In the ravine Hicks was busy trying to place his Maxim in a position from
which it would sweep a portion of the field. He had succeeded in making
it remain upright on its haunches, and was now experimenting with it in
various positions, so that he could swing it back and forth as he fired,
and cover the maximum of ground. The water-cooler had been set at its
side and the long rubber hose was attached to the machine-gun. A belt
filled with cartridges was inserted in the chamber, and the affair was
ready to be fired.
“’At’s some gun you got there, Hicksy, old boy. What do you ’spect to
do with it? You don’t aim to kill nobody, do you?” Pugh had recovered
and was in good humor. As he talked, a black stubble of beard that grew
grotesquely on the chin of his elf-like face rose and fell.
“No, Jack. I’m just keepin’ it for a souvenir.”
“Hell, y’ain’t got no souvenir. Lookit, Hicksy.” He produced a small
pearl-handled pistol. “Got this offen one of them Dutchmen. Lookit
here.” He placed his hand in his blouse and brought out a pair of
field-glasses. “Got this from another one. Now all I want to do is to git
wounded and I’ll take these babies back and sell ’em for beaucoup francs
to them S. O. S. birds.”
“Don’t talk about getting wounded, Pugh,” Harriman requested. “It’s bad
luck. Remember what Kitty Kahl said the other night?”
“Naw, how’d I know what Kitty Kahl said? He didn’t say nothin’ to me.”
“He said that he’d either win a decoration or get killed.”
“I don’t care if he did. I want a bon-bless-ey so I can git outta this
damn hole.”
“Say, Hicks,” Lepere called, “you’d better take down that confounded gun.
The Boche will see it and then we’ll all get killed.”
“Oh, they won’t see it.”
“You can’t tell. One of their aviators is liable to come over here any
time.”
“Tyah tyah tyah tyah, you talk like you come from where they have possums
for yard dogs, Lepeah,” Pugh sneered. “Hicksy, let’s you and me go out
salvagin’. There’s a lot of salmon and stuff in some of them boys’ packs
that’ll never want it no more.”
“You mean some of the fellows that have been killed?” Hicks asked. “I
don’t like to do that. It seems too ghoulish.”
“I don’t cah what it seems like. I’m hawngry. Le’s go.”
“Maybe Bedford’ll stop us.”
“Naw, he won’t. He’s too damned scared to git out of his hole.”
They climbed out of the ravine and started back through the woods.
“Hicksy! Be damned! Lookit that!”
“Where, where? What is it?”
“Look!” Pugh pointed his finger toward a large tree. Its knees on the
ground and its forehead pressed stiffly against the bark of the tree, a
body kneeled.
“Let’s go back.”
“Naw, I wanta git some of that salmon.”
It was easy enough without touching the bodies to collect armfuls of
canned salmon from the packs of the dead men. Soon they had all they
could carry. Besides the salmon, Pugh had collected several razors and a
carton of talcum.
They had but reached the ravine when the bottom seemed to drop from the
sky, dumping a deluge of shells. For a moment the men were stunned by
the fierceness of the bombardment. Hicks and Pugh emptied their arms of
the cans and dived for a burrow, reaching it simultaneously. Another
flock of shells struck in and around the ravine. It was not until after
they had exploded that the report of their having been fired was heard.
“Oh-o, Hicksy, can’t you get in a little closer and give me some room,”
Pugh yelled. “Them’s the whizz-bangs they’ve been tellin’ us about.”
The shells, with their terrific “bz—BANG, bz—BANG” poured in upon the men.
“Stretcher bearer on the left!” some one screamed above the racket. The
plea went unheeded.
“God damn it, there’s a man half killed up there. Stretcher bearer on the
le-f-f-t.”
“I didn’t know there was anybody fool enough to yell for one of them
lousy stretcher bearers. Hicksy, le’s you and me go up.”
While the shells fell and burst directly in front of him, behind him, and
on each side, a huge fellow whose proportions made him an easy target,
walked conscientiously along the ravine. In his hand was a bag containing
first-aid implements. To Hicks, as he passed, the huge fellow, with the
red cross on his arm, looked like a doting father who felt the necessity
forcibly to reprimand a child. A few minutes later Hicks saw him, with
the wounded man thrown over his shoulder as if he were a bag of salt,
making his way along the ravine and through the woods to the dressing
station.
