It was the night for relief. Fourteen men, with the remainder of their
equipment about them, huddled around in a group waiting for the new
troops to appear and take over their sector. They were tired, hungry, and
nerve-racked; the word “morale” could not conceivably be associated with
them. Their three weeks’ experience in the woods had so bludgeoned their
senses that they had been unresponsive when told that they were to be
relieved. But after a while they partly recovered under the stimulation
of the picture of warm food and a shelter of comparative safety. From
a thick apathy they became clamorous, ill at ease, waiting for the new
men to come. As the darkness grew their nerves twitched, and they peered
often and again down the gulley from which the relief was to come into
sight. At last a muffled clatter reached their ears. It swelled and was
accompanied by voices in a polyglot of tongues. Cigarette lights and the
flare of matches were seen along the line of the incoming horde.
Lieutenant Bedford had risen at their approach. Now he nervously shifted
his weight from one leg to the other. “The drafted idiots,” he muttered,
“do they want to kill all of us with these lights? Hey, you guys,” he
called, “put out those damned matches.” A swell of jeers greeted him.
“All right, Third Platoon, let’s go. If these damned fools want every
German gun to start pounding at them, let them. Come on.”
The platoon rose wearily and dragged through the woods in the direction
of the village. Their spirits were so depressed, their bodies so
fatigued, that, though the village was but two miles distant, an hour
had elapsed before they marched through the cluttered streets between
the rows of battered houses. But they did not stop. The outline of the
village faded and on they tramped. Behind them shells rumbled over from
the German lines, and, in answer, the crack and the sudden flare of a
large gun being fired sounded to the right and left of them. At the noise
the men’s muscles tightened, their nostrils narrowed and were bloodless.
At the appearance of danger unheralded they were thorough automata;
the explosions urged on their tired legs, whose muscles seemed tied in
inextricable knots. Thick forests rose on each side of the tortuous white
road, their dark-blue tops bewitchingly patterned against the sky. Where
the woods were divided by a narrow path the platoon turned off, marching
between the trees.
Farther in the woods, where the path widened slightly, the men halted. In
ten minutes they were curled up in their blankets, asleep.
The platoon awoke in the heat of the day. In the woods the leaves of
the trees were unruffled by a breeze. Glaring down from directly above,
the sun was a monstrous incinerator. But for it all nature would have
been inanimate. The men stretched experimentally. Their empty intestines
made them aware of themselves. From among the trees floated a rich odor
of frying food. “Steak,” some one guessed. The smell intensified their
hunger, weakened them. King Cole, shading the sun from his owl-like eyes,
sat up and sniffed.
“Who said ‘steak’?” he observed. “Smells like good old Kentucky fried
chicken to me.”
“Chicken, hell,” said Hartman, the professional pessimist. “It’s probably
fried Canned Bill.”
“Oh, you make me sick,” Cole answered. “Can’t you let a man dream?”
But it was steak. And dipped in flour before it was fried. It was not
choice steak, but it was edible, very edible. And the quantity had been
prepared for sixty men, while there were only fourteen men to dine.
“Go easy,” cautioned Lieutenant Bedford, gnawing a huge steak which he
held in his hand. “There’s plenty of chow, so you don’t need to be in a
hurry to eat it all. You’ll do better if you eat slowly. Stomach’s not
used to this sort of food.”
“Je’s, this is jist like bein’ home,” King Cole informed the assembly.
“Home? You never had a home. What are you talkin’ about?” jeered McCann,
the New York roughneck who had been confined in the hospital twice with
delirium tremens. “Ho there, you yellow greaseball, what do you want?” He
hailed one of the mess helpers who was approaching.
“I heard that R. E. McCann got scairt and shot himself when he got up to
the front, and I come down to see if it was true.”
The greaseball, whose name describes him well, looked inquiringly around.
McCann failed to answer the badinage. The greaseball sat down among the
men, who now had become filled and grew confidential. “You fellahs had a
pretty tough time up there, didn’t you?”
“I’ll say we did.”
“You’d a thought so if you’d a been there, you lowlife.”
“Yeh, pretty soft for you birds in the galley.”
“But not as soft as it’s goin’ to be for you guys,” the greaseball was
ingratiating.
“Whaddya mean?” the platoon scoffed.
“Ain’t you heard?” The greaseball looked surprised.
“Heard nothin’,” Cole answered grumpily. “Where’ve we been to hear
anything?”
“Well,” hesitatingly, “maybe I hadn’t ought to tell.”
“Go on and tell, greaseball.”
“Yeh, what the hell else are you good for?”
“Well ... you guys ain’t goin’ back to the front no more.”
“_Hooray!_” they sceptically shouted. “You damned liar.”
“Fact. The brigade commander was down here yesterday, and I heard him
tell Major Adams that the First Battalion was goin’ on board ship.”
“Oh-o. That ain’t so good. I was sick all the way over on that damn
transport,” Pugh remembered aloud.
“Sure, you always do,” said Rousey, the old-timer. “But after the first
cruise you’re all right. God, man, you don’t know how soft it is on board
ship. A clean bunk and good chow. Shore leave whenever you go into port.
