,
had he allowed me to win the debate.
I came back and stood at the head of the road leading through the
tumbled walls, out by some abandoned trenches with tangles of rusted
wires above them, and on into that open field where so many brave men
had fought and died since the first rush came down from Metz. "Poor
place to spend a vacation," said the sentinel, who stood post there,
and scarcely had the last word left his lips when that field again
became an inferno. I could not see my friend and those who had gone to
join him, a slight rise in the ground and an old cut-to-pieces orchard
obscured the view; but the air was full of earth and rocks, and I was
sure that I saw fragments of bodies in the vortex. Surely men could not
come again unscathed through such a horror.
And now I was forced into the sickening acknowledgment that, while my
logic had been sound when I sought to dissuade Pest from returning to
the prisoner, my nerve had not been. I knew that my feverish urgency
was not unmixed with personal fear. Never did a more sick and anguished
heart cry out to God than the one that supplicated for that stretcher
party. _But it did not appear!_ When the suspense became unbearable,
I hurried to the major; and, when I told him the situation, he became
very grave. He had been trying for some minutes to silence our own
batteries, fearing that the enemy would continue to concentrate their
fire on objectives near our battalion headquarters if our firing
continued to stir them up. And our fire _was_ stirring them up! Our
shelling was deadly and unrelenting. The major wanted to give that
party in the field a chance to get back. But his communications were
down. Already two runners had been despatched, and the signal-corps men
were working frantically.
I asked for permission to go down the road a little way to see whether
there might be a sign of the men. I could not face my own soul without
knowing for myself what Pest's end was. The major understood, and down
the road I went. A great fear possessed me, but it was a new kind
of fear. I reached the edge of the open place; there was no sign of
life anywhere. The snow was falling again, and I hurried on. I met a
runner; he had not seen the party. Three minutes more, and I was on the
spot where the first barrage broke; and still there was no sign.
Suddenly the tightening about my heart loosened, and I fairly shouted,
"There would be _something_ left, if they were dead." A second runner
was skirting the woods we had passed through earlier in the day. I ran
to meet him, and fairly choked him to get the information that I was
desperately searching for. "Yes," he had seen them. They had waited
till the shelling stopped, and then from the cover of the woods he had
watched them rush the stretcher back to the trench. They had followed
close against the lower side of the trench, the longer way into the
village. This brought them into the lower end of the town, and gave
them a slight cover for the entire distance. It was the way we should
have taken in the beginning.
"And now," the runner said, "this is our 'busy' afternoon,"--I had
heard the word so often that day,--"and we must get to headquarters
'toot sweet'!" The youthful veteran instructed me to follow him at
a distance of twenty paces, and he led the way down the road which
skirted the edge of the field farthest from the German lines. The
snow was falling more rapidly now, and we were practically safe from
observation. We walked in the shallow ditch by the roadside, so
that in case shelling was resumed we could avail ourselves of its
protection. By lying flat we should be on a level with the surface of
the ground.
The road was deep in mud, and I saw the prints of _French_ boots! Then
I remembered what the lieutenant had said in the morning of the gallant
French reserves, and realized that I was on the exact spot where
they had waited in the open behind our trenches. A rush of emotion
overwhelmed me, and I wept. Suddenly in front of me I saw a mask, a
_blue_ gas-mask, half buried in the mud, lying where the brave Poilu
had dropped it only a few hours before. When I showed it to the major a
little later, soaked with water and with _blood_, ruined and useless,
he said, "Take it home to your children; you are a millionaire." Yes, a
millionaire in the treasure of sentiment, by the wealth of the vision
the blue mask brings to me of the comradeship of democracy in suffering
and in sacrifice.
Before we reached the edge of the village the batteries became busy
again, but at first their objectives seemed to be well beyond the town.
Then without warning the fire assumed the intensity of a barrage,
and the range was shortened so that the projectiles fell all over
"headquarters." Such a spectacle I had never seen before. It was as
though the heavens had opened and precipitated an ocean of soil,
bowlders, and trees upon the earth. No, rather the earth itself seemed
to open as the result of some great sickness and vomit this terrifying
spectacle upon us. The ground trembled, and the noise became literally
deafening. I stood transfixed behind the runner. I was conscious of no
other emotion than one of complete amazement. I had been in the midst
of the former barrage, and _had not seen it_! We were perhaps one
hundred and fifty yards away from this one, and so soon does one become
accustomed to the eccentricities of shell-fire that we felt ourselves
in no danger. We listened to the shells as they described their low arc
above us, and knew instinctively whether they would land to the right
or to the left, near us or relatively far away. One's judgment in these
matters is much akin to his judgment of a batted ball; only he judges
the shell altogether by its sound.
But we were roused from our stupor. Off at our left, not far away, a
shrapnel broke, the first I had _seen_ that day. For an instant I was
paralyzed. The balls flew all about us; dirt spattered us; and then
we ran! Straight toward that barrage we sprinted. Our one chance--and
I knew it as well as the splendid fellow in front of me--was those
abandoned trenches with their caved-in dugouts; we were not more than
fifty yards from them. It was shrapnel now and no mistake. That we were
not hit is merely one of the hourly miracles of the front. But we did
reach, without being wounded, the old barbed wire with the barrage
being pulled across the village and shortening in our direction, and
with the shrapnel overhead. Both of us dove head first into the trench,
and a good eight-foot plunge it was, into slime and water six inches
deep. There we waited until the affair was over.