Bang—CRASH. The ravine reverberated from the explosion. Another volley
had been hurled into it.
“Stretcher bearer on the left. Stretcher bearer on the left,” some one
called. From time to time the cry was repeated, each time less hopefully,
more stridently.
Fiercely whining, a shell bore down upon the ground under which Hicks and
Pugh were crouched. It landed softly. They waited, breathless, for it
to burst. Hicks was convulsed. Oh, if only it would explode and end the
suspense. Hicks found himself wanting the shell to burst, imploring it!
The smoke in the air was stifling them, burning out their lungs. Their
eyes were shot with blood, and tears streamed unceasingly down their
cheeks. Their throats felt as if they had swallowed handfuls of fine dust.
“I’ll choke, I’ll die,” Hicks thought with every breath. He felt for
his mask, knocked off his helmet, and adjusted the mask to his head.
Frenzied, he bit his teeth into the hard-rubber mouthpiece, and breathed
deeply. Oh, what a relief; the picrine could not penetrate the chemicals
of the mask! He breathed again; gulped, rather. Immediately his throat
and lungs were on fire. The mask was more of a hindrance than a help.
Incomprehensibly, the bombardment stopped.
Men ran from their burrows and clambered over the ravine in an effort to
escape the blinding, choking smoke.
“Stop, men,” Lieutenant Bedford called hoarsely. “Come back here and be
ready to stand off an attack.”
Reluctantly they returned and placed themselves in a position from which
they could fire across the field. Hicks drew out his canteen. It was
empty.
“Water, got any water, Pugh?”
“No, jist drained the last drop.”
Hicks walked down the ravine. “Anybody got any water to spare?”
No one had. No one had any water. He walked back beside Pugh. As he
approached, Pugh called:
“Oh, Hicksy, you’d better go over and ask them Dutchmen for another gun.
One of their shells swiped that pretty one you had up here.”
The Maxim which Hicks had diligently striven to get into shape was
gone—where, no one knew.
“I don’t care. If they come over now I wouldn’t have strength enough to
pull a trigger. I’m all in, Pugh.”
Fearfully the men waited for the attack. It grew dark, but none came. Out
in the field a cow slowly moved across the broken ground. In the dusk
Lieutenant Bedford was stumbling along the ravine, calling for volunteers
to go on a water detail.
From one of the holes King Cole’s voice croaked: “I’ll go, lieutenant.
I’ll go.” He sounded like a bullfrog.
“I’ll go, too; be glad to,” Hicks offered.
“God, me too,” complemented Pugh.
“I only want two men. Pugh, you stay here. All right, Hicks and Cole,
collect up the canteens and then I’ll tell you where to go.”
“Je’s, these canteens make a lot of noise. The Squareheads can hear us
for a mile. Hadn’t we better put something around them?” Hicks asked
Lieutenant Bedford.
“Yes, have the men unhook their canteen covers and put them on. Now be
careful when you go, for the German lines are only a few hundred yards.
You follow this ravine until you come to a place where it splits. Take
the one to the right. It leads into a little town where there’s a pump.”
They started off, feeling their way over the huge boulders that lay in
the ravine. When they were no more than a hundred yards from the platoon,
a shell severed the air over their heads and burst in the field to their
right. They fell flat on their faces. After the shell had exploded they
got up and started again. Another shell burst ten yards in front of them.
They ran forward again, the canteens jangling over their shoulders. This
time the shell burst just to their left, throwing up a mass of dirt which
showered down on them.
“Good-by, canteens; I’m goin’ to throw mine away and run,” said Cole.
“Yes, you are. And we die of thirst. Come on, it’s not far now.”
They hurried blindly on. Another shell screeched over their heads and
struck the edge of the ravine to their right. They were violently thrown
against the opposite side.
“I sure do admire that boy’s aim. Let’s go, Hicks.”
Abruptly the ravine shallowed out and they found themselves running for
the village, their bodies wholly exposed. As they approached, a door in
one of the buildings of the badly battered town was thrown open and a
voice called: “Here you are, fellows. Come in this way.”
* * * * *
“Hell, if you think you had it hard, you ought to have been with us.”