Why, I remember——”
“Maybe you’re right, but I’ll take my chances with my feet on the ground.
There ain’t no damn whale gonna eat me, not if I know it.”
“Well, it’s a blame sight better than lettin’ them Squareheads use you
for a target. I’m glad we’re goin’.”
While they talked the rumor that they had so sceptically regarded had
become a fact. No one doubted that they were soon to be loaded into box
cars and sent off to some seaport, where trim, clean ships would be
waiting to take them aboard.
X
Snorting gray camions drew up along the road by the path where the men
were lying. At the driving-wheels the small Japanese, with their long,
tired mustaches covered with fine dust, looked like pieces of graveyard
sculpture. The dust was over their faces, over their light-blue uniforms.
They sat immovable. The men took their seats upon the narrow benches and
the camions chugged away.
A river crawled along, its straight banks parallel with the road over
which the camions were moving. In the crepuscular light it was a dark,
straggly, insignificant stream, which, compared by the platoon with
rivers that they had known, was only a creek. It was quite dark when the
camions stopped at a town along the river, built in the valley between
large hills. The men debarked and were assigned to their billets wherever
empty rooms could be found in the houses.
In Nanteuil, the name of the village where they had stopped, the ranks
of the platoon were filled by men from one of the replacement battalions
that recently had arrived in France from the United States. A daily
routine was quickly established, and with but one day’s rest the
platoon was kept at work from early morning until late afternoon. They
drilled four hours a day, were inspected daily by the acting company
commander, tried to rid themselves of lice by swimming in the Marne,
made secret expeditions to neighboring villages, where they got drunk
and made amorous eyes at sloppy French grandmothers, threw hand-grenades
in the river and watched the dead fish rise to the surface, swore at
the gendarmes when those persons remonstrated with them, shrank into
basements whenever the long-distance German shells were aimed at the
bridge that crossed the river at Nantueil, cursed their officers, and
tried to scare the new men by exaggerating the frightfulness of the
front, gorged themselves on the plentiful rations, and played black jack,
poker, or rolled dice out of sight of their officers. The officers smiled
and told each other that they were not only recovering their morale, but
were imbuing the new men with that spirit peculiar to the Marine Corps.
The platoon had been in Nanteuil one week when Hicks returned, dusty,
tired, and hungry. The older men crowded around him eagerly, while the
more recent members stood off wonderingly.
“Well, Hicksy, old boy, did you have a good rest?” Pugh asked.
“Rest? Rest hell. The only way you can get a rest is to get killed. But
don’t go to the hospital thinking you’ll get it.” Hicks paused, sat down
and lighted a cigarette. “Remember that night they put over the gas
attack?” He was assured by each of the old-timers that he did.
“Well, the next afternoon I woke up in an evacuation hospital. They
carried me in on a stretcher, and when I opened my eyes there was a lousy
doctor standing over me. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked. Well, I
could hardly talk, but I managed to whisper that I was gassed. He looked
down at my card that the first-aid officer had pinned on me. ‘God damn
it, get up, you coward,’ he said to me. ‘What the hell do you mean by
taking a wounded man’s place?’ Of course, I was sore as hell, but what
could I do? So I stuck around a while until an ambulance started for our
battalion, and then I hid in it and came along.”
The men cursed the medical officer effusively.
“Saw Harriman back there,” Hicks continued. “He was lyin’ in bed with
his foot in a sling. Said he got lost and some Squarehead shot him.”
Hicks threw the butt of his cigarette. “But if you think the medical
officers are bad, you ought to see the enlisted men. Don’t take any
souvenirs back with you if you go. The damn orderlies’ll steal ’em. One
guy had a Luger pistol and about four hundred francs when he got in the
hospital, and they give him a bath, and when he come out he hadn’t a
thing in his clothes. But I got a good hot bath, I’ll say that much. And
I got some clean clothes. The damned clothes I had stunk so of gas that
they had to bury them.”
“How was the chow?”
“Rotten. And you have to line up in the mud in your pajamas to get it if
you’re a walking patient. They say the base hospitals are worse.”
“Yeh, but you don’t have no shavetail raggin’ you around all the time, do
you?”
“The hell you don’t. Them damned orderlies who are supposed to do the
work hand you a broom and tell you to clean up the deck, or wash up the
toilets, or make up somebody’s bed.” Hicks got up and limped away. “Got
to report to the company commander.”
“How come you’re limpin’, Hicksy?”
“Still got sores on my legs where that confounded gas burned.”
The new men vowed that they never would get shot.
After an hour’s close order drill the next day Hicks was noticed to
be unable to keep in step. Three times Lieutenant Bedford bit his lip
and refrained only by great repression from reprimanding him. When the
platoon came to a halt, Lieutenant Bedford moved over to Hicks and
quietly and venomously asked: “Hicks, what the hell’s the matter with
you? Why the hell do you walk along like you had a brick in your pants?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t help it, Lieutenant Bedford. I still have sores
on my legs.”
“Well, what are you doing back here then? Fall out and report to the
sick-bay at once.” Lieutenant Bedford was exasperated.
