DRIVE TO THE VESLE
When the Hun grip was torn loose from the positions along the Ourcq, he
had no other good stopping place short of the Vesle, so he lit out for
that river as fast as he could move his battalions and equipment. Again
only machine guns and sniping rear-guards were left to impede the
progress of the pursuers, and again there were times when it was
exceedingly difficult for the French and American forces to keep in
contact with the enemy.
The 32d Division, composed of Michigan and Wisconsin National Guards,
had slipped into the front lines and, with regiments of the Rainbow
Division, pressed the pursuit. The Pennsylvania regiments, with the 103d
Engineers, and the 111th and the 112th Infantry leading, followed by the
109th and then the 110th, went forward in their rear, mopping up the few
Huns they left in their wake who still showed fight.
It had begun to rain again--a heavy, dispiriting downpour, such as
Northern France is subjected to frequently. The fields became morasses.
The roads, cut up by heavy traffic, were turned to quagmires. The
distorted remains of what had been wonderful old trees, stripped of
their foliage and blackened and torn by the breaths of monster guns,
dripped dismally. In all that ruined, tortured land of horror on horror,
there was not one bright spot, and there was only one thing to keep up
the spirits of the soldiers--the Hun was definitely on the run.
Drenched to the skin, wading in mud at times almost to their knees, amid
the ruck and confusion of an army's wake, the Pennsylvanians trudged
resolutely forward, inured to hardship, no longer sensible to ordinary
discomforts, possessed of only one thought--to come to battle once more
with the hateful foe and inflict further punishment in revenge for the
gallant lads who had gone from the ranks.
All the time they were subjected to long-distance shelling by the big
guns, as the Hun strafed the country to the south in hope of hampering
transport facilities and breaking up marching columns. All the time
Boche fliers passed overhead, sometimes swooping low enough to slash at
the columns with machine guns and at frequent intervals releasing bombs.
There were casualties daily, although not, of course, on the same scale
as in actual battle.
Through Coulonges, Cohan, Dravegny, Longeville, Mont-sur-Courville and
St. Gilles they plunged on relentlessly.
Close by the hamlet of Chamery, near Cohan, the Pennsylvania men passed
the grave of Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt, who had been brought down
there by an enemy airman a few weeks before and was buried by the
Germans. French troops, leading the Allied pursuit, had come on the
grave first and established a military guard of honor over it and
supplanted the rude cross and inscription erected by the Germans with a
neater and more ornate marking.
When the Americans arrived the French guard was removed and American
soldiers mounted guard over the last resting place of the son of the
onetime President.
Just below Longeville, the Pennsylvanians came into an area where the
fire was intensified to the equal of anything they had passed through
since leaving the Marne. All the varieties of Hun projectiles were
hurled at them, high explosives of various sizes, shrapnel and gas. Once
more the misery and discomfort of the gas mask had to be undergone, but
by this time the Pennsylvanians had learned well and truly the value of
that little piece of equipment and had imbibed thoroughly the doctrine
that, unpleasant as it might be, the mask was infinitely better than a
whiff of that dread, sneaking, penetrating vapor with which the Hun
poisoned the air.
The "blonde beast" had his back to the Vesle and had turned to show his
teeth and snarl in fury at our men closing in on him.
The objective point on the river for the Pennsylvanians was Fismes. This
was a town near the junction of the Vesle and Ardre rivers, which before
the war had a population of a little more than 3,000. Here, in centuries
long gone, the kings of France were wont to halt overnight on their way
up to Rheims to be crowned. It was on a railroad running through Rheims
to the east. A few miles west of Fismes the railroad divides, one branch
winding away southwestward to Paris the other running west through
Soissons and Compiegne. The town was one of the largest German munitions
depots in the Soissons-Rheims sector and second in importance only to
Soissons.
Across the narrow river was the village of Fismette, destined to be the
scene of the writing of a truly glorious page of Pennsylvania's military
history. The past tense is used with regard to the existence of both
places, as they virtually were wiped out in the process of forcing the
Hun from the Vesle River barrier and sending him flying northward to the
Aisne.
The railroad through Fismes and in its vicinity runs along the top of an
embankment, raising it above the surrounding territory. There was a
time, before the Americans were able to cross the railroad, that the
embankment became virtually the barrier dividing redeemed France from
darkest Hunland along that front. At night patrols from both sides would
move forward to the railroad, and, burrowed in holes--the Germans in
the north side and the Americans in the south--would watch and wait and
listen for signs of an attack.
Each knew the other was only a few feet away; at times, in fact, they
could hear each other talking, and once in a while defiant badinage
would be exchanged in weird German from the south and in ragtime,
vaudeville English from the north. Appearance of a head above the
embankment on either side was a signal for a storm of lead and steel.