Hicks and Cole, resting after they had filled the canteens with water
from a creaky pump in the village square, were seated in a room of the
building through which they had entered the town. At the window near the
door a thin-snouted Hotchkiss machine-gun was pointed out over the field.
Beside it, his head lying against the saddle, a man was reclining. It was
he who had spoken.
“Think of carrying one of these guns over your shoulder and walking
through heavy rifle fire the whole length of that field! Pretty tough.
Pretty tough.”
“Oh, forget about it; it’d a been worse if you’d a been killed.”
“I don’t know so much about that!”
“And when we got in this town. Boy, we sure did clump them Dutchmen over
the head! Firin’ out of the windows, they were, and us comin’ in in plain
sight. But we knocked ’em for a gool, a cock-eyed gool. I thought them
God-damned Squareheads could fight.” He chuckled and stretched his body.
“But you oughta seen ’em run when we swarmed in here.”
“I guess they fought well enough to knock off most of us.”
Hicks shuffled his feet restlessly. “Guess we’d better be gettin’ back,
King.”
It had grown quite dark and along the lines of restless men white rockets
were fired, to flare for a moment, covering a part of the ground with an
intense brightness and then expiring on the ground with a short hiss.
The platoon was not in sight when they returned to the mouth of the
ravine. But as the clanking of their canteens was heard, men hurried from
their burrows and surrounded Hicks and Cole.
“Here, give me mine.”
“Mine’s the one with the dent in the side, Cole.”
“That’s not my canteen. Here, let me find it.”
“Git the hell away from here or you’ll never git anything to drink. Who
the devil went after this water, anyway?”
Sergeant Harriman stood in the background, much to the surprise of Hicks,
who had expected him to rush forward demanding that he be given his
canteen first of all. The canteens were passed out and Harriman’s was the
next to the last one.
“Thank you, Hicks,” said Harriman warmly.
“Go easy on that water now; we can’t go running to that town every five
minutes, you men,” Sergeant Ryan called.
Along the ravine the water gurgled from the canteens into the mouths of
the men. Their most pressing want satisfied, their thoughts soon turned
to the matter of food, which they had been without for two days, save
for the cans of salmon which Hicks and Pugh had salvaged from the dead
men’s packs. After expressing among themselves their desire for food they
raised their voices and began to lament:
“What makes the wildcats wild?”
“Because they’re hungry.”
“Why are they hungry?”
“Because there ain’t no chow.”
“Why ain’t they got no chow?”
“Because they ain’t got nobody to look out for them.”
“Pipe down, up there,” scolded Lieutenant Bedford. “If the ration detail
don’t come along pretty soon, we’ll send one of our own after chow.”
Hours of quiet passed, while the men silently lay in their burrows in
the ravine, listening to the cheerful chirp of the crickets, and trying
to relax their nerves which had been tautened almost to breaking by the
terrific barrage of the early afternoon.
“Je’s, I wish we had some more of that salmon, Pugh. We were crazy to
give it all away.”
“No, we wasn’t. These mamma’s boys’d starve to death if somebody didn’t
pr’vide for ’em.”
While they were talking, Sergeant Harriman, stealing along the ravine,
came to their burrow: “Here’s some Argentina beef that you fellows can
have some of. I got three cans of it.”
It was a little blue can, and when Pugh lifted a piece of it to his mouth
he shuddered. “Smells like some’p’n you’ve stepped in. Mah guts can’t go
that stuff.”
“Yes, they can,” Harriman encouraged. “It’s not half bad if you don’t
breathe while you’re chewing it. I’ve been eating it all day.”
Pugh, holding his nostrils together, gulped down a handful of the
evil-smelling food. “That’s not so bad, Hicksy. Try some of it.”
He passed over the can to Hicks.
* * * * *
In the early morning the German lines were represented by a black strip
of woods, some five hundred yards in the distance, that looked a narrow
piece of jet-black lace through the gray dawn. To the men on watch it was
inconceivable that such a calm, almost sketched scene existed so near to
them. The brain-piercing explosions of the shells still remembered, the
calmness of the surroundings was unreal. Quiet belonged to another world.
Day broke fully. From above, the hot sun beat cruelly upon the earth.