Hicks limped out of sight. But after that he did not drill with the
platoon. Each day when they set out he watched them from the window of
the bare room where his squad was billeted. And each day the sergeant of
the Medical Corps secretly treated him for his burns. At the close of a
week Hicks was well, and when orders were received for the platoon to
move he was quite ready.
Then began a dismal time; when, almost invariably, the platoon had been
marched into some woods at night and had made their beds on the ground,
they would be ordered to make up their equipment and be ready to march in
an hour or less. Thus they lived in the woods in the daytime and at night
marched from one forest to another.
Not even the officers could give a reason for the senseless manœuvring.
It was during this time that the rumor became common that they were to
board battleships and effect a landing party on the Mole; they also were
to be sent to southern France to a rest camp as soon as their barracks
near Marseilles had been completed; they also were to be returned to
the United States and be split up to serve as recruiting officers and
instructors to the drafted men. These rumors, and the occasional rations
of cigarettes they were given, helped them to endure their nightly
pilgrimages and their cramped daily lives in the woods.
And then one day, when they had despaired ever of doing anything but
moving through the night from one clump of woods to another, an order
was received for the platoon to be ready to entrain on camions at three
that afternoon. They did not know whether to rejoice or not.
The march was more weary than even they had expected. They had left the
camions early that morning, and had begun a climb up a long, punishing
hill whose summit seemed in the clouds. On this road the marching was
even, steady. There was no body of troops in front of the platoon to
cause it to halt, stand with heavy packs cutting through the shoulder
muscles, and then march on again. A forest on one side, the scene
stretched out on the other a long, flat prairie of glistening wheat. On
and on they marched, reaching the summit of the hill and escaping the
sun where large, tall trees bowed in a canopy over the road. Noon came
and day disappeared; the shadows threw themselves fantastically upon the
road, and still the platoon continued its steady tramp. The air grew
cool. It found an easy entrance through the slight clothing of the men
and covered their bodies with a dampness. Darkness found them heavily
pounding out the miles along the road. Men began grumbling, threatening
to fall out along the roadside. They were indignant at not having rested,
at not being fed. One man, desiring to drink, reached for his canteen
and found it empty. His voice rose plaintively in the stillness. Other
men felt thirst. They made known their desires in language reproachful
and uncomplimentary to their officers.
At midnight the platoon stopped. It turned into the woods and lay
down. Orders were passed among the men to dig holes in the ground for
protection. “We’ll be here all night,” the officers said, “and there may
be an attack before we shove off.”
The men greeted the order by failing to move. Several of them muttered
that they didn’t give a damn whether the enemy attacked or not. Suddenly,
out of the thick blackness of the woods and the night a six-inch gun
barked and recoiled, barked again and recoiled. The shells sped through
the night, striking, æons afterward, with the noise of a pricked balloon.
Another salvo shot over into the darkness, the ignition of the charge
lighting up a small distance of woods and throwing the trees into crazy
relief. Three shells, large ones, raced each other over the enemy lines.
They struck with a clatter, as if they had felled half of the forest. All
along the line long-range rifles fired their huge bolts of explosives
toward the enemy. Small seventy-fives barked like little dogs running
after an automobile. In retaliation the shrill shriek of the German
shells answered. On both sides the batteries continued pounding away. An
orderly, parting the brush and making a noise like a stampede of wild
horses, appeared and asked to be directed to the company commander. Five
minutes afterward the platoon was given orders to move forward. To the
tune of heavy artillery battering away like enormous drums the platoon,
joined at each end by other units of the division, felt its way blindly
through the forest. When the sun rose they were still working their way
through the trees. Unexpectedly the guns in the rear of the moving lines
stopped. The battle of Soissons had begun.
The platoon was first apprised of the nearness of the enemy when King
Cole raised his rifle and fired quickly. He had seen a soiled gray
uniform skirting among the trees a few yards ahead. A quick electric
shock ran from shoulder to shoulder along the advancing line. The
platoon stopped for a moment as if stunned. Then they advanced without
increasing their pace. In their faces a machine-gun spat angrily, the
bullets flying past like peevish wasps. Automatic rifles were manipulated
in the middles of the automatic rifle squad, and the loaders took
their places at the sides of the men who were firing, jamming in one
clip of cartridges after another. Rifle bullets fled past the advancing
men with an infuriating zing. The Maxim machine-guns kept up a rolling
rat-t-t-tat, coldly objective.
The platoon had reached the first machine-gun nest, almost without
knowing it. There were three Germans, their heavy helmets sunk over
their heads, each performing a definite part in the firing. They, too,
were surprised. Pugh, a little in the lead, drew a hand-grenade from his
pocket, pulled out the pin, and threw it in their faces. It burst loudly
and distinctly. One German fell flat, another grasped at his arm, his
face taking on a blank expression as he did so, while the last man threw
his hands above his head. Inattentive to his gesture of surrender, the
line pushed on.
The fighting grew more furious. Germans, surprised, were hiding behind
trees and firing their slow-working rifles. When the advancing line would
reach them they would receive a charge of shot in their bodies, sometimes
before they had fired at the swiftly moving line. Some member of the
platoon offered his version of an Indian war whoop. It was successful
in hastening the attack. Exhilarated, but sheerly impotent, one man ran
forward blubbering, “You God-damn Germans,” and pointing an empty rifle
at the trees. Other men calmly and methodically worked the bolts of their
rifles back and forth, refilling the chambers as they were emptied of
each clip of five shots. From time to time a man dropped, thinning the
ranks and spreading them out to such an extent that contact on the right
side of the moving line was lost.