The Americans had this advantage over the Germans: They knew the Huns
were doomed to continue their retreat, and that the hold-up along the
railroad was very temporary, and the Germans now realized the same
thing. Therefore, the Americans fought triumphantly, with vigor and
dash; the Germans, sullenly and in desperation.
One man of the 110th went to sleep in a hole in the night and did not
hear the withdrawal just before dawn. Obviously his name could not be
made public. When he woke it was broad daylight, and he was only partly
concealed by a little hole in the railroad bank. There was nothing he
could do. If he had tried to run for his regimental lines he would have
been drilled like a sieve before he had gone fifty yards. Soon the
German batteries would begin shelling, so he simply dug deeper into the
embankment.
"I just drove myself into that bank like a nail," he told his comrades
later. He got away the next night.
Richard Morse, of the 110th, whose home is in Harrisburg, went out with
a raiding party. The Germans discovered the advance of the group and
opened a concentrated fire, forcing them back. Morse was struck in the
leg and fell. He was able to crawl, however, and crawling was all he
could have done anyway, because the only line of retreat open to him was
being swept by a hail of machine gun bullets. As he crawled he was hit
by a second bullet. Then a third one creased the muscles of his back. A
few feet farther, and two more struck him, making five in all.
Then he tumbled into a shell hole. He waited until the threshing fire
veered from his vicinity and he had regained a little strength, then
crawled to another hole and flopped himself into that. Incredible as it
may seem, he regained his own lines the fourth day by crawling from
shell hole to shell hole, and started back to the hospital with every
prospect of a quick recovery. He had been given up for dead, and the men
of his own and neighboring companies gave him a rousing welcome. He had
nothing to eat during those four days, but had found an empty tin can,
and when it rained caught enough water in that to assuage his thirst.
Corporal George D. Hyde, of Mt. Pleasant, Company E, 110th, hid in a
hole in the side of the railroad embankment for thirty-six hours on the
chance of obtaining valuable information. When returning, a piece of
shrapnel struck the pouch in which he carried his grenades. Examining
them, he found the cap of one driven well in. It was a miracle it had
not exploded and torn a hole through him.
"You ought to have seen me throw that grenade away," he said.
In this waiting time it was decided to clean up a position of the enemy
that was thrust out beyond their general line, from which an annoying
fire was kept up constantly. Accordingly, a battalion of the 110th was
sent over to wipe it out.
The Rev. Mandeville J. Barker, rector of the Episcopal Church in
Uniontown, Pa., is chaplain of the 110th, with the rank of first
lieutenant. He had endeared himself to officers and men alike by his
happy combination of buoyant, gallant cheerfulness, sturdy Americanism,
deep Christianity, indifference to hardship and the tender care he gave
to the wounded. He had become, indeed, the most beloved man in the
regiment.
He went over the top with the battalion that attacked by night on the
heights of the Vesle. It was not his duty to go; in fact had the
regimental commander known his intention, he probably would have been
forbidden to go. But go he did. He had an idea that his job was to look
after the men's bodies as well as their souls, and when there was stern
fighting to do, he liked to be in a position where he could attend to
both phases of his work.
The attacking party wiped out the Hun machine gun nest after a sharp
fight and then retired to their own lines, as ordered. It was so dark
that some of the wounded were overlooked. After the battalion returned,
voices of American wounded could be heard out in that new No Man's Land,
calling for help. Dr. Barker took his life and some first aid equipment
and water in his two hands and slipped out into the dark, with only
starshine and the voices of the wounded to guide him and, between the
two armies, attended to the wounds of the men as best he could by the
light of a small pocket torch, which he had to keep concealed from the
enemy lookouts.
One after another the clergyman hunted. Those who could walk he started
back to the lines. Several he had to assist. One lad who was beyond help
he sat beside and ministered to with the tenderness of a mother until
the young soul struggled gropingly out into the Great Beyond. Then, with
the tears rolling down his cheeks, the beloved "Sky Pilot" started back.
But again the sound of a voice in agony halted him. This time, however,
it was not English words that he heard, but a moaning petition in
guttural German: "Ach Gott! Ach, mein lieber Gott!"
The men of the 110th loved their "parson" even more for what he did
then. He turned right about and went back, groping in the dark for the
sobbing man. He found a curly-haired young German, wounded so he could
not walk and in mortal terror, not of death or of the dark, but of those
"terrible Americans who torture and kill their prisoners." Such was the
tale with which he and his comrades had been taught to loathe their
American enemies. Dr. Barker treated his wounds and carried him back to
the American lines. The youngster whimpered with fear when he found
where he was going, and begged the clergyman not to leave him. When he
finally was convinced that he would not be harmed, he kissed the
chaplain's hands, crying over them, and insisted on turning over to Dr.