The helmets of the men were like hot frying-pans. Sweat soaked through
the padding in the helmets and ran down the men’s faces in tiny, dirty
rivulets. Their skin, beneath their woollen shirts and breeches, itched
unbearably. At the knees, where the breeches tightly fitted, the shell
powder had soaked through and was biting the flesh.
There was a sameness about the expressions on the men’s faces. As yet it
was barely perceptible. The mouths had set in certain rigid lines. The
lids of the eyes were narrowed, and beneath them the pupils reflected
only a dull apathy. Of each man the shoulders sagged as if bowed down
with a dreadful weight.
* * * * *
Hicks lay against the sloping wall of the ravine, his head peeping over,
watching an airplane circle lazily above. The drone of its engine was
like some enormous bluebottle fly. It was soothing. A slight breeze
rippled the wheat. “Ah,” he breathed. But on the breeze was carried
a stomach-turning stench. It was sweet and putrid and seemed to take
substance around the nostrils. As the heat of the day grew more, the odor
strengthened until Hicks felt as if he were submerged in it up to his
eyes.
As the sun glided out of sight the odor became less evident, until at
last, as the shadows were thrown full length, it ceased entirely to be.
* * * * *
Lieutenant Bedford made his way along the ravine. “Where’s Sergeant
Harriman?”
Harriman poked his pallid face out of his burrow.
“Yes, sir?”
“Oh, there you are, Harriman. Pick out four men to go after rations.
Right after dark.”
“Shall I go along in charge?”
“Go if you want to. Ryan and I can take care of things all right.”
The ration party tracked through the thick woods, purpled with late
evening. Trees stretched gaunt arms in awkward gestures toward the
sombre-colored sky, through which lights gaily winked and danced. Under
foot were objects over which they tried to step without touching. Now
and then a foot would strike a dead man’s pack or his body, and some one
would draw back, mutter “Damn,” feeling as if he had committed sacrilege.
Branches of trees, half torn from the trunk by shell explosion, barred
their way. On they walked, their hands flung out in front of them, and
walking as closely to each other as was possible. Passing one place in
the woods Harriman thought:
“Here’s where Halvorsen got killed.”
They went on farther. An open space in the woods reminded him that it
was there that Kahl received three machine-gun bullets through his head.
“He’s probably rotten by this time.” Harriman shivered to his marrow. It
seemed hours before they got out of the woods and into the field through
which a small dusty road ran toward the village where they had first gone
into action.
In outline the buildings, worn down by heavy shell fire, clung to each
other for moral encouragement. They looked so tightly clustered in their
common misery suffered by devastation.
A shell, like the flash of lightning, hurtled over and resounded as does
that kind of lightning after which one says: “That struck somewhere, all
right.”
The village was being used as the supply station for the regiment. Inside
the shattered houses and barns the field kitchens had been drawn; in the
dim light made by candles the mess sergeant was the centre of a group of
unwashed louts dressed in greasy blue denim.
“Say, Weaver, where’s our chow?”
“Been sellin’ another quarter of beef to the Frogs again?”
“Don’t you let us catch you at any o’ them fancy tricks.”
Weaver was a small, shifty-looking person. It had been found out by the
platoon that he had once sold the company axe to a Frenchman for a
gallon of vin rouge, and since that time he had always been suspected of
making away with the company’s rations.
“How do you boys expect to git any chow if you don’t come after it? The
chow was here, but you wasn’t.”
“You think we can fight Germans and run up here after chow, too?” The men
were belligerent.
“Of course he does. These damned yellah grease balls ain’t got any sense.”
“Yellow? I like that. Jist because you guys are up there at the front
that ain’t no sign there ain’t other places jist as dangerous.”
The squabble would have gone on indefinitely had not the arrival of a
flock of shells ended it then.
Weaver had thrown himself under the field kitchen, where he arrived at
the same time his assistants did.
The ration party had remained standing. “Get up, Weaver,” Harriman
commanded, “and get our chow.”
There was coffee, boiled potatoes, boiled beef and white bread. Placing a
stick through the handles of the coffee container, Harriman and another
man led the way. One man carried the bread and the other two brought the
potatoes and meat.