Farther on in the woods a small trench had been dug, but through the
fierceness and unexpectedness of the attack most of the enemy had been
driven from it. The platoon, moving on feet that felt like wings, dashed
toward the trench, some of the men sprawling into it. Before them, a few
yards distant, a machine-gun poked its nose from between the crevice of
two large rocks. The sight of it infuriated Lieutenant Bedford, who was
leading the platoon by a few paces. Then, yards away, he began throwing
bombs at it. His last bomb exhausted, he aimed his pistol and chucked
the remaining shots at it. Now, almost able to look over the top of the
rock and see the gunner, he threw the useless pistol at the heavy steel
helmet. The gunner dropped his head, covering it with his hands. When he
looked up, the platoon had passed. Farther, the resistance grew less. The
bombardment of the night before had taken its toll of Germans. Bodies
lay gawkily about on the grass. One body, headless, clutched a clay pipe
between its fingers. Another lay flat on its back, a hole in its stomach
as big as a hat. A heavy leather pack, which a shell had struck, was the
centre of a ring of packages of Piedmont cigarettes which its owner had
salvaged from some dead American.
The trees became sparse. Ahead, over an interminably long wheat-field,
the platoon could see the horizon. There were no Germans in sight. The
platoon, ordered to do so, faced in the direction from which they had
come and combed the woods for machine-gun nests which they might have
passed unnoticed during the attack.
In their poignant hunger the men forgot even to look for pieces of German
equipment which they might sell to Y. M. C. A. men and others of the
personnel behind the lines. But each leather German pack was searched for
food, and canteens were picked up, shaken, and either thrown down with
disgust or hastily put to the men’s lips and greedily drained of whatever
might be in them. There were loaves of black bread which, in spite of the
mouldy look that was common to them all, were devoured; an occasional
comb of honey was found. Pugh, exploring one of the packs, drew forth a
pair of baby stockings and a small knitted hood. Beside the pack lay a
peaceful-looking, home-loving German who had passed his middle years.
“Here’s an orphan, all right!” Pugh announced, and went to the next pack.
They were nearing a clump of bushes when a young German stepped out. His
face was the color of putty and his eyes brought to Hicks the picture of
an escaped convict hunted by bloodhounds in a Southern swamp. His hands
were high above his head, as high as their frightened nerves would permit
them to be. At the sight of him an uncouth, illiterate tatterdemalion
from the south of Illinois snarled half animal-like, raised his rifle
to his shoulder and fired directly at the prisoner. A look of surprise,
utter unbelief, came over the man’s face as he dropped heavily to the
ground. “Damn ye, that’ll larn ye ta stay hum.” The fellow, his thin evil
face grimaced with hatred, walked over and spat expertly a stream of
tobacco juice at the already dead body. The rest of the platoon looked on
nonplussed, not knowing whether their comrade had done the ethical thing
or not.
* * * * *
Hot and tired, knowing nearly every need of the body, the platoon was
formed near the place where they had entered the woods late the night
before, as the sun was sinking out of sight.
They arrived at a crossroads and turned to the right. Thick woods, green
at the fringe and black within, walled the smooth white ribbon of road
on either side. Through soft, fluffy clouds that floated over an inanely
blue sky the sun volleyed rays of brilliant light. Small, shiny pebbles,
reflecting the glint, were transformed into pretty baubles of crystal and
amber.
On the right of the road, moving forward in an unbroken stream, plodded
a single file of drab-colored men. From a distance the line looked
like a swaying, muddy snake. In the middle of the road, also moving
forward, black, roan, and sorrel horses pulled caissons, field kitchens,
and supply wagons. Men, returning from the direction in which the
main traffic was moving, were on the left. They passed by, dejected,
vapid-minded, a look of dull pain in the eyes of each. They were the
wounded from the attack. Most spectacular among them were the French
Colonials, with their red kepis, their broad chests showing strength
and endurance beneath their blue or tan tunics. Occasionally a mass of
white, blood-stained gauze would be wrapped around a black, shiny head,
and strong white teeth would be doggedly bared with pain. The small
carbines and long knives that they carried set them off as a special sort
of troops. And then the French, with their horizon-blue uniforms and
drooping, inevitable mustaches. Shoulders sagging, they slouched along
with bandaged heads and bandaged arms. And the gray of the German uniform
and the thump, thump of the leather boots that they wore. Small, hideous
caps, round and gray, with a thin red piping circling the top, set
awkwardly on their heads, which rose from thick fat necks. Behind them
walked surly, wary Frenchmen. A number of English troops were scattered
through the unending line. Beside the Americans whom they passed their
khaki uniforms looked smart and tailored. In this multicolored canyon no
words were exchanged. The Colonials looked sullen, the French beaten
and spiritless, the Americans dogged and conscientious, the English
expressionless; the Germans seemed the most human of them all. For them
the fighting was finished.