Barker everything he owned that could be loosened--helmet, pistol,
bayonet, cartridges, buttons, and other odds and ends.
"All hung over with loot, the parson was, when he came back," said a
sergeant in telling of the scene afterward.
"The Fighting Parson," as the men called him, did not fight, actually,
but he went as close to it as possible. On one occasion snipers were
bothering the men. Dr. Barker borrowed a pair of glasses, lay flat on
the field and, after prolonged study, discovered the offenders, four of
them, and notified an artillery observer. A big gun casually swung its
snout around, barked three times and the snipers sniped no more. Two or
three days later, the regiment went over and took that section of German
line and found what was left of the four men. "The Parson's Boche," the
men called them.
Toward the last of the action below the Vesle, a group of men of the
110th had established an outpost in a large cave, which extended a
considerable distance back in a cliff--just how far none of the men ever
discovered. After they had been there several days, Dr. Barker arranged
to cheer them a little in their lonely vigil. The cave had been an
underground quarry. The Germans had occupied it, knew exactly where it
was and its value as a hiding place, and kept a constant stream of
machine gun bullets flying past its mouth.
For three weeks it had been possible to enter or leave the cave only
after dark. Even then it was risky, for the mouth of the cave was only
about fifty yards from the German trenches and slight sounds could be
heard. After dark the Hun fire was laid down about the entrance at every
suspicious noise. Sometimes the men inside would amuse themselves by
heaving stones outside from a safe position within, to hear Fritz turn
loose his "pepper boxes."
Despite these difficulties, Dr. Barker got a motion picture outfit into
the cave and gave a show of six reels to the men stationed there, after
which Y. M. C. A. men entertained them with songs and eccentric dances.
Men who saw that performance, in the light of torches and flambeaux,
will never forget the picture.
Toward the last there were sounds from the farther interior of the cave,
and two American soldiers walked into the circle, blinking their eyes.
Nobody gave much attention to them, supposing they just had wandered
away a few minutes before, until one of them interrupted a song with the
hoarsely whispered query:
"Got any chow?" Which is army slang for food.
"Aw, go lay down," was the querulous reply of the man addressed. "Ain't
yuh got sense enough not to interrupt a show? Shut up, will yuh?"
"Gee, but I'm hungry," came the answer. "I need some chow. We been lost
in this doggone cave for two days."
Investigation developed that he was telling the truth, and Dr. Barker
produced from some mysterious horn of plenty some chocolate, which the
famished men ate with avidity. With the natural, healthy curiosity of
American youth, they had set out to explore the cave and had become lost
in its mazes. Only the lights and noises of Dr. Barker's concert had led
them out.
An instance of the attitude of mind of the Pennsylvania men, who felt
nothing but contempt for their foes, and of how little the arrogance and
intolerance of the typical Prussian officer impressed them, was given by
members of the 111th Ambulance Company, working with the 111th Infantry.
Soldiers of Pennsylvania Dutch descent had amazed the Germans more than
once not only by understanding the conversation of the enemy, but by
their intense anger, almost ferocity, which they displayed on occasions
when confronted with "the Intolerable Thing" called the Prussian spirit.
Offspring of men and women of sturdy, free-minded stock who fled from
oppression in Europe, they flamed with the spirit of the real liberty
lover when in contact with the Prussian.
A little group of the 111th's ambulanciers when carrying back the
wounded, met a German major who was groaning and complaining vigorously
and demanding instant attention. The contrast between his conduct and
that of American officers, who almost invariably told the litter-bearers
to go on and pick up worse wounded men, was glaring, but finally the
bearers good-humoredly decided to get the major out of the way to stop
his noise. He was not wounded severely, but was unable to walk, and they
lifted him to the stretcher with the same care they gave to all the
wounded.
Promptly the major began to upbraid the Americans, speaking in his
native tongue. In the language of a Billingsgate fishwife--or what
corresponds to one in Hunland--he cursed the Americans, root, stock and
branch, from President Wilson down to the newest recruit in the army.
Thomas G. Fox, of Hummelstown, Pa., one of the bearers, understood his
every word and repeated the diatribe in English to his fellows, who
became restive under the tirade. At last the major said:
"You Americans think you are going to win the war, but you're not."
That was too much for Fox and his companions.
"You think you are going to be carried back to a hospital, but you're
not," said Fox. Whereupon the litter was turned over neatly and the
major deposited, not too gently, on the hard ground. For some time he
lay there, roaring his maledictions. Then he started to crawl back, and
by the time he got to a hospital, he had lost some of his insolence.