They walked along the road to the woods without an adventure. Through
the woods they made their way without a mishap until they arrived at
a clearing. Then, for some reason, a salvo of shells were fired which
struck with the wild shriek of some lost soul. After the shell had
exploded, the man with the bread could be seen gathering up the loaves
from where they had rolled when he threw himself on the ground. The
others had remained standing for fear they would spill the food.
* * * * *
“Oh, Hicks. Hicksy, the ration party’s come.”
Pugh shook Hicks from his slumber.
“What.... The ration party? Whatta they got?”
“That’s jis’ what I’m goin’ to see. Hurry up or the rest of these hogs’ll
eat it all up on us.”
They walked quickly toward the place where a queue of men had formed.
“Hurry up, you guys. Bring your canteen cups. Sergeant-major coffee.”
It was a glorious moment.
“Is it hot?” asked Hicks.
“Hot as blazes.”
“Hold me, Pugh, I’m faintin’ with joy. Coffee, hot! And milk and sugar in
it.”
They sat around and munched their food and drank their coffee. Under the
feeling of warmth in their stomachs many of the men relaxed and their
thoughts became once again normal.
* * * * *
The platoon had grown used to the late afternoon bombardment that beat
and slashed at them every day. The shells driving at them with a white
fury were accepted as a part of the whole stunning, disagreeable duty of
the front line. As their durance in the ravine lengthened they were able
even to comment upon the fierceness or the comparative mildness of the
attack.
In his burrow Sergeant Ryan, his blouse and undershirt lying by his side,
was exploring with his right hand a place beneath his left shoulder-blade
that had begun to pain. His fingers felt a swollen, hurting lump. As he
pressed on it, a pain like being prodded in a nerve with a needle shot
through him.
Lieutenant Bedford, from a burrow near by, leaned out.
“What’s the matter, Ryan? Looking for cooties?”
“No, there’s something the matter with my shoulder. It’s swelled.”
“Let’s see.... Hell, man, you’d better go back to the dressing station.
You’ve been hit.”
“Take your knife and see if you can get it out.”
“What do you think I am, a surgeon? You report to the first-aid station
and let them send you to the hospital. I don’t want any men to come down
with gangrene.”
Ryan, reluctant, departed alone, his small reddish mustache still smartly
waxed, his puttees neatly rolled, his helmet set jauntily on his head.
* * * * *
In the early morning light the outlines of the objects in front of the
ravine were crisply apparent. The strands of barbed wire were blackly
filigreed against the opaque light of the horizon. An aluminum moon hung
waveringly in the sky. The stalks of wheat stood stiffly erect, their
yellowness merging in the distance with the shadowy green of the trees.
On the breath of the morning wind was carried the sweet, sickening smell
of decayed cadavers. To the left and to the right unbroken lines of
infinite length lay huddled in holes, the guardians of their snoring
hours seeing without variation the same sight. For the sector which the
platoon was holding the night had not been quiet. Eyes, though worn
with constant straining to pierce the shadows, had seen the wheat tops
moving; and ears, the drums battered by the explosion of striking shells,
had still heard the rustling among the stalks. So rifles, venomous and
catlike, had spit shots of fire into the dark.
As the sun rose, the heat growing more intense, the nauseating smell from
the corpses in the field seemed to coat all objects in one’s line of
vision with a sticky green. Even the tops of wheat, standing stiffly in
the field, looked as if they were covered with a fetid substance.
Occasionally, as the day advanced, a man would labor over the opening
of a can of Argentina beef with the point of his bayonet. And then
the contents would be exposed, green and sepulchrally white, the odor
mingling and not quite immersed in the odor of decaying human flesh.
Laboring over the small blue can, sweat poured down their chests, the
streams dislodging particles of dirt and sweeping them down their bodies.
The air was dead. The sky was suspended not high above the earth. The
odors had ceased to move; they were massive, grotesquely shaped objects
fastly rooted to the earth. The silence was elephantine.
And somewhere in the everlasting silence a frightened, hurt, bewildered
voice broke tentatively forth:
“Landsmann. Oh, Landsmann! Kamerad. Hilfen Sie mich.”
Hicks and Pugh, their heads peering over the crest of the ravine,
started, then listened, their ears like terriers’.