Miles from the place where the platoon had alighted from the camions
another road split the deep wall of green forest, and at the crossing a
large farmhouse stood in the middle of a large field. Whitewashed, all
but the roof, it looked like a cheap but commodious burial vault, with
the yard in the rear filled high with dead and wounded. The first place
of shelter from the actual front, it was being used as a dressing station
for the maimed. Many of the men brought back wounded had died there; in
a pile made like carelessly thrown sticks of wood their bodies now lay.
There those whom an imaginary line had named Friend and Enemy shared a
common lot. German bodies and Austrian mingling and touching French,
Belgian; their positions a gruesome offering to the God of War. All day
long the heavy hobnailed boots of hurriedly advancing men had beaten out
a requiem.
The platoon filed along to the left upon the cross-road, marching as
swiftly as their tired legs would permit. The stream of wounded had
stopped. The field kitchens and supply wagons had turned off in the woods
in rear. For miles sounded the baffled roar of firing artillery. Now and
then a man fell out alongside the road, unable to march any longer, the
cool green of the grass in the late afternoon offering a tantalizing bed.
From behind them commenced a great clatter of caissons drawn jerkily
along the shell-torn road by galloping, lathered horses. Artillerymen,
one on the back of the leading horse, two on the caisson seat, urged the
horses forward with picturesque curse words, only stopping long enough to
shout at the platoon:
“Better hurry up, you guys, or we’ll git to Germany before you will.”
They rumbled away.
In a twilight of mauve the platoon came to a halt on the crest of a broad
hill. Silently they deployed, mud-caked ghosts, dragging wearily and
uncertainly out in a long line that offered its front to the challenging
boom of the enemy’s long-range guns. Water was found in a spring near
by, and the men lay down in the shallow holes that they had dug, their
blankets and ponchos thrown over them. A solitary sentry watched the
stars, watched the red, the green, the blue-and-white signal lights
flare for a moment along the line, then die away.
* * * * *
The gray spirit of dawn rose and hovered over the ground. In the faint
light a unit of cavalry filed past. The riders, on delicate, supple
mounts, carried long lances, with their points skyward. On their blue
helmets bright, feathery plumes fell back gracefully. Their spotless
uniforms, gray in the morning light, set off their youthful figures like
those of pages attending a mediæval court. The horses, their fine legs
delicately contoured, minced daintily down the hill and out of sight.
Ahead, through a scattered line of trees, stretched a spacious prairie,
covered thick with wheat,—a slightly rolling sea, majestically and
omnipotently engulfing the universe.
The platoon rose stiffly, bewildered, rubbing the stiffness from their
faces. Over the calm of the air a danger was borne. Men smelled it in
the acrid odor of powder which covered the grass. The trees, a thin line
before them, swayed poignantly. Lorelei, singing seductively, sat in
their branches. In attack formation the platoon moved toward the trees,
to the front toward which they were moving.
Beyond the trees a narrow path ran parallel. Reaching it, the platoon
turned to the left, tramping heavily toward the main road from which they
had come the night before.
Scuffing the dust with lagging feet, the platoon crawled along the dusty
road, lined on each side by contorted faces of men who had come to
support the line of attack. Farther down the road a small town lay half
hidden in the valley. Long, slender smoke-stacks rose amid a cluttering
of small deserted houses, where, twenty-four hours earlier, German
soldiers had been quartered. Through one of the chimneys of the factory a
three-inch shell had ploughed its way, stopping with the nose protruding
from one side, the butt from the other. There it was suspended, implicit
in its obedience. Interminably long words were printed on signs over
the doors of the houses. At a street crossing the old names of the
thoroughfares had been blotted out, and such names as Kaiserstrasse and
Wilhelmstrasse were roughly lettered over them. There was a touch of
impiety, of great barbarousness, in the changing of names which for so
long had been honored. Also a very strong suggestion of a sound, thorough
business administration having been instituted in place of the lax,
pleasant manner of the village before the war. A peculiar, disagreeable
odor hinted at great and ruthless thrift. The Germans had been careful of
their dead. None remained lying on the street.
The platoon wound through the town and out upon the wheat-field which
that morning they had viewed through the scraggly trees. Dazzling
sunlight beat upon the full-topped yellow heads of wheat that weighted
down the cool green stalks; on the flat, absurdly shaped helmets of the
soldiers; on the sharp white bayonets raised above the wheat with which
the field was filled. Deploying, the men halted, joined on either side by
other men with silly-looking helmets, rifles, and bayonets.
From the road a small tank labored up the hill, puffing and creaking
in every joint. Another tank, a miniature of the tanks pictured in the
recruiting posters, wheezed along on its caterpillar tread. More tanks
came. They were all small, ineffectual-looking little monsters, wearing a
look of stubborn, gigantic babies. The arrival of the tanks was greeted
by the firing of a salvo of shells from the German lines.
The platoon lay down in the wheat, trying to shield their bodies from the
sight of the enemy. But the tanks, wheeling and rearing and grinding
like devils gnashing their teeth, made perfect targets for the long-range
shells. With their small, ridiculous gun-barrels pointing in three
directions through holes in their steel armor, they were delightfully
impervious to the havoc they were causing the infantry. And their silly
camouflage, into the making of which some painter had put his soul—reds
and greens, the colors of autumn leaves, black and modest browns—in all
their disguise they were as apparent at a distance of one thousand yards
as large white canvases with black bull’s-eyes and rings scored on them.
