I spoke of the enemy coming over in waves. Many persons seem to think
that this implies a weird and complicated formation. It does not.
Nothing is simpler.
When they prepare for an assault the first line of trenches is filled
with men. At the command they climb over the side and charge. Some run
faster than others. This makes the onrushing edge of the mass of men
thinner than the main body and irregular. It is like the tumbling crest
of a white cap.
As these men charge the trenches are filled again. As soon as they are
ready the second crowd starts over. Then the third, and the fourth and
so on. There is no attempt to take cover, because there is no cover. It
is a rush to get there. There is no regular formation. The trench spews
forth a swarm of fighting demons and they come trampling and yelling
across that terrible strip of earth as fast as they can come.
After our artillery annihilated the attack it began to shell their
trenches. We knew that we would make a counter attack. Some of us may
have slept that night. I didn't.
Early in the morning, when it was very cold and the impassive stars
blinked dimly and more dimly, the "taraffia" was passed down the line.
This is chiefly rum, and it makes one feel, "Why wait any longer? Let's
get up and at them now." If it wasn't for this I think we would go
crazy in those last twenty minutes before the attack.
Our artillery ceased.
"_En avant, mes enfants! On les aura!_" shouted the officers.
The first company mounted the side of the trench and dashed forward.
Most of them were dangling in the barbed wire as we rushed past. The
earth in front of us seemed to be whipped into a seething mass. They
were sweeping low with their machine guns so as to hit us in the legs
and drop us. With a shot through the stomach we might go on for minutes
and maybe kill a Prussian before we died. But a hit in the legs drops
a man and the artillery can blow him to pieces later, when the assault
has been repulsed.
It is a scientific war.
A few of the first company reached the Prussian trenches before us. We
clubbed and stabbed and slashed with the long knives they had given to
us. The legion does not take any prisoners, because legionnaires are
not taken prisoners. The Boches feel that we have no business in the
war.
The trench was so narrow I could not use my bayonet, so I used the
knife. I do not know how long we had been fighting, but the Boches
cleared out. We tried to get our squads together and prepare for
what we knew would be coming. The enemy simply had retired to their
second-line trenches to let their artillery turn upon us in their
first-line shelter. All morning they hammered us, but we hung on, lying
flat upon our bellies and clinging to our mother, the earth, as if she
would protect us. Showers of dirt almost buried us alive. Sometimes
bits of metal found a soft billet, and there was one fewer of us to
withstand the attack that would come as surely as death awaits us all.
Suddenly quiet struck us like a blow. The echo of the guns had scarcely
died away when we heard the twitter and whistling of birds that had
survived the terrific shocks of the explosions.
Then we heard a different sound. It was the yelling of the Boches. They
were coming! Some rushed through the crooked communication trenches
which we had blocked a little bit with earth and stones. Others swarmed
over the top of the ground. Some seemed to rise from beneath our very
feet.
Have you ever kicked into an ant hill? If you have you know how the
Boches fell upon us. I saw some one climb over the rim of the trench
and run back toward the French lines.