“Mein Gott. Ich bin gewundet. O-o-o G-o-tt.” The voice floated through
the heavy stillness.
Pugh put the butt of his rifle to his shoulder. “Watch out; it’s one of
their damned tricks.”
“Put down your gun, you fool. Nobody could fake a voice like that.”
While they were talking the voice once again reached them. In the
stillness it seemed as if it were at their sides. “Landsmann, Landsmann,
hilf mich bitte.”
“The poor fellow must be half dead. Kruger! Oh, Paul, there’s a wounded
Squarehead out in front here. Talk to him, will you?”
A bleached but eager-faced Kruger came out of his burrow and commenced
to talk in German to the wounded man.
“What does he say, Paul? What does he say?” A group had gathered around
the scene.
“He says some of you guys shot him in the guts and that he’s pretty bad
off.”
“Well, let’s go out and git him. We can’t let him lie there all day.”
“Is he all right, Kruger? I mean is he a good guy?”
“How the hell do I know? He sounds all right.”
“Kruger.” Pugh insinuated himself closer. “Kruger, let’s you and me go
git him? Huh?”
And Jack Pugh, from Meridian, Mississippi, Jack Pugh, the gambler, who
could make a pair of ivory cubes cakewalk and tango, was the first man to
volunteer to rescue the wounded German.
The German had to be moved very carefully. Directly above the wide
leather belt that he wore around the waist the gray uniform was soaked
with blood. Pugh and Kruger carried him from the field and lowered him to
the bottom of the ravine.
“Now what do you think of the Kaiser, you damn Squarehead?”
“Bet, by God, he wishes he’d stayed home drinkin’ beer.”
“Hell, these Dutchmen git beer right in the trenches.” The speaker passed
his tongue over his dry lips.
“Shut up. Can’t you let the poor devil alone? He probably hates the
Kaiser as much as the rest of us.”
The wounded German raised himself on his shoulder, gasping with pain.
“Kaiser. Gottverdammt.”
He fell back exhausted.
The stretcher bearers who had been sent for arrived and placed him on a
stretcher. They started to carry him to the dressing station.
“Wait a minute there, buddy.” A muddy, wizened-face soldier, advancing
with an open razor in his hand, snipped a button from the German’s tunic.
“There, that goes home to my gal.”
* * * * *
The platoon had been subjected to heavy bombardment since, two weeks
earlier, they had occupied the ravine, but upon this particular afternoon
there was a force, a spitefulness, an overwhelming, dull, sickening
insistence to the dropping, exploding shells that made each one of the
men feel that, as any of them would have expressed it, “one of them
seabags has got my name marked on it in big letters.” The shells hammered
over, shaking the sides of the ravine as they broke and sending particles
of flying steel through the air, to land with a “zip” on the ground. Men
called for stretcher bearers until there were no more stretcher bearers,
and, as it seemed, as if there were no more men to call. And meanwhile
the thick, pungent smoke from the exploding shells was filling up the
ravine and seeking out the throats and eyes of the men, to blind and
choke them. Before it was over there were men, ostrich-like, with their
heads in their burrows as far as they could get them. Many of them were
blubbering, not so much from fright as from nerves that had broken under
the insistent battering of the shells. But when it ended they were ready
at the call to stand by to repel an enemy of any size.
It was felt certain that this time there would be an attack by the
Germans to regain the woods from which they had been driven. The men were
working the bolts of their rifles, or trying to check the tears that
flowed from their eyes, inflamed by the heavy smoke. But while they were
making ready to stand off the attack the company commander sent a runner
to Lieutenant Bedford, telling him that the platoon would be relieved for
the night by other men, and that they were to return farther back in the
woods and rest in case there was no attack.
Gasping and choking, the platoon made its way out of the ravine and
up the hill. Exhausted, they dropped into the holes, slightly deeper
than their own, that the relieving men had occupied. The captain, with
his orderly and his runners in holes around him, was lying back on the
ground, peacefully smoking a cigarette.
But the attack which the officers had anticipated failed to be made. The
sun withdrew from the scene and a pale gold moon took its place, stars
peeped out like eyes, and the air became thin and chilly. The men were
beginning to feel that they were to enjoy a night’s sleep.