For an everlasting half-hour they ploughed and squirmed through the
field, struggling to get into position in order that the attack might
commence. Meanwhile shells, timed like the ticking of a clock, fell with
horrible and spirit-shaking accuracy. At last the tanks had manœuvred
themselves into the proper distance ahead of the front line. Whistles
were blown piercingly. The advance, the men aligned in four waves, had
commenced.
* * * * *
Hicks, lying in the wheat, divided his attention between the manœuvring
of the tanks and the frantic scampering of the insects on the ground
and in the wheat, whose manner of existence he had disturbed by his
sitting down. Black little creatures, they waddled over the ground with
as great a seriousness and importance as if they supported the burden of
the world. Disorganized, they ran in all directions, even toward Hicks’s
hobnailed boots and upon his awkwardly rolled puttees. It was the first
time since he had enlisted that he had thought much about bugs, save for
the kind that infest the body. Now he wondered whether their lives were
not as important as the lives of men; whether they were not conscious of
a feeling that, were they no longer to exist, the end of the world would
come. He compared them with the hustling, inane little tanks, and almost
concluded that one was as important as the other. He stood by carefully
so as not to step on any of the insects.
So far the German shells had burst either far behind the platoon or far
in front of it. But now the whine, ever increasing, of a shell informed
him that in a moment he would be listening to the ripping sound of flying
pieces of shell casing. He waited, breathless. Fifteen yards behind
him the shell exploded terrifically. He looked back. “Oh, Larson,” he
called. Larson was nowhere to be seen. “Damn these tanks,” he fretted.
“They’ll have us all killed, first thing we know.”
The dread of the attack was forgotten in the more immediate danger of the
enemy artillery finding the exact range of the platoon by means of the
sputtering tanks. A flock of shells left the long, black mouths of the
German guns and began their journey toward Hicks. He winced, tied his
muscles into knots, and threw himself flat on the ground, quite forgetful
of the insects. The shells all struck within a radius of twenty yards,
throwing up dirt, grain, a black cloud of smoke. The whistle blew and
Hicks rose again.
As he started forward, abreast of the first wave, he had never before
felt so great a stiffness in his legs, nor so great a weight in his
shoes. It was as if they were tied to the earth. For a moment the jargon
and melody of a once-popular song flooded his brain. Then he thought of
the platoon joke about the man from the wilds who had come barefoot to a
recruiting officer to enlist, and who, upon putting on a pair of shoes,
had stood still for hours, believing that he was tied. “Ha,” thought
Hicks, “that’s a funny one. They had to put sand in his shoes before
he would move.” War was a business of tightening things, he observed,
as he fastened the chin strap of his helmet more tightly. Corroborating
the evidence, he tightened his belt over his empty stomach. The men were
marching along, an interval of three yards between each. A shell struck
directly upon the moving front wave a few yards to the left of Hicks. An
arm and a haversack foolishly rose in the air above the cloud of smoke of
the exploding shell. Slightly farther on machine-guns began an annoying
rat-tat-tat, the bullets snipping off the heads of grain. More men fell.
The front rank went on with huge gaps in it. On they stolidly marched.
Hicks, glancing back, saw that the four waves had been consolidated into
but two. But the bayonets glistened as brightly as before.
“Close in there, Hicks,” somebody yelled, and Hicks asked whether the
men were not being killed swiftly enough, without grouping them together
more closely. They advanced to a point where they were enfiladed by the
enemy’s machine-guns. As the four lines had become two, so now the two
lines became one. But on they marched, preserving a line that could have
passed the reviewing stand on dress parade.
Beyond a cluster of trees was a village which had been named as the
objective of the attack for that day. The road, canopied by green tree
boughs, led to it from the town which that morning the platoon had left.
The road was level, more level even than the field. It made a path as
directing as a bowling-alley for the machine-gunners and riflemen in the
village. Thus, the road was almost a certain death-trap for any one who
tried to cross it. The right section of the platoon had begun the attack
on one side of the road, the left on the other. As the ranks thinned and
a greater distance between each man was required to preserve contact
with the advancing line, the men on the right, where the heavier firing
occurred, spread out, drawing away from the road.
The shells continued to fall, using as their target the slowly moving
tanks which regulated the advance of the infantry. Suddenly a large
six-inch shell struck the turret of the tank nearest the platoon. The
tank recoiled and stood stock-still. A moment later two men, like
frightened rabbits, scurried out of the tank and ran back toward the rear.
Three airplanes, white stars in a field of red on their wings, flew gaily
over the field and toward the German lines. They floated gracefully
and haughtily out of sight. Not much later on they precipitately
returned with three Fokkers after them like angry hornets. Shriven of
their grandeur, they flocked in disorder back to their hangars, the
machine-guns of the German planes spitting bullets after them. The aerial
entertainment was changed: Four large German bombing planes, pursuing a
businesslike course, arrived above the advancing men and began to drop
bombs and fire machine-gun bullets at them. The bombs reported as noisily
as the seventy-seven-millimetre guns, but they made only a shallow hole
in the ground. More devastating were the machine-gun bullets which zinged
off the steel helmets of the men or bored their way through to the skull.