As suddenly as it begins, intense shell-fire ceases; this demonstration
against battalion headquarters lasted in all not more than ten minutes.
Then, save for explosions well up on the ridge or behind it in the
region of the batteries, comparative quiet reigned. With my new-found
friend I climbed out of our refuge and hurried into the village. Here
I received another shock; aside from three men wounded, several old
walls tumbled in, a score of small craters in the streets, and yards
of destroyed camouflage the bombardment had done no injury. I was
sure that bodies would be scattered everywhere. But the major was
at his table, working furiously and as if nothing had happened; the
signal-corps room hard by had been mussed up; one shell had dropped
close by the wall of the major's bomb-proof, and another had destroyed
the camouflage at its entrance; but these experiences were with the
day's work. With the first explosions just beyond the town the men had
taken to the cellars, and there remained until the storm was over. The
last few hours had given me a vivid demonstration of the truth of the
statement that I had often heard, but scarcely believed, "It takes a
thousand shells to kill a man by shell-fire."
My first inquiries were for Pest, and he was reported safe and waiting
for me in the communicating trench; the sentinel at the head of the old
road had given him a statement of my movements. The prisoner had been
carried in, and presently he was hurried by in an ambulance bound for
the hospital. Every hand that I had seen touch his stretcher had been
a kindly, ministering hand; and the men who were risking their lives
to bring him out had been prompt to express their admiration of his
nerve; he was suffering terribly. He in his turn, when bearers "eased
off" their load in the hard going of the open field, would say deeply
between his groans, "_Schön, schön_!" ("Fine, fine.")
Shells exploding half a mile away had made me very nervous in the
morning; but now as I hurried back, ploughing through the mud and snow
of the communicating trench, sinking often to my hips, and pulling
myself out as best I could, no sounds worried me. Men were coming
in--the relief; they looked clean and fit. A machine-gun company passed
me, and was eager for a few words of information. It was great to have
good news for those fellows! At last I reached the main road; its
inches of mud with firm footing beneath seemed a paradise. The field in
front of the batteries had been reploughed since we crossed it in the
morning, and there were many new craters about "Dead Man's Curve."
As darkness came down, we reached----home! and home it is to thousands
of hungry-eyed lads who have become men in an hour. Home it is to
these far-called soldiers of freedom, who pay the sterner price of the
world's redemption. It holds them to their yesterdays; it grips them
with their past. By its tables they sit and think and write; about its
fire they talk and muse. In the atmosphere of its manly decency they
breathe deeply and are purified; and the fellowship of those other
soldiers who wear the red triangle makes them fit and strong in their
hearts. Ah! as I stepped across the threshold of that place fenced
with rough boards and set where heaven touches hell, I saw all things
become new. We could not win this war without the Young Men's Christian
Association; for, even though our armies reached Berlin, our souls
would lose their way.
I put my trophies out of sight--the masks and some pieces of shell that
I had taken from a shell-hole after I scrambled up from the first shock
of the barrage. A few hurried changes were made, and then we relieved
Hummel, who had been working like a lonely Trojan all day.
Out of the corner of my eye I watched Pest. He didn't even know that he
was a hero! When I think of him, I shall always see him as I saw him
swinging down the road with the lieutenant, bound for the open field,
head up and chin out, leaning slightly forward as he took the long and
easy stride of the trained athlete--a soldier and a Christian, under
higher orders than any that man ever gave or refused, facing death to
be merciful, risking his own life to salvage the life of his enemy.
And Pest is more than one man; he is a type. This one day of his life,
a trifle more than ordinary, to be sure, but not unlike scores of days
he experiences, is a single page from the ledger of service which
the Y. M. C. A. secretaries are writing on every front where freedom
bleeds.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] A letter from Lieutenant David R. Morgan describes the
circumstances under which Lieutenant-Colonel Griffiths was buried:
"The regimental chaplain was sick. There happened to be a Red Cross
chaplain visiting us from Paris, so he officiated. The Boches were
within a few hundred yards of us, so he had to whisper the ritual. It
was pitch-dark and the boys had to be mighty careful to keep their
shovels from clicking against stones. A few officers were present.
"The burial took place at midnight. A lantern or a candle would have
helped, but the crackle of a match would have meant death. Twice the
ritual was suspended while the mourners took to cover to avoid German
bullets.
"Privates had gathered wild violets and poppies at the rear of the
trenches, keeping them fresh in a dipper of water in a dugout. These
were laid on the graves at night.
"The next night a Boche high explosive demolished the little cemetery,
exposing the bodies. We had to bury Colonel Griffiths four separate
times."
Lieutenant Morgan, who is an active Pennsylvania Christian Endeavorer,
speaking further of Lieutenant-Colonel Griffiths, said: "The breast of
his coat was covered with medals. He did not know what fear was. He
never sent a man anywhere until he went first. I have seen him calmly
walking along the street with the shells dropping on all sides."