Far off a faint whining began. Nearer and nearer it came, growing
louder and awe-inspiring. It was as if some high priest of the elements
were working himself into a frenzy before hurling an incantation at
his supplicants. It grew to a snarl, a bitter snarl full of hate, and
it seemed as if the high priest had bared his teeth, which were long,
narrow, and sharply pointed. The tree limbs bowed in fright, and against
the dull-blue sky the leaves turned under, curling themselves up. Like a
hurricane the shells descended, and with terrific noise they threw out
splashes of reds and yellows, in the light of which the trees seemed to
cringe.
“We’re in for it,” thought Hicks, trying to co-ordinate his jangling
nerves. He sought more closely to press his body against the clayey
side of his burrow. Sharply and frighteningly another salvo of shells
struck and burst in the little patch of woods. Hicks bit at the leather
strap of his helmet. The tree limbs crackled and falling branches fell
hesitatingly through the foliage to the ground. Other shells burst.
“Oh, my God, I’m hit!” some one cried. And before he had ended his
words another group of shells pounded over. Hicks’s spine felt bare
with scorpions parading along the flesh. “I won’t get killed. I can’t
get killed. I’ve got too much to live for,” he thought, as the bursting
shells continued and pieces of their steel casing ripped past and
viciously over him. “Oh, God, don’t let me die.” The shells mocked him.
“Shall I pray? What shall I say? Oh, it wouldn’t do any good!” But he
formulated an incoherent prayer between interruptions of his fancying
that among the trees was a huge black animal with fiery eyes and hoofs
of brimstone that were kicking and prancing all over the woods. The
animal’s head was above the trees, and it snapped at their limbs with
its long, punishing jaws. Hicks felt as if his eyes would pop from his
head and that his temples would split. The animal’s hoofs kicked nearer
him, and he closed his eyes and twisted his neck in fear. Red, purple,
white lights danced before his eyes. He turned round to face the monster,
forcing a grin over his stiff face. Then he began to cry and then ...
blackness, all was blackness.
The morning sun sent wavering rays through the boughs of the trees,
and exposed the white stumps whose tops had been blown to the earth by
exploding shells. Tree limbs, with ghastly butts, lay dead-still on the
thick, calm grass. Steel helmets, spattered with blood, were now and then
encountered on the ground. On the space where the captain had been lying
there was a blood-soaked shoe and a helmet, turned bottom up, and neatly
holding a mess of brains. Near by lay a gas-mask which would never again
be used. And near it the sleeve of a coat.
Hicks awakened and cautiously sat up, his head peeping over the top of
his burrow. Close enough to be touched a body, the legs spread wide, the
chin raised high, and the chest slightly puffed, offered its belly to the
sun. Hicks stiffly got out and looked at the body. “By God, they did come
close all right,” he breathed.
Hicks walked over to the helmet. Like an inexperienced surgeon prodding
a wound, he touched at the helmet, finally discovering on the leather
cover of the padding the initials “W. O. P.” As he straightened he felt a
deep pity, a great sorrow. “I used to cuss him a lot and he was an awful
bonehead, but he was a pretty good fellow.”
Weighted down by two large food containers, four men made their way,
stumbling and cursing, into the patch of woods. Seeing no one but Hicks,
one angrily called: “Hey, you guys, don’t you want no chow?”
Out of nowhere a group of perhaps twenty-five men gathered around the
pails of food.
“All right, you guys, snap it up. We can’t wait here all day. Quit
fingerin’ your noses and grab your mess kits.”
Another man, resting from carrying the heavy stuff, started forth:
“Oh, the infantry and the cavalry
And the dirty engineers,
They couldn’t lick the leathernecks
In a hundred thousand years.”
Pugh looked at him sourly. “You all wouldn’t be singin’ that if you’d
been wi’ us las’ night. You musta been hidin’ in some dugout eatin’ up
our rations.”
“Who?” The man broke off, indignant.
“Who? Who?” said Pugh. “Your feet don’t fit no limb.”
“Who do you mean?”—incensed.
“Oh, gwahn.”
With their canteen cups the men dipped eagerly into the thick, brown,
greasy fluid.
“God, an’ it’s hot, too.”
But for the most part they were silent. One man tasted of the concoction
in the other receptacle. He began to retch horribly.