Under the combination of direct artillery fire, enfilade machine-gun,
rifle sniping, bombs dropped from airplanes, the ranks of the advancing
men had become so sparse that the attack was brought to a temporary halt.
It was now afternoon and the heat of the sun was unendurable. It burned
upon the helmets and through the clothing and caused sweat to trickle
down the skin, irritating the scratches, bruises, and burns with which
the bodies of the men were covered. The four bombing planes continued
lazily to circle overhead, “kicking out their tail-gates,” as the men
graphically phrased it. Hicks and Pugh, with four of the new men, were
at the farthest point of advance. Lying flat, they tried with their
bayonets, their mess knives, to throw up a protection of ground in front
of them. Thoroughly tired, they worked slowly, in spite of the danger.
They were half-way finished when a bullet zipped through the wheat and
penetrated the bone of the crooked elbow with which the man next Hicks
was supporting himself.
“Here it is,” said Hicks, picking up a small steel-jacketed bullet.
“By God, that hurts. Help me get my shirt off.”
“Je’s, you’re lucky,” Hicks murmured enviously. “You’ll never come back
to the front any more. And what a fancy place to get hit!” The shirt
off, the bullet was seen to have gone through the forearm just above the
elbow, coming out on the other side.
“Don’t you think so?” eagerly. “It don’t hurt so much.”
“No, but you better hurry up and git outa here or you’ll have somep’n
more than a busted arm,” one of the new men advised.
The arrival of a salvo of shells decided the new man upon an immediate
departure. Throwing away all of his equipment, he hurried away, his elbow
pressed closely to his side.
Behind Hicks, a few yards, some one began to whimper.
“What’s the trouble, buddy?”
“I d-d-on’t kn-now,” the voice stuttered, half sobbing, half crying.
“Well, why don’t you beat it back?”
“I’m af-f-fraid.”
“Damn it, get the hell out of here. Do you want us to go nutty with your
bawlin’!” This from one of the new men.
“You’ve got a good excuse to go back, you know,” Hicks assured. “Go back
with Hensel. A wounded man’s supposed to have somebody go back with him.”
“I c-c-can’t-t. I went b-back once s-s-shell-shocked, and the d-doctors
raised hell with me. I’m af-f-frai-d-d to go back again.” The man started
to laugh unpleasantly. His laughter changed to violent sobbing. The men
grew doubly frightened. “I can’t stay here and hear that,” one of them
said. “It takes all the starch out of me.” But he didn’t move.
Near the road King Cole lay upon the ground, his lips pressed against
the dirt. By his head his hands were clinched, the knuckles flat. His
helmet had fallen forward so that it covered his brow, but not the back
of his head. His legs were as rigid as death. On his right leg the
puttee had become unwound, the spiral-shaped cloth stringing out behind.
The leather, worn through by much marching, a glimpse of his bare foot
appeared where the sole of his shoe had worn through. His shirt was
tattered, and in the middle of his back a large hole had been blown.
Surprisingly, there was very little blood on his shirt or upon any other
part of his body, save where the gaping hole showed the raw flesh. Hours
earlier King Cole had been struck by the explosion of a shell. Since then
he had lain—alive.
* * * * *
A molten mass of flaming gold all day, the sun, from sheer exhaustion of
vengeful burning, dropped weakly out of sight. Declining, it filled the
sky with mauve and purple, gold and crimson designs. Swaying mournfully
in the wisps of evening wind, the full heads of grain were like slender
lances raised by an army of a million men. The village ahead, toward
which the platoon had advanced within a distance of five hundred yards,
was a vague blur against the soft gray sky.
It was an hour before nightfall, and firing along the front had partly
ceased. The men in the advance line were lying prone, thankful for the
surcease offered by the approaching night. Heard behind them was a
swishing sound. Hicks turned, forgot even for the moment the piteous
moans of the shell-shocked man when he saw troops swiftly walking.
“We’re going to be relieved. We’re going to be relieved.” The thought
pounded through his brain. The oncoming troops were now near and
distinct. Hicks could see the red, brimless stovepipe hats, the black,
shiny faces, the picturesque and decorated tunics of the Foreign Legion.
They carried small rifles and long knives and looked frightfully
dangerous. Hicks reflected that these were the fellows who were supposed
to treasure the ears of the enemy as keepsakes. Swiftly, their huge leg
muscles bulging under their puttees, they walked through the wheat and
passed. Hicks felt dismal.
“Relief, hell. They’re going to attack.”
And they were. As silent as ghosts they fled straight for the
village. The enemy, seeing them, opened up with their rifles and
machine-guns with extraordinary furiousness. The black soldiers advanced
unhesitatingly. Some of them dropped flat, never to rise again of their
own volition; others clasped a hand to the part of the body where a
bullet had entered and turned back, walking quickly and nervously, but
failing to speak. Hicks had never seen so many men wounded without their
exclaiming. Usually, when some American was struck he would cry some
such absurdly obvious statement as “Oh, my God, I’m hit.” A German would
shriek his inevitable “Kamerad.” A Frenchman would jabber. But these
fellows—Hicks marvelled. But the remaining five hundred yards were too
difficult to cross. Where five of the fleet blacks set valiantly forth,
but one of them returned.
* * * * *
Darkness fell, closing the world in on four sides. Off to the left, on
the farther side of the road, a tank suddenly and unexpectedly burst
forth with an internal explosion. Its grim little body showed solidly
in the glorious blazing red. The report that followed sounded as if the
armor of the tank would have been burst into a million pieces. Up shot
another flare of redness, brightening the sky. As if there were some
understanding among them, two other tanks began, at regular intervals, to
belch their fireworks into the air. It was a wondrous sight. Far enough
away not to be harmful, it had also the advantage of being a spectacle
uninspired by malice or hatred. It was a thing in itself, a war of its
own, in which nobody shared, totally objective, non-utilitarian and
spontaneous. Hicks gleefully considered the sight. But after a while
the side-show stopped and the dampness stole through the clothing of
the men. A lone star twinkled forth, trembled violently for a moment
and then disappeared. In the heat of the day many of the platoon had
thrown away their blankets. Now they lay shivering with cold and fear and
hopelessness.
Over the wheat-field the night mist hung like a thick, wet, flapping
blanket. Elephantine, it touched against the faces of the men, sending
shivers along their spines. Machine-gun bullets spattered perfunctorily.
The shell-shocked man moaned like a banshee. Disgusted, feeling as if his
stomach were about to crawl away from his body, Hicks rose, deciding to
cross the road and find out whether there was any possibility of relief
before dawn.
On the other side of the road the ground was softer and the men had
dug deeper holes. The little mounds of freshly thrown dirt were hardly
perceptible.
“Where’s Lieutenant Bedford?” Hicks asked in a low voice.
“Dead as hell,” he was answered.
“Then who’s in charge?”
“I am.”
“Who’s that, Thomas?”
“Yeh.”
“When are we going to be relieved?”
“We’re standing by now. They ought to be here any minute.”
“Well, if that’s so, I’m gonna take my squad back. We’re pretty bad off,
way up there, and one of the new fellows is making such a hell of a lot
of noise that I’m afraid the Squareheads will begin firing again.”
“’Smatter with him?”
“Shell-shocked, I guess.”
“Well, maybe you’d better shove off.”
Hicks felt his way back through the darkness, through the curtain of mist.
Supporting the weaker man between them, the small party moved off, with
Hicks in the lead. He was travelling lightly, with little equipment.
At the first of the advance he had thrown away his pack, containing
an empty condiment can and three boxes of hard bread. Finally he had
disposed of all but his pistol, belt, canteen, helmet, and respirator.
Leaving, he threw away his automatic rifle and the musette bag in which
ammunition was supposed to be carried. He walked along, his chin high,
stepping briskly through the hip-high wheat. Somewhere beyond was rest
and security, warm food, and plenty of blankets.
It irked him that the rest of the squad did not walk as swiftly as he
walked. His ears seemed to flatten against his head at being held back.
The distance was so alluring. It promised so many things of which his
body was in want. There was the hot coffee. Hicks fancied that he could
smell the soul-satisfying aroma of it. He remembered that the American
army little knew the value of coffee to the man who is cold and tired and
awake in the early dawn. But there would be, no doubt, French galleys,
with black kettles in which they brewed strong black chicory. Hot coffee!
He thought of it and felt ready to faint. At any moment a shell might
drive into the ground near him and blow him high in the air. Reins seemed
fastened to his shoulders, holding them back, delaying his progress.
He wanted to cry out against the inhumanity of being forced to walk
so slowly in so dangerous a place after the work in hand was done. He
thought of forging ahead, of leaving the blubbering man to himself. He
measured the distance back to the woods and guessed the length of time it
would take to arrive. An hour at the most. But if he ran he could make
it in half an hour. The responsibility of the safety of the squad held
him back. Revolted at his cowardly thoughts, he offered to help carry
the burden. The men objected. “You lead the way.” But he was insistent.
With one arm of the blubbering, nerveless mass around his neck, he forged
ahead, feeling powerful and exultant under the added weight.
Whining lazily over their heads, gas shells soared and struck softly
in the town in front of them. They reached the valley and passed down
into the town. Over the ground and on the weeds a coating of yellow had
formed. The air was heavy with an asphyxiating smell. The yellow from the
ground bit through the puttees and penetrated the clothing; the odor was
inhaled in deep gulps that caused the men to choke.
There was a moment of indecision in which the men hesitated between
putting on their respirators, thereby retarding their steps, and hurrying
through the town, their lungs exposed to the poisonous gas. With the
shells continuing to come over in droves, it was not difficult to decide.
The men breathed in the gas.
Had they not, they would not have seen the aperture in the side of
the gulley, where a gas blanket covered a dugout filled with wounded.
There they stopped, while Hicks informed the receiving officer that
their burden had been badly gassed. He said nothing about his being
shell-shocked.
Relieved of the great impedimenta, their progress quickened, and they
were through the town almost as soon as they could have wished.