Usually, the early afternoon was the period of the day’s recreation for
the men in the ravine, an hour more favorable to their personal pursuits.
Between the time when an attack might be expected and the diurnal
four-o’clock German bombardment, the moment gave the platoon a chance
once more to assume their normal existence. At such a time the guardians
of the ravine would emerge from their burrows and, under the shade of an
overhanging tree, try to recollect their thoughts.
It was now such a time, and Sergeant Harriman was sitting cross-legged
in the ravine, assaulting with the point of his bayonet a can of
Argentina beef. Events of late had left him shaken. He had entered the
trenches with a handicap; he believed that he was a crusader reincarnate,
engaged in the holy service of saving religion, morality, purity, and
civilization from the barbaric hand of that nation whose people he
referred to as Huns. He had enlisted because he was of draft age and
would be unqualified to dodge the call of Congress, requesting him to
join the selected army of the United States of America. Had he possessed
a widowed mother, or a wife and child, he would as gladly have fought the
Hun from an office desk in Kenosha.
He had pierced the cover of the foul beef when a messenger from battalion
headquarters parted the trees near Harriman and dropped in the ravine.
Seeing Harriman, he spoke:
“Is this the Third Platoon?”
“It is, you know.” Harriman had picked up the postscript to his sentence
from a man of many enlistments and whom he tried in many ways to emulate.
“You one of the non-coms?”
“Yes,” Harriman answered pleasantly.
“Well.” The messenger reached in the leather saddle-bag suspended from
his shoulders. “Got some mail for the Third Platoon. You take it?”
“Bet I will.” Harriman fairly grabbed at the package of letters, so eager
he was to see if it contained one for him. Yes, there it was. The one he
had expected, waited for these many days.
“Gillespie!” he called. “Gillespie, do you want to give out the mail?”
Gillespie hurried forward, got the package, and ran to the middle of the
ravine, calling: “Mailo, mailo, Third Platoon.”
The envelope which Harriman fondly and carefully opened was different
from the other letters in the package. On it the stamp had been glued
at an angle which, to many young men and women, meant “I love you.” The
stationery was lavender and a reminiscent odor of sachet was on it. The
writing was cramped and affectedly schoolgirlish. Harriman unfolded the
sheet of lavender paper.
“Dear Carl,” it began. “You poor dear boy!! How you must be suffering
over there in those horrid trenches. And how BRAVE of you to be so joking
about it. But WE know how badly the conditions really are. The papers
keep reporting the FRIGHTFULNESS of those Huns, and I pray each night
that you won’t be taken prisoner and be treated as some of our poor boys
have been treated. The other day Mrs. Wilwerscheid told mama the most
AWFUL story of what the Huns were doing to our prisoner boys. Oh, Carl,
it was so awful that I cannot repeat it. I ought not to even THINK of it.
But we know that our Carl is too brave to let HIMSELF be taken prisoner.
“Four of your letters came to-day and it set me wondering where you are.
Are you, by any chance, at Chateau Therry? They say there are a great
many of our American boys there. I sent you a box two weeks ago. I wonder
if you got it. I put in a helmet that I had knitted ESPECIALLY for you,
and six big bars of chocolate. You must have PLENTY of cigarettes. Both
Helene Mason and I have subscribed to OODLES of soldiers’ tobacco funds.
You know, you pay a quarter and get a box of cigarettes and tobacco.
You can write whosever name on it that you want to and it will be sent
to him. So of course I made Helene write yours. I know that you used to
not smoke cigarettes, but the papers say that now that all the boys over
there are smoking them and of course you would be doing what the rest of
the boys are. Remember, I didn’t use to like to see boys smoke. But I am
willing to sacrifice a mere prejudice for so great a cause as you boys
are fighting for. And then Rector Tyson, of the First M. E., said from
the pulpit the other Sunday that he thought it was all right for the boys
over there to smoke. He is so broad-minded!
“Carl dear, this war will never end. You have been over there so long.
Almost a year, and mama keeps talking about John Ryder (he has a big farm
now and is raising the food that the government most needs), and saying
that Carl will never come back. Would you forgive me if I did, Carl? I
mean, became Mrs. John R. Ryder? You better hurry